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I gave in a while ago and just devoted a drawer to the spices I use regularly that fit in small tins.
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Sep 14, 2012 21:21
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Careful with those clamp lid things, I heard that the lids are cheaply made. I haven't tried them out myself though so they might be fine.
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Sep 14, 2012 23:59
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Thanks for the reccomendations, I'll try to get one of the mortar and pestles this weekend.
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Sep 15, 2012 01:47
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I have a few drawers like this 
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Sep 15, 2012 04:00
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Slightly more expensive, but I've been very happy with the jars from Penzeys. They have a number of sizes. http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/p-penzeysjars.html V- really? I've had mine for a number of years now with no cracks. Maybe they've changed something. I open/close them pretty often. GigaFool fucked around with this message at 04:55 on Sep 15, 2012 |
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Sep 15, 2012 04:05
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Every single lid on a Penzey's jar I own has cracked.
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Sep 15, 2012 04:41
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Bob_McBob posted:I gave in a while ago and just devoted a drawer to the spices I use regularly that fit in small tins. I have something like that now - magnetic backs, top rotates to allow spice pouring/sprinkling. The paprika jar lid is nearly impossible to pry off, anything with salt in it corrodes them, and anything with really fine powder (onion, garlic powder) turns into a giant solid clump. So I'm pretty sure they aren't air tight and my entire spice collection is much staler than it should be! It's turned me off from anything with a two-piece lid (metal with inset plastic, for example)
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Sep 15, 2012 04:46
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Hey everyone, I'm looking to build a small kitchen set that will last me my entire life. So far I'm looking at Shuns for knives as out of all the knives I've handled I feel they have the absolute most comfortable handle / balance to them. The OP recommends getting an 8" chef's knife, which I agree with (I have a Miyabi down south but my mother uses it now that I'm away for college), but what's the general consensus on size for a paring knife?
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Sep 15, 2012 04:54
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Xovaan posted:Hey everyone, I'm looking to build a small kitchen set that will last me my entire life. So far I'm looking at Shuns for knives as out of all the knives I've handled I feel they have the absolute most comfortable handle / balance to them. Handle comfort is such a bullshit piece of knife buying advice. If you hold a chef's knife properly, the shape and size of the handle are almost meaningless unless it's an extremely unusual design. It's also worth noting that many high-end western-style Japanese knives will fail the "balance" tests.  Xovaan posted:The OP recommends getting an 8" chef's knife, which I agree with (I have a Miyabi down south but my mother uses it now that I'm away for college), but what's the general consensus on size for a paring knife? You want something very small, because you should be using your chef's knife for everything else. I only use a paring knife for very delicate tip cutting work like finely mincing garlic. Either get a couple of cheapies like this 3 1/4" Victorinox, or spring for something fancy like the popular 80mm Dojo.
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Sep 15, 2012 05:06
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Woot has a Shun 7" santoku for $99 today. It's the excitingly curved Ken Onion one. If you like santokus and don't mind the relatively short length and weird shape that's a good price. I would also consider getting a 10" chef knife instead of an 8", unless you have a very small kitchen. I've used Rada and Victorinox paring knives and have liked both a lot. The Rada paring knives come with black plastic or aluminum one-piece handles, and they have an endearingly primitive quality to them. Like something you would buy at a gas station. They came out of the box pretty sharp (it helps that they are very, very thin) and cost less than $20 for a set of three, made in the USA. The Victorinox ones are a little more refined and slightly more expensive. Both are essentially disposable, though I haven't seen any indication that they won't last for years anyway. I would get a bunch of these in different sizes if I were you. I really don't see the benefit of buying a Shun paring knife unless you just want everything to match, which is a reasonable goal.
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Sep 15, 2012 06:38
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Bob_McBob posted:Handle comfort is such a bullshit piece of knife buying advice. If you hold a chef's knife properly, the shape and size of the handle are almost meaningless unless it's an extremely unusual design. It's also worth noting that many high-end western-style Japanese knives will fail the "balance" tests. This is how I hold my knives, but my hands are extraordinarily large (2XL and spider-like) so a lot of stuff just doesn't feel right in my hands since it tends to cramp my fingers. I like the rounded feeling of Shun knives because I don't have to worry about my other fingers' comfort from any misplaced ridges of bumps you'd find on the handle. Gilgameshback posted:Woot has a Shun 7" santoku for $99 today. It's the excitingly curved Ken Onion one. If you like santokus and don't mind the relatively short length and weird shape that's a good price. My kitchen is pretty small and cramped which is why I'm limited to two basically two knives and the Shun paring knife is indeed to match because I'm a pretty big sperg with those kinds of things.  The onion knife looks awesome, but I'm not too sure about the handle because of my hand size.  I just talked to my mother and she said she's gonna ship up the Miyabi, but she told me she's run it through the dishwasher every time she's used it and has been keeping it in a ceramic jar with other knives and no grain filler so I really don't even wanna look at it and feel sick just thinking about it. 
