Confetti Potato Salad

A food snob is bad enough. But a knife snob? When one takes charge of your kitchen, look out.

Inspection starts with a cursory look-see, disdain barely feigned at an all-too familiar brand and a stick tang versus, y’know, a full tang. Sigh.

Then comes the test grip, checking heft and balance, followed by a telltale tilt to gauge the edge’s sharpness in the light, and finally the palm press, checking for, and finding, well, dullness. Big sigh.

I shouldda brought my knives, you hear. Then, You gotta sharpener?

Swoosh, swoosh, the blade scrapes against the sharpening steel, shards landing in the soup, you think. A palm press, another few swipe-swipe- swipes. There, that’s better.

Last year, faced with twelve pounds of potatoes, a larder of onions, peppers and celery, and hungry family at a rehearsal dinner the next day, I felt like a real knife snob.

There on my cousin’s counter was a revolving stand, black plastic and straight from a gas station maybe 20 years ago. There were nine (nine?) steak knives but no chef’s knife, not even a utility knife. Drawers? Nothing. Dishwasher? Nothing. What’s a cook to do? Head for the supermarket for a knife, seven bucks Canadian, and yes, an improvement. What a snob.