Honing Skills A friend and I were running errands when he noticed an old shopping list that's been stuck on the truck's dashboard for a couple of weeks: thimble, emery boards, and honing oil. He ribbed me about the first two items, then asked, "Where do you get honing oil?"
It was a good question. I had been to three hardware stores, a discount store, and a restaurant supply house looking for it. I was out, my knives were dull, and my father was coming to town for his 80th birthday. He doesn't ask for much, but he does expect the kitchen, where he hangs out, to have sharp knives.
Daddy and I share a love of good knives. I don't remember my first one, but I do remember already having a pocketknife when I started Cub Scouts. It's as though I've always carried one. We even have a saying in our family: When someone asks if you have a pocketknife, you answer, "I have my pants on, don't I?"
I grew up in Orangeburg, South Carolina, where the main street boasted a hardware store that you entered from the rear. It was split down the middle, with china and silver and crystal on the right, and sporting goods and tools on the left. Hardware was in the rear. It was owned by one of my father's best friends, Wallace Bethea, who was old enough to be my father's father. He was the chairman of the board of the local bank where I (and my siblings) worked during high school summers.
On Saturday mornings after we went fishing, Daddy Wallace would open the big door to the bank vault and let me pore through sacks of pennies, looking for the rare Indian head amidst the Lincolns.
If I found a coin that my collection lacked, Daddy Wallace made me pay him face value for it – one cent. But I also had to pass another test: produce the knife that he had given me on my last visit, and prove to him that I had not only kept it, but kept it sharp.
I wasn't always able to pull a knife from my pocket, but if I could, I always made sure that it was sharp. More often, though, I'd have to admit I'd lost the knife. Daddy Wallace's desk drawer, however, was full of the little white boxes that held Tree Brand knives, silvery bright and slim as emery boards. He'd give me another one, knowing I'd probably lose it, too.
When I was nine, the mint changed the design of the penny, replacing the wheat stalks with the image of the Lincoln Memorial that still adorns the tail of the coin. I lost interest in coin collecting, but I started holding on to my knives. It was getting harder to find a good one. All the knife manufacturers had started using stainless steel, which stayed shiny and didn't rust, but the blades couldn't hold an edge like the carbon-steel ones.
When I graduated from high school, my father gave me a pocketknife and a whetstone. It's a combination stone from Sears, Roebuck and Co., with both a coarse- and a fine-grain side. "Use honing oil," he said. "It's designed to float the little particles of steel away." I had learned from him to "be prepared" long before I advanced to Boy Scouts.
Years later, when I started a culinary career, I bought finer stones for my kitchen knives, but I still have that one from Sears. My stones are near the kitchen sink where I can quickly sharpen the blades of my cutting, slicing, and carving tools.
Two magnetic racks hold my old carbon-steel knives. Their blades have a black patina, are pitted in places, and are rife with age. They are neither pretty to look at nor shiny and bright – except along their thin cutting edges.
I can't recall my father ever actually showing me how to sharpen knives, but I must have learned by example. He sharpened his knives often – certainly every time we went fishing or anytime he cooked (he did the meat grilling). I can picture him standing in the grass, with the back porch as his work table. You've got to sharpen knives while standing. It's the only way to get the right flow in your wrists.
I can't sharpen knives without thinking of Daddy. Through the years, he taught me all about sailing and fishing and grilling – none of which I attempt without a sharp knife in my pocket. Daily, I use my pocketknife to sharpen pencils, open packages, cut roses, and, when no one's looking, trim my nails.
I remove all of my knives from the magnetic bars that hold them on the wall. I cover the kitchen counter with a piece of waxed paper, then place the coarsest of the stones on it, coating the stone with a layer of mineral oil, because I've yet to find real honing oil. Holding the first of the blades on the stone at a 22-degree angle, I pull the blade firmly toward me, as though I am carving a country ham. Slowly and evenly I hone, mesmerized by the subtle rasping sound of steel against stone. First one side, then the other, pushing the blade away from me, my fingers resting on the dull edge of the knife, keeping it at the proper angle. I repeat the motions for as long as I feel is necessary. Sometimes, like today, when I've let the knives go too long, I hone the blades a good dozen times on the coarse stone.
I start with my favorite knives, the ones I use daily: the chef's knives, the paring knives, the boning and filet knives. Then I move to the lesser-used carving knife, the scimitar, the butcher's knife, and, finally, the cleaver.
I am in a Zen-like trance, as though my father's hand were on my shoulder. I am aware of my arms being loose, and my wrists being supple, though my fingers are tight and firm on the knives. Back and forth I guide the blades across the stones until an edge shines clearly.
I test the blade, not against paper, but the way Daddy always did: by shaving the hair on the back of my arm. Perfectly honed. One down, 14 to go.
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