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Sep 15, 2012 07:28
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Guitarchitect posted:! It's turned me off from anything with a two-piece lid (metal with inset plastic, for example) What would be ideal then? I've started using small glass spice jars with metal caps and plastic insets, they appear to be airtight, but now you've got me wondering
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Sep 15, 2012 08:38
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Mason jars have a rubber seal. Just buy your cumin in one pound sizes, you'll be fine.
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Sep 15, 2012 08:55
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But they're too biiiiiiiggg
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Sep 15, 2012 09:09
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Bam, 4 oz jars. If you check out your local canning supplier (read: big box fuckos cashing in on the trend) you may be able to find 4 oz and save the $11 on shipping. If it's good enough to seal up pipe tobacco for years, it's good enough for spices. Pipe smokers are a distinguishing lot and won't trust in just any namby pamby storage solutions to prevent their precious leaf from perishing. edit: Actually, if you order from there it's a flat $5 for shipping and $7 a dozen. icehewk fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Sep 15, 2012 |
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Sep 15, 2012 09:11
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icehewk posted:Bam, 4 oz jars. If you check out your local canning supplier (read: big box fuckos cashing in on the trend) you may be able to find 4 oz and save the $11 on shipping. I can confirm all of this.
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Sep 15, 2012 15:11
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Bob_McBob posted:Handle comfort is such a bullshit piece of knife buying advice. If you hold a chef's knife properly, the shape and size of the handle are almost meaningless unless it's an extremely unusual design. It's also worth noting that many high-end western-style Japanese knives will fail the "balance" tests. I really disagree with this. I own 5-6 different santokus/chef's knives/gyotos, and I think handle comfort is really important, and different for all the knives I own. on some knives, the area your fingers are covering is tapered down to the blade, in some it's squared off and just 'drops' suddenly - and in others it's rounded. the depth of the drop there varies a lot from knife to knife, and the blade height / how much the handle is offset from the cutting surface matters a lot when you're gripping the knife as shown. I usually don't reach for my gyoto, for instance, because the blade height is really low and my knuckles will hit the cutting board sometimes. my MAC blade's handle is sort of a curved 'bump', which really lets me grab the knife securely, so when I think about it, I find myself reaching for it a lot when breaking down meat / cutting through tough stuff. and, for instance, my girlfriend's not-so-superb henckles has a unbeveled back of the blade - so when you grip it properly the fatty upper part of your index (or middle, depending on grip) finger is right up against a sort-of-sharp 90 degree piece of metal - so it's like blister central after any considerable use. I think the handle is probably what matters most to me - yeah, sharpness and edge holding ability of blades is important, but you can always resharpen a blade - the handle though is there to stay.
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Sep 15, 2012 18:38
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mindphlux posted:I usually don't reach for my gyoto, for instance, because the blade height is really low and my knuckles will hit the cutting board sometimes. my MAC blade's handle is sort of a curved 'bump', which really lets me grab the knife securely, so when I think about it, I find myself reaching for it a lot when breaking down meat / cutting through tough stuff. and, for instance, my girlfriend's not-so-superb henckles has a unbeveled back of the blade - so when you grip it properly the fatty upper part of your index (or middle, depending on grip) finger is right up against a sort-of-sharp 90 degree piece of metal - so it's like blister central after any considerable use. My Calphalon knife has that square top edge like that too and if I'm cutting a lot I get a blister right where you're talking about. Usually when I'm cutting up tougher things for a while. I've been looking at replacing it for a while now because of that. I just bought a Tojiro DP for my boss for a wedding present which I like the feel and shape of a lot, but it has that same square top part as well.
