Simple Joys in Life

Since moving to London I haven't bought very many kitchen gadgets and forget about counter top appliances. I have very little space and I always worry that I'm wasting money buying electrics that only take 240V. But last week I decided that I needed to replace a few kitchen items that are buried away in storage somewhere in San Jose. While searching for kitchenware stores online I discovered the Japanese Knife Company. I stopped by in the afternoon to this very basic shop in the corner of a warehouse. The shop was the size of closet but filled with rows and rows of pristine steel layered in carbon tempered to 60:62 Rockwell. The man who greeted me at the door holding a 12" knife handed me one knife after another starting with 35 layers of steel to 120 layers of laser cut steel. I must have cut up a dozen tomatoes trying to see which one felt right. I ended up choosing a hand-hammered 3-layer knife made of blue steel. It is a beautiful thing to behold indeed and today I was so excited to come home and cook dinner just so I could cut a few things with my new weapon. I would have been happy to come home and just cut a lemon.

It's nice that there are still some very simple joys in life.