An endorsement for Cutco knives.

Since I finally have an adult job and like to cook, I decided last year to invest in some decent knives. After asking around and reading reviews, I went with Cutco, which are made in the United States. (Big selling point with me.) All the reviews I read were from people who’d had theirs for years and raved about them, like someone having been married for 180 years who’d gotten them at a bridal shower. (Yes, an exaggeration, but only a slight one.)

Not quite the same as mine, but close. Endorse fully.
He's adorable. Available from Missing Digit Workshop
through Amazon.

Even prior to settling on the Cutco knives, I bought a cute little knife holder off Amazon. It’s from a seller called Missing Digit Workshop, and it’s an awesome little Spartan holding a shield. The shield has slits in it, and you hang your knives in them. In addition, Sparty has his arm pulled back so you can arm him with a spear, which is held up by a magnet. It’s similar to the one pictured, only I went for the lower-priced model. My little guy is all light wood.

He’s also only got two knives attacking him so far, and he’s wielding off his enemies with a bread knife, not a knife sharpener. That’s all I’ve bought so far. And, to be honest, I rarely use the three knives on there because I use my ulu for most of my cutting.

I use this every single weekday for my PB sandwich.
It also slices fingers superbly.

What I do use – every single weekday – is my spreader knife. I paid around $60 for it, and it’s basically one of the greatest kitchen buys I’ve made. (Slightly off topic: another wonderful purchase has been the Zeroll ice cream scoop – also made in the U.S. -- bought to replace another not-to-be-named brand that snapped in half.)

It’s marketed as a bagel slicer/spreader and I use it to make peanut butter sandwiches. (Yes, even with an adult job, I still eat a middle school lunch.) As a result, I never bother to attack Sparty with it and just leave it in the utensil bin thing on my dish dryer rack. And, in the year or so I’ve owned it, it’s worked out rather well. I am careful with it and only put it in the dryer rack handle side down, just like I do the fork, spoon and butter knife that also pretty much reside there. And until this morning, never gave a fleeting thought to how I let my utensils dry.

In spite of this, the pancakes
turned out nicely.

This morning, I changed up my routine to make pancakes during the week. Usually it’s a Saturday-Sunday treat, but I have to work this weekend and I decided to move pancakes up in the lineup. (Geez, I feel like I am channeling Zippy in really winding up for what will inevitably turn out to be a letdown story.)

Pancakes from scratch are the easiest thing. Flour, salt, sugar, powdered milk, Clabber Girl’s baking powder, oil and an egg. I don’t measure and just throw the stuff in there, then add water and mix. Have to do the water a little at a time – there’s a method. This time, I was mixing with a fork (whisks are a pain to clean) and since it was still a bit thick, I added a bit more, then quickly shut off the water.

Owie. My sink isn’t very big, and my dish dryer rack sort of leans over. from the little side to the big "wash dishes here" side. The utensil bin hangs outside it and my wonderful spreader thing was a bit too close to the sink faucet handle. When I snapped the faucet off, I sliced the bejesus out of my finger.

Moral of the story:
This is a very bad idea for a kitchen setup

It’s not a terribly bad cut but boy, it bled a lot. I had to take time out from making the pancakes to dress the wound because it just bled and bled. I finally got it stopped, but since my bandages are so old I then had to use Scotch tape over the bandage to hold it on.  And I realized it was bleeding through since the little fingertip bandage hadn’t fit right in the first place. I got to work and got a proper bandage for it and have been dealing with the boo boo-on-the-index-finger situation ever since.

It’s a highly amusing injury because I keep telling people the truth – I cut my finger making pancakes. Truth is stranger than fiction, indeed. It’s one of those dumb luck injuries because there’s just no way this could happen (God, please take note: Not a dare!) again. I mean, the spreader is only serrated on one side. Had I whacked the butter knife, the spoon or the fork, I’d still have my blood. Seriously, what are the odds?

And really, if it had been any other knife, it probably wouldn’t have broken the skin. It’s a weird endorsement, but hey, slicing yourself in a freak accident while making pancakes is a sign of quality.