ION: Cows, Sharpening, Shaving, and Shrimp.

Hi! My name's Kev!

ION is for In Other News. I told you, I never have trouble starting posts. Icebreaking is apparently my specialty. I am listening to TobyMac's Portable Sounds on the kitchen's CD player and on my laptop. My laptop is lagging behind a bit. It sounds cool. Like a, I don't know, a freshwaterfall. Echoing.


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Today the cows escaped. It was up to me. Man, Moment, Cow. So I got the truck and went and stirred them up a bit. They started fighting, strangely enough. Locking horns. It was neat in a weird way. Brown is apparently higher than Black; he was chasing him all over. Black was tripping over things. I can't say I don't think they both deserved it.

I was gonna wait for my mommy to get home to help me corral them, but long story short, I tricked them both in there with grain. It wasn't as easy as it sounds, let's say that. My dissatisfaction with their antics grows.


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Also, I sharpened another knife today. I don't think I mentioned I sharpen my own knives...but I sharpened my 8" chefs (Farberware) about five days ago, and today I sharpened a 3" paring knife and a 6" chef (but both of them are horrendously cheap). The 3" paring is now a straight edge knife. It used to be a serrated knife.

The 6" cheapo chefs knife is for chopping...here's how I understand it:

If you're using your knife for slicing, you want micro-serrations. That means finishing the knife's sharpening with a coarse stone, say a 400 grit instead of a 1200 grit. This leaves very tiny serrations, just like a serrated knife, except they work more covertly, as they're invisible. Also, the edge will stay longer. Just like a normal serrated knife.

If you're using your knife for chopping, say, dicing onions or carrots, you want a somewhat polished edge. A polished edge (in the extreme sense) is an edge you can't see any scratches (from the sharpening) in. Kind of like a razor blade. You don't slice tomatoes with a polished edge - the micro-serrated edge rips through the skin easier. But the polished edges work better for push-chopping, such as carrots, celery, beets, etc. The micro-serrated edges can create some drag, believe it or not.


So the 8" chefs has a coarse finish on it, the 3" paring and 6" chef each have a polished finish. I use a DMT Aligner. It's a manual sharpener. The stones are pretty small (1" wide, 5-6" long), and you lubricate them with water/spit instead of oil. I've heard that the diamond stones (DMT standard and namesake) work faster than traditional stones, and I am inclined to agree. It takes me about 20-30 minutes to sharpen a knife, and I'm a complete and total noob.

I learned here: eG Forums - Knife Maintenance and Sharpening. I'm actually going to copy that article into Open Office. Oops, OOo is dying now. I guess importing websites is hard work for it. Well, my Blogger window is fine. Take that, Napoleon!


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I got the 3" paring knife so sharp, I was able to use it as a straight razor, and shave with it. How cool is that? I cut myself three times. I didn't use enough shaving cream...and the tip was pointed (tip isn't pointed on straight razors). It could have been a bit sharper, actually. I used my jeans as a strop- not the best strop ever. And it wasn't a straight razor. Just an imitation, and a fun one at that! Now I KNOW I want to cut my face all to hell with a straight razor! If I can cut my face all to hell with a paring knife, just imagine!


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As far as cooking goes, I prepped the shrimp and sausage for tomorrow. I will post about Gumbo probably tomorrow. Open Office just finished the copy and paste, so I saved it...I actually got a pretty good rhythm going for the shrimp. I got through about ten shrimp every fifteen and a half seconds. Hold on...sorry, typo. I got through about one shrimp every thirty-four or so seconds. That's better...shrimp seems like cool stuff. I have it on ice in the fridge right now. Aren't I just so polite?

I got about two cups of shells. I will boil those up, and try to make some sort of an adulterated version of a shrimp stock tomorrow. I got around 100 shrimp, instead of the 60, so I'm going to increase the recipe by 50%. I adapt like that.


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We're having Pizza and a slice of German Chocolate cake for dinner. It's very nostalgic. Maybe I'll tell you that story someday.


Song of the Day is Boomin'/Opera Trip by TobyMac on his Portable Sounds CD. Also, we ordered another 2 GB SD card from TigerDirect.com. This one is 60x and doesn't work in my camera, either. It cost $1.99...what kind of drunkards do they have running that site, anyways?