Gary Portman

Boning knives look almost identical in photos, so people buy on brand or price and then wonder why theirs feels wrong. The detail that actually matters is flex. A flexible blade bends around a chicken’s ribcage or a fish’s spine … Read more

Serrated or straight? That’s the real choice with steak knives, and I come down on the serrated side for most homes. Steak knives meet ceramic plates every night, and plates dull a straight edge fast; serrations keep biting long after. … Read more

The most common cleaver mistake I hear about isn’t a cut finger. It’s a chipped knife: someone buys a big, rectangular blade that looks like a cleaver, swings it at a chicken backbone, and finds a notch in the edge. … Read more

A bread knife has one job, and cheap ones tend to fail at it the same way: the teeth are small, pointy and packed close, so they snag soft bread, squash it and spray crumbs across the counter. Good ones … Read more

Here’s a fact that surprises people: the paring knife is the one kitchen knife where spending more rarely gets you a better cut. The blade is tiny, the work is light (peeling an apple, hulling strawberries, deveining shrimp), and most … Read more

The best chef knife for most kitchens is the WÜSTHOF Classic 8-inch. It’s forged, heavy enough to do the work for you, and tough enough to survive a busy family kitchen for decades. The one thing to weigh first is … Read more

Most dull kitchen knives aren’t ruined. They’re just rolled over at the very edge, and the wrong sharpener turns that small problem into a big one: a coarse slot that chews off steel every week, or an electric grinder set … Read more