My Love Letter to a Knife

My Darling Chef’s Knife,At first I thought I might feel silly writing a love letter to you. I mean you’re an inanimate object, and I’m an animate object, and it’s sort of unusual for one to love the other enough to actually write a letter, don’t you think?Although, I will say, that if one of us is going to get all mushy gushy and poetic, I’m glad it’s me. If I ever receive a love letter from you, I’ll be quite worried. You know, the whole inanimate (unfeeling, unthinking, unmoving, not alive) object thing.Yet, the more I think about it, what could be more passionate than a love so intense that it causes an inanimate object to animate and express itself? That’s the stuff Chuck Woolery was looking for when he hosted Love Connection.Anyway, my lovely Chef’s Knife—do you mind if I call you CK? That will make it much easier. CK, I feel a closer, more intense bond with you than I’ve ever felt with another kitchen utensil.That slotted spoon? Not even close. Vegetable peeler? It’s not even sharp anymore. And that old school hand crank mixer? How could I feel a bond with a tool that hasn’t been relevant in more than half a century?No, CK, when it comes to kitchen utensils, you’re the bees knees. (Whatever the hell that means.) You’re so wise. Maybe not wise, but you are sharp. You make such quick work of those sweet potatoes that I wonder how I ever prepared Thanksgiving dinner without you.And those smooth slices you coax from a nice, ripe tomato are enough to make even the toughest guy weak in the knees. Gone are the days when I used to worry about ending up with crushed, smashed, ruined tomatoes. What’s love if not well-prepared salsa?And the meat. Oh my goodness, you handle meat so well that my mouth waters just thinking about it. With the grain or across the grain, well-done or rare, thin slices or thick, it just doesn’t matter. You handle it all with equal skill and grace. It’s truly amazing.I haven’t even begun to mention the way you feel in my hand. A knife hasn’t felt so comfortable in my hand in years. Actually, you probably feel better in my hand than any other knife I’ve ever held.That long, black handle is perfectly contoured to fit my hand. It’s like you were custom made especially for my fingers and palm. I chop, slice, dice, and julienne for hours on end, and I’m not sore. With you I can just keep going and going. I’m sure there’s a limit, but I haven’t reached it yet.Lest you think that I have some distorted view of reality and I’m seeing you through rose-colored glasses, let me tell you that I remember the difficult times we’ve had.You’ve hurt me often, CK. I remember the cucumber slicing incident. You jumped halfway across the cutting board and cut off practically half my index finger. And that same finger still throbs from this past Monday when I was just trying to scrape some ice cream off of a platter, and you got all attitudey and dug so far into my skin that I bled for three days.Not cool, CK. Not cool.But I can’t stay mad at you for long. You’ve been too good to me. Every time I think that maybe I need a break from you, I see the way you precisely annihilate a beet, and my heart flutters.Wow!I guess what I’m saying is that much like Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard, I will always love you. I’ll wash you by hand after every use. And I’ll dry you, too. Do you know how special that makes you? I don’t even dry my own hands after I wash them.You’ll never see the inside of a dishwasher. No way would I ever subject you to those random jets of water and harsh detergents like you were just some spatula.Like any good relationship, our relationship is going to take work. I’ll do the work though. I bought that fancy stone to keep you sharp, and I’ve been watching YouTube videos for a week to make sure that I perfect the technique. And I was going to wait to tell you this, but I just bought a magnetic strip to attach to the wall. You can hang from that now. So you’ll never have to be thrown in a drawer with all of those other ordinary utensils again.So thank you, CK. Thanks for all you do for me, and thanks for being so easy to love.But most of all, thanks for not flying at my face like those knives that attacked the mother in the film Carrie.Love,BrettOnce a month, during an event called Blogapalooz-Hour, ChicagoNow challenges its bloggers to write a post in one hour on a topic that's unknown to them until the hour begins. I've decided to tackle all of the challenges held before I joined ChicagoNow over the next ten days or so. This challenge was "Write a love letter, but it can't be to a person." PREVIOUS POST: The Most Memorable Place I've Ever LivedIF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: What Happened When I Ate Food from a Stranger's Plate+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++