Try not to cut off anything important!

haha. I was just checking out those Kyocera knives this weekend! I ended up buying the Furi 3-set instead. I talked with the guy at Sur La Table quite a bit about the ceramic knives. They're fantastic, mega sharp, but they're very, very delicate. A chip or drop and they're done. I'm too clumsy for that! The good thing is that they're low maintenance and because they're ceramic they don't interact in any negative ways with ingredients. Happy slicin'!

That looks fantastic. I think I might've just found my SO's birthday pressie...

I'm going to be terrible and say that my favourite kitchen tool is the deep fryer she bought me a couple of years ago. Or the chip-chopper that came with it. The whole chip set, in fact.

But I suppose the question was for 'coolest', so I'm going with my espresso machine. Because it makes espresso. And that is cool.


(OT: does anyone know how to make this spell-checker speak English?)

How do you store it?

I've just bought some Global knives, one of which has arrived so far. The thing is awesome, slicing through a pumpkin like buttah. I keep slicing the sponge as I wash it.

But I'm going with pompomtom. My coolest kitchen gadget is the one that delivers me sweet, delicious, roasted, sweet caffeine.

But then, I've just seen these pink Himalayan salt blocks, and I want.

Wow, those salt blocks look amazing!

Storage of the knife, well I have to keep it away from other knives, or they get jealous and take chunks out of the edge. Currently it stays on the bench top, resting on a folded piece of cloth. I will make a little wooden holder for it though.

Apparently if you do chip them, you can send them off to have the edge reground.

i own three kyocera knives, and i'll eventually replace all of the other knives in the block with those - cash allowing, of course.

their mandolin slicers are pretty awesome as well.

I splurged on a silicon (silicone?) oven mitt with a special split finger design. I can hold things up to 450 degrees, and it even allows you to pull things out of boiling water.

I definitely need to obtain a silicone mitt type device. If it's hot, I'll burn myself somewhere. If it's sharp, I can mostly avoid slicing myself up. That's weird that you can see through those kyocera knives! So do you sharpen them like metal knives, or are they sharp for life?

Boker has made ceramic folding knives for quite some time, maybe fifteen or twenty years. I understand there are some problems if one ever manages to become dull, as it's tough to find something hard enough to sharpen it properly?

In any case, that fad never seemed completely to catch on, although I don't understand why there weren't more of the usual militia/survivalist/rebellious types who'd want a blade they could bring on an airplane... at least before heightened security after 9/11. Then again, those types probably couldn't believe a ceramic blade could be as sharp or strong as metal. And they can still buy a "CIA letter opener" if they really want.

The Boker ceramics go way over the metal hardness scale, which makes sense when you consider ceramic can be used for space ship tiles to guard against the massive heat of re-entry, and even for moving automobile engine parts.

Ceramics can be made harder than metal, but of course are not as flexible or malleable. Weird but true.

(OT: does anyone know how to make this spell-checker speak English?)

pompomtom: if you're speaking of Firefox, just add the underlined word to the dictionary by right clicking on it.

This is my coolest kitchen gadget. I've had it for quite a few years now, and it's awesome.

Deborah: I guess I am. Thanks!