Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Carla Villoria's avatar

100% agree! The washing machine taking 4hr 🤣 it surprises us every time! (Not nearly as annoying as the awful pillows or the dull knives though)

Expand full comment
Mark Appler's avatar

I have been getting your posts second hand from my sister-in-law.

My wife and I have done a bit of traveling, and we are familiar with your curses.

We have had our share of hateful knives.

You can carry your own set of knives, but in my experience, you can get by if you pack a decent honing steel.

There is controversy about how to use it, but my suggestion is as follows.

Do not use the knife edge to "cut" along the steel to sharpen it. Rather, using firm pressure, do the reverse, and "drag" the edge of the blade "away" along the steel, at about a 25 degree angle. Think "45 degree angle" and then drop the angle by half. After about 4-6 passes on each side of the blade, you can fell a "burr" on the edge of the blade if you drag your finger nail from the spine of the blade to the knife edge. You will feel this on one side only, the side that last was NOT dragging along the steel. Essentially, you have sharpened the blade enough that the thin, sharp edge, has rolled over a bit. Now, with 2-3 more passes, each side of the blade, with much gentler pressure, you use the steel to straighten out the "burr". This is not a substitute for full-fledged sharpening, but I have made many a useless knife into a usable tool this way. And if you are staying for a few days, give the knife a couple of quick, gentle swipes with the steel every time you pull it out to use it. There's gobs of stuff on the internet and elsewhere about knife sharpening, and I'm not here to enter into that fray. But I do know that this works for me.

Expand full comment
13 more comments...

No posts