Complete Book of Knife Skills

I am very excited to have received a review copy of the Zwilling J.A. Henckels Complete Book of Knife Skills: The Essential Guide to Use, Techniques & Care by Jeffrey Elliot and James P. DeWan (Robert Rose, 2010) this morning. It's a great resource that I look forward to using; I feel it's just about right for helping me to advance from my current level of skill – although it would also be helpful for the teenage first-time cook who wanted to know how to chop up a tomato without losing any fingers.

Starting with the high school cooking classes that taught me how to dice an onion (one of the best things I ever learned in high school, actually), continuing with my summer in an army kitchen (a story I'll tell one of these days) and most recently learning things like "use your knuckles as a backstop" from my ex-kitchen-pro sweetie Jonathan, I've gradually learned how to render most things down to sticks or cubes or Shake 'n Bake-sized pieces – depending on what's called for at the moment. But it's not always pretty, and I have some badgeworthy scars to show for the learning process.

This book might have saved me some wounds. It's a comprehensive guide that includes information on various types of knives, as well as all the different sharpening tools and techniques. It covers proper hand positions (like the "claw" for keeping the blade away from the fingers that are holding the food), as well as methods for taking apart tricky items like artichokes, Alaska King Crab legs and lobsters. It includes full instructions for most types of fruits, vegetables, raw and cooked cuts of meat, fish and seafood, and ends with some fun garnishes like radish roses, carrot curls and citrus crowns.

It even includes Jonathan's obsession, the tourné or "turned" cut, which essentially reduces a carrot or potato to a perfectly faceted seven-sided jewel. (He tells me he and his line cook friends used to compete to see who could, for example, produce the most perfectly turned parsnip using only a broken beer bottle... you get the idea.)

The book is handsomely produced in a ring-bound format with multiple photos for every exercise and glossy pages that will resist spatters from your first attempt to french a lamb rack or spatchcock a fowl. The Cookbook Store has them in stock right now for $34.95. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go and make an apple swan.