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Sep 15, 2012 19:00
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mindphlux posted:I really disagree with this. I own 5-6 different santokus/chef's knives/gyotos, and I think handle comfort is really important, and different for all the knives I own. Some of this stuff is really nitpicking on finish and odd design issues with specific knives. If a gyuto doesn't have enough board clearance for a normal person to use it without constantly hitting their knuckles, it's a lovely gyuto, handle or not. I think I was getting more at handle shape-related "comfort" advice. A lot of normal people don't use the pinch grip, which is why you end up with "ergonomic" knife handles and other bullshit intended to make holding a knife wrong easier. I've comfortably used gyutos with rounded heels, straight heels, bolsters, no bolsters, full tang, rat-tail tang, d-shaped handles, octagonal handles, round handles, various western-style handles, and so on. Some knives have poorly made handles with exposed tangs that cause blisters, some have poorly finished edges. Many of these handles would be very uncomfortable actually held in the hand (as a lot of people think they should be tested). Pinch grip means you are just using the handle to lever the force, so any flat or round surface without poor finishing is generally fine. Only really unusually sized or shaped handles (e.g. Tojiro DP or Hattori FH) are issues for some people in this respect.
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Sep 15, 2012 19:11
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rockcity posted:My Calphalon knife has that square top edge like that too and if I'm cutting a lot I get a blister right where you're talking about. Usually when I'm cutting up tougher things for a while. I've been looking at replacing it for a while now because of that. I just bought a Tojiro DP for my boss for a wedding present which I like the feel and shape of a lot, but it has that same square top part as well. This is easy to fix, as what's his name from chefknivestogo explains in this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2YSkv2bS9E Basically, get some automotive sandpaper and pull it back and forth over the spine where your hand touches.
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Sep 15, 2012 20:29
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Steve Yun posted:What would be ideal then? Next time you're at the doctors for a checkup go and grab some urinal specimen cups. They are airtight, liquid tight, made of neutral plastic and you can probably scam off with five or six of them in your pockets without anyone being the wiser. Or, you can shun the thieving college student route and order them yourself: http://www.amazon.com/Dynarex-Speci...cimen+container Booyah! 100 spice jars at 19 cents a pop. Beat *that*.
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Sep 15, 2012 22:41
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CuddleChunks posted:Booyah! 100 spice jars at 19 cents a pop. Beat *that*. amazon posted:Perfect for single-use urine specimen sample collections, as well as single-use biological collections I don't know what kind of spices you use in your kitchen 
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Sep 15, 2012 22:54
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amazon posted:Perfect for ... biological collections CuddleChunks posted:19 cents a pop. Beat that. 
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Sep 15, 2012 23:02
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I'm trying to build up a decent knife kit for work, and I had a few questions on honing steels: first off, are ceramic steels worth getting? My sous chef recommended the MAC black ceramic rod, which seems pretty sweet but I'm a little worried about dropping $50 on a steel that could shatter if I decide to be a huge klutz. Is there a huge difference between the more expensive black ceramic one and the $20 white ceramic one? Or should I just hold out and get an F Dick Multicut? Also, my knife bag is a joke. Any recommendations on ones that don't suck?
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Sep 15, 2012 23:40
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Radio Help posted:I'm trying to build up a decent knife kit for work, and I had a few questions on honing steels: first off, are ceramic steels worth getting? My sous chef recommended the MAC black ceramic rod, which seems pretty sweet but I'm a little worried about dropping $50 on a steel that could shatter if I decide to be a huge klutz. Is there a huge difference between the more expensive black ceramic one and the $20 white ceramic one? Or should I just hold out and get an F Dick Multicut? For bag/case/roll I love ChefPak. As for steel, all that matters is that the steel is a harder material than your knife. Most steels are, so go get a decent Henckel Steel and call it a day. I personally use a Shun steel, but it was part of a gift set. I don't particularly notice it being any better at honing my knives than my $20 Henckel. e: mostly, you just want your steel to be harder than your knife. Chef De Cuisinart fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Sep 16, 2012 |
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Sep 16, 2012 00:11
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mindphlux posted:I think the handle is probably what matters most to me - yeah, sharpness and edge holding ability of blades is important, but you can always resharpen a blade - the handle though is there to stay. Certainly if you're choosing from between the mid to high end offerings from the major names in mass produced kitchen cutlery---Shun, Wüsthof, Henckles, MAC, and so on---the average consumer (that is, someone who doesn't have a bunch of carefully nurtured special snowflake prejudices about knives) is absolutely best served by just handling all the knives they can afford and picking the one with the handle they like the best.
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Sep 16, 2012 01:10
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Chef De Cuisinart posted:I don't know what kind of spices you use in your kitchen You mean your kitchen isn't setup as a biosafety lab level 3? Huh. Weird.
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Sep 16, 2012 01:20
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Gilgameshback posted:This is easy to fix, as what's his name from chefknivestogo explains in this video - Awesome. I'd actually though about trying that for a while now. It's not that often that I'm using the knife for a long enough time for it to bother me, but every time it does I think about trying to soften those edges a bit. I'm definitely going to now.
