Buy local: an awesome idea in theory…

I love our Chicago Cutlery walnut handle paring knife.  My Mom gifted it to me as part of the kitchen portion of my severance package (one kitchen set up, toilet paper and a 1983 maroon Ford Escort,) when I was moved into my own place in 1991 and it has served me exceedingly well for the last 24, yes 2-4 years.

Besides the obviously nostalgic and maudlin/melodramatic (poet over here if you remember, no doubt there will be a Paring Knife poem one day. ugh!) the reasons are many: it fits my hand, it has great balance, its blade holds an edge with very minimal effort because *gasp* I rarely sharpen my knives and what it does well is only limited by its size.

When it grows up, it says it wants to be a chef’s knife.  It’s so cute!

And though its blade is battle scarred and bent from a misbegotten effort to employ it as a pry bar/screwdriver (My mind is an unrelenting scold: a paring knife is not a pry bar or a screwdriver Steve, every task has a commensurate tool, employ the correct tool for the task.  Yes, that has now been empirically verified.  Thank you.) I was not seeking to replace the knife, but augment it. 

That way I would not have to bring it to work to core and slice fruit and freak out when I could not locate it in my lunch bag/box/cooler contraption and send Agnes SOS/911 e-mails asking that she check if I had left the knife at home.  Or, freaking out when the knife was not in my lunch bag/box/cooler contraption when I got home and worrying until the next morning where it was always revealed that I had left the knife somewhere on the desk.

So…accounting for my neurosis about the knife and this scolding mind of mine that would never allow me to forget losing it (You should have bought a cheap paring knife to keep at your desk.  Yes I know.  You would not have lost Mom’s paring knife if.  Yes I know can you shut up now I am trying to drive through rush hour LIE traffic?  OK fine, but we will talk later.  I look forward to it,)   I needed to buy a paring knife to keep at my desk and maybe a second knife for home so I could start breaking it in just in case the old knife finally surrendered or I broke it trying to use it as a pry bar/screwdriver.

I apologize, for the long fucking walk to a very short pier:

1. I needed two new paring knives,

2. I went to Bar Boy in Hampton Bays, my local restaurant supply place where I usually buy the most central tools of the trade (pans, knives, heat resistant silicone spatulas, knife sharpening tools, yes I own one.  I am quite fond of irony,)

3. They had exactly ONE paring knife in stock that clearly would not fit the bill since it did not fit in my hand or have great balance and I was pretty sure given the cost that it was not going to hold an edge for longer than it takes to look away and look back,

4. Even then, I might have bought it if they had TWO of them I mean it’s only for fruit at work or as a backup at home.  I could MAKE DO, I am pretty good at that, but dammit not if I have to go somewhere else to buy the second knife I mean come on people!

5. So trying my best to be a good citizen of the East End and keep my business local, I asked the clerk how long before your next shipment arrives?  Two weeks.  OK thank you.  See you in two weeks then!  Happy Easter!

6. Or not…over lunch at Cliff’s Rendezvous in fabulous River City (they make a more than acceptable cheeseburger,) Agnes ordered me two Chicago Cutlery walnut handled paring knives over the Internets.  We will have them on Tuesday.