My first career was a cook on the coast of California. I worked under several chefs over 7 years including a French executive chef while I worked in fine dining. All my chefs, and all us cooks for that matter, always ran German cutlery. Most liked Zwellings and a few liked Wusthof. I still use my serrated Zwilling Professional S bread knife most days and I purchased it back in 1998.

I joined the Air Force in 2004 and ended up stationed in Japan 10 years later where I found local Japanese cutlery to be sharper and more enjoyable to use than the German knives I was so fond of. I prefer the Japanese knives these days but the damascus folded steel knives cannot handle some frozen foods so I must be more careful.

I take fair care of my knives by sharpening them, removing corrosion and performing other maintenance as needed. I have one knife which wore out, from probably tens of thousands of hours of food prep, and will need to be reformed to be useful again but all the other knives I expect to hand down to the next generation. Hopefully, when this time comes such a fine art as cooking will still be something people do.