kind of microsurgery that my old pal Dimitri used to excel at. But how
often do you do that?
A genuinely useful blade, however, and one that is increasingly popular
with my cronies in the field, is what's called an offset serrated knife.
It's basically a serrated knife set into an ergonomic handle; it looks like a
"Z" that's been pulled out and elongated. This is a truly cool item which,
once used, becomes indispensable. As the handle is not flush with the
blade, but raised away from the cutting surface, you can use it not only
for your traditional serrated blade needs—like slicing bread, thick-
skinned tomatoes and so on—but on your full line of vegetables, spuds,
meat and even fish. My sous-chef uses his for just about everything. F.
Dick makes a good one for about twenty-five bucks. It's stainless steel,
but since it's serrated it doesn't really matter; after a couple of years of
use, if the teeth start to wear down, you just buy yourself another one.
Knives are obvious. What other toys are in the professionals' bag of
tricks? Numero uno—the indispensable object in most chefs' shtick—is
the simple plastic squeeze bottle. May be you've seen Bobby Flay on
TV artfully drizzling sauce around a plate with one of these—the man's
been making Mexican food look like haute cuisine for years with these
things. Sure, it's just ancho pepper mayonnaise he's squirting all over
that fish, but it looks like . . . well . . . abstract, man!!! No big deal
acquiring these things, they're essentially the same objects you see at
roadside hot-dog stands, loaded with mustard and ketchup. Mask a
bottom of a plate with, say, an emulsified butter sauce, then run a couple
of concentric rings of darker sauce—like demi-glace, or roast pepper
puree—around the plate, and pay attention here, folks, now drag a
toothpick through the rings or lines, and you'll see that all the fuss is
about nothing. It should take you about half an hour of dicking around
with a couple of squeeze bottles and your toothpick to grab the concept
fully. This same gag is used by pastry chefs to swirl chocolate or
raspberry sauce through crème anglaise and allows them to charge you
another three bucks a plate for two seconds of work that you could easily