Phil: I bet  you wouldn't want to die by way of the lemons, zester.
Chris: Oh gosh.
Phil: Pretty, pretty brutal. If you asked me, have you ever nicked a knuckle with a lemon zester?
Chris:  once or twice. But it's definitely a  constant fear. Every time I'm using one, which has only gotten worse since we bought  a microplane, which is kind of like a lemon zester, but five times as big. And, you know, basically it just has  a thousand razorblades instead of the little like grind grindy, nubs.
Phil: That sounds dastardly.
Chris:  my fear of  knuckle nicking has definitely increased with that purchase.
Phil: Well, if you haven't already figured it out, I tend to have irrational fear of lemons, esters, maybe not so irrational because of the, of the knuckle nicking has happened one too many times, but this episode is not about. lemons, esters. It is however about something  equally as sharp, if not more.
And it's knives,
we've got some pretty good knives. Like, I mean, they're from our wedding and it just means they're at least a decade old. And there's a lot of them in the, in the set. Some we use some, we don't,
 yeah, I feel like it's like the universal wedding gift.
Chris: It kinda is.
Phil:  it's on everyone's registry. And if you were like me, you probably registered for more than one set in hopes that  whomever would buy the nice for you would end up purchasing the more expensive set.
But in all actuality, you ended up with two sets, so it kind of backfired
Chris: can't, can't say that happened to us when we just, we just went for one. but yeah, we just had that one set that we got for our wedding for a long time and yeah. This episode was actually inspired by, some realizations that we had that we didn't have to live with. That one set that we got for our wedding.
All our knives don't have to match, and there's really no need for eight  specific knives. And so.  inspiration for this came out of that realization and the purchase of a couple new knives that we kind of like a lot better than  the set that we got. 
Phil: So, Chris, what I think I hear you saying is that we can throw out our knife sets or maybe not throw away, but give away or do whatever rid of them, if you will, and then get like two or three knives that you love and quality of life increases.
And so does your cooking
Chris: Hmm. Maybe
at least your enjoyment of it. I don't know. I think there's, there's this idea that I was actually talking with somebody about today in a slightly unrelated field, but I feel like the,  concept holds and, it's a philosophy that I feel like I've really ascribed to  a lot lately. but just the idea of,  trimming something down to a simpler form of form that you. No is sustainable and you can actually  follow through and deliver on. And, just that idea of  simplifying kind of for mental energy sake, as well , as follow through. I think  you can apply that to the kitchen as well. And  there's nothing for me that immediately, exemplifies that idea as cookware and. Others  kitchen utensils, like knives, because, you know, we get these knives sets that are filled with eight different knives that have all these different specific uses.
You have  a little filet knife,  a couple of different varieties of chef's knives and like little
Phil: or the meat Cleaver
Chris: beak knives and me cleavers. And how many of those do we really actually need? And when I'm,  cooking and I'm thinking about  how to prepare something I get in this, this little, mental roadblock  thinking about and questioning, am I using the right utensil?
Part of that revelation that , I was talking about that we had was that it's okay to only use a couple, different pieces of cookware and a couple of different knives. And so, we've been trying to paired down the amount of knives that we have to, the ones that we really,  need.
Phil: totally agree with you. 100%. If you could come up with  a bullet point list of the knives that you use, if you could quantify those, what, what do you think they'd be.
Chris: I think , the very first one would be. Yeah, your, your normal  chef's knife, because you can really do 90% of all of your prep work with just that knife.  I love . The rhythm that you can get into chopping vegetables with that knife. And you can't quite get into that same rhythm with, with smaller knives.
There's something about the, the larger blade and kind of the, the specific curve that it has, that you can just get into like a really nice little rhythm. and that ends up being the knife that I, reach for it all the time. And it's nice. feeling like it's okay.
Just to have that one go too. 
Phil: Yeah. And like the curves that you're talking about, I, I think I was slightly aroused. We could probably not put that in there. Continue. Oh, my.
Chris: and so. beyond the chef's knife,  if there's something that feels like it's too small, for that size of knife, I'd be picking up a paring knife and the knife. That we just bought, was actually a paring knife. And, , I love the utility of, of a small knife like that.
You can, you really can do a lot with that as well. ,  I would say the vast majority of  cooking prep work can be accomplished. with just those two.
Phil: Sure. Yeah, you could probably go an entire year of cooking with just those two knives. And I think you could, you could make some pretty cool dishes, unless of course. Your wife is a world renown Baker.
Chris: Yes.
Phil: someone on this podcast.
Chris:   yeah, so my, , my wife a Baker and, at their bakery, they do carry a really fantastic bread knife, which I would say is  the, the last of the three knives that we use all the time. 
there's something about, a cerated knife that allows you to, to cut things that are generally pretty squishy really well. , you have the surveillance work instead of having to apply  downward pressure. So you're not squishing your bread. Although I've seen, I've seen plenty of people.
Squish their bread with a serrated knife. Just don't do that. Let the serrations work for you.  but then other things that worked really well for it, two things like tomatoes. another squishy thing you can just like splat the seeds out all over the place.
Phil: Wait, wait a second.