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Sep 16, 2012 02:10
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Radio Help posted:I'm trying to build up a decent knife kit for work, and I had a few questions on honing steels: first off, are ceramic steels worth getting? My sous chef recommended the MAC black ceramic rod, which seems pretty sweet but I'm a little worried about dropping $50 on a steel that could shatter if I decide to be a huge klutz. Is there a huge difference between the more expensive black ceramic one and the $20 white ceramic one? Or should I just hold out and get an F Dick Multicut? The advice I have heard on steels is: you're using a steel to straighten the edge of the knife when it rolls at a microscopic level. You're not using it to sharpen, which removes metal from the edge. So you want a steel that will polish your knife edge rather than abrade it, so basically you want a smooth metal steel or a very fine ceramic one. Smooth metal steels are surprisingly hard to find.
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Sep 16, 2012 02:31
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Gilgameshback posted:The advice I have heard on steels is: you're using a steel to straighten the edge of the knife when it rolls at a microscopic level.
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Sep 16, 2012 03:46
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Is there any reason this wouldn't be a good choice as a small roaster? http://www.amazon.com/3-qt-Stainless-Steel-Chicken-Roaster/dp/B001FT1AWM
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Sep 17, 2012 21:58
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There are a few more Shun Ken Onion knives on Woot Home today at a big discount - a five inch utility, a ten inch (!) carving knife, and a five inch serrated utility for chumps. Has anyone here used the Ken Onion knives? I'm kind of tempted to get the slicer. http://home.woot.com/plus/shun-ken-onion-knives
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Sep 18, 2012 01:23
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Fuzzy Pipe Wrench posted:Is there any reason this wouldn't be a good choice as a small roaster?
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Sep 18, 2012 01:39
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The Ken Onion knives are terrible, fyi. We had a guy that lasted like a month come in with one of those Ken Onion "chef's knife". Chipped the blade dicing cooked chicken. Calls Shun customer service, they tell him the Ken Onion CHEFS KNIFE is only intended to cut fruits and vegetables, and will not honor the warranty.
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Sep 18, 2012 01:47
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Chef De Cuisinart posted:The Ken Onion knives are terrible, fyi. We had a guy that lasted like a month come in with one of those Ken Onion "chef's knife". Chipped the blade dicing cooked chicken. Calls Shun customer service, they tell him the Ken Onion CHEFS KNIFE is only intended to cut fruits and vegetables, and will not honor the warranty. Ahahahah holy poo poo. That's one hell of an expensive knife to suck so badly at cutting things.
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Sep 18, 2012 03:08
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Someone who doesn't know knives at all gifted me a Ken Onion 4.5" chefs knife. It has a giant chip in it now. I have no idea how it got there, but I don't really care because 4.5" chefs knife.
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Sep 18, 2012 03:16
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Chef De Cuisinart posted:The Ken Onion knives are terrible, fyi. We had a guy that lasted like a month come in with one of those Ken Onion "chef's knife". Chipped the blade dicing cooked chicken. Calls Shun customer service, they tell him the Ken Onion CHEFS KNIFE is only intended to cut fruits and vegetables, and will not honor the warranty. Hahahah excellent. It looks like Shun is phasing them out anyway, perhaps because they are terrible.
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Sep 18, 2012 03:27
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dino. posted:Are you lookin' to do roasting for one person? That seems awfully small for a roaster. Inexpensive, sure. Fairly decent stainless steel too. If you want something that small, I'd say it looks pretty solid. Mostly for just 2 people. All I can find around here are 3-4lb chickens anyway.
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Sep 18, 2012 04:28
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Gilgameshback posted:Hahahah excellent. It looks like Shun is phasing them out anyway, perhaps because they are terrible. ...and that's why they ended up on Woot!
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Sep 18, 2012 10:00
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SubG posted:Certainly if you're choosing from between the mid to high end offerings from the major names in mass produced kitchen cutlery---Shun, Wüsthof, Henckles, MAC, and so on---the average consumer (that is, someone who doesn't have a bunch of carefully nurtured special snowflake prejudices about knives) is absolutely best served by just handling all the knives they can afford and picking the one with the handle they like the best. As with everything like this cooking is rife with special floweritis. For 99% of people outside of professional catering your knife choice is not that important. Any mid-range knife that's comfortable for you to hold, how ever you want to hold it is fine. If people pinch grip their knives or not makes little difference, it's better for someone to be comfortable holding their knife than trying to pinch grip it because that's totally pro. There are some things where having a really great knife helps for a specialist task, like fish. But generally, doesn't matter. What ever makes you happy.
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Sep 18, 2012 10:04
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