Chris: yes.
Phil: used Serita. Nice to cut tomatoes. Does everybody do that?
Chris: If they 
don't, they 
Phil: that thing?
Chris: honestly, it's
Phil: Why didn't I think of
Chris: things that my wife taught me, BLTs, which should be another  in the kitchen episode. Cause I don't know who doesn't love a BLT. I think, I think that's, that's where I, found that one 
Phil: Cutting tomatoes with Serita. Nice. I feel like I just saw color for the first time.
Chris: And Phil doesn't exaggerate at all
  Yeah. That, that would be my list. Those three knives.
Phil: Cool. Chef's knife, paring knife, bread knife. Get rid of all the rest. Give it away.
Give your meat Cleaver to the butcher.
Give your Turkey Carver to, your, I don't know,
Chris: Turkey carving friend, Paul Paul trust, poultry Geist,
Phil: you go,
Chris: your local friendly neighborhood Poltergeist.
Phil: poultry guys. That's something different.
Chris: Nah, it's the same thing. The poultry guys serve Turkey, Turkey farmers. That's her official name. Right.
Phil: Oh, I, I knew that for sure. I knew that,

Chris: but yeah, like one thing. Oh, one thing that I love about that idea of, of just trimming it down to three is  you can actually get. Three different knives that you like, you don't have to get them in a set. They don't all have to match. And if you're only buying three of something, typically you might have a little more budget to buy something that you like a little bit better and suits your needs a little bit better than if you were buying nine of something or 10 of something. and you don't have to go crazy. I mean, there's some really fantastic. Knives out there and some budget ranges. maybe, maybe we'll do an episode on, on each of those three, but, yeah, since we were looking at paring knives, , you look at the reviews and one of the top reviewed knives is a $7 paring knife. So you don't have 
Phil: Well, we'll have to like, yeah, we'll have some show notes and maybe throw out some ideas on what are some really good affordable knives, that can yeah, help us move along a little bit. I learned something for sure. I feel like. Maybe from a cheesy philosophical approach, which I'm kind of that guy often finding the, the value in something that doesn't actually exist.
But, um, I think maybe even just  the philosophical approach of figuring out the whole dad thing and trying to be a better father,  trimming down, like you're saying, as cheesy as it sounds. I think there's some lessons that we can learn from, from the amount of utensils we have in the kitchen, you know, just finding something that you love and doing it over and over again with repetition is going to lead us to be more comfortable with it.
And hopefully I think that would lead us to, to just be better at what we do, and be better dads. So I can translate to several different 
Chris: Well, I wonder if the act of freeing up mental space, you know, if we're ever taking some of those, some of those tasks that previously seemed beyond us or overwhelming or something and, and, kind of paring them down. If that does free up mental  space that we can then give to things that maybe matter more in our lives.
Phil: This podcast goes deep. . 
Chris: No. And we've only started,
Phil: We are going to solve the world's problems with this thing. I'm so
Chris: Absolutely. and another thing that I kinda liked about this idea is that, it appeals to like the, the gear and gadget geek inside of me.
, I love . Diving into reviews and finding like the ideal solution, the ideal like product that solves my problems.  and one thing that I found is that , in that process , I was excited to use the knives that we got and it felt like I had a little bit more, I dunno, the kitchen didn't feel as foreign to me.
It wasn't like all of these utensils that were  my wife's or, you know, the other people bought us, but there was just  a little bit more ownership and a little bit more buy in and a little bit more excitement in the kitchen for me. And I don't know, that's not, I don't think that's a bad thing when you're, when you're trying to spend 
Phil: paid off for 
you, 
Chris: Yeah.
Phil: which in turn, I think is going to pay off for me. Cause I'm not so much a researcher as I am a clicker of things that might look fancy on a wedding registry. So the things I would do, if I could do it over again,
Chris: That's why we work well 
Phil: no, not that I will. Like I, I'm not going to. I'm not going to do that again. 
Chris: Yeah. 
Phil: She's amazing.  
Chris: we like Ashley, so you can, you can stick with her for awhile.
Phil: She's she's blushing. I can, I can see it through the radio waves. I can see it through the internet. Cloud, whatever this is. Alright. Well, Chris, nicer fun. 
Chris: Lemons 
Phil: like the lemon zester.
Chris: You gotta be careful around those. Sometimes, sometimes.
Phil: So be safe, everybody. And thanks for tuning in.
Chris:  just in case people wanted to, I dunno, figure out when our next episode comes out or give us some feedback. let us know
what knives day like, or. , check out our blog, even which we'll hopefully have a little bit more info on some of the things that we like 
where can they find all of that fell?
Phil: Yeah. I'm so glad you mentioned that. keep the conversation rolling. at dad's kitchen code.com for the blog. And I'm really excited about that. What that's gonna look like, the show notes, obviously  the research that you're talking about, but, also just some really helpful resources. check us out on Instagram. What's our Instagram handle. Dad's kitchen co yes. On the Instagram. And then I think Facebook just adds kitchen, lots of platforms, lots of mediums of communication.  
Chris: So check one of those out and, uh, we  hope to see you  back for our next episode so thanks Phil