However beautiful the shinogi line of a charcoal-forged Santoku, and no matter how solidly made the vintage steel of a French chef's knife, I have to admit that after years of collecting the world's finest knives I have settled on one that has more in common with the knives found in the average American's kitchen.

I prefer a cheap, solid, stainless steel knife. Some of the best can be picked up at a kitchenware or restaurant supply shop for well under 40 dollars. Brands that work well at this price are F. Dick, Victorinox, and LamsonSharp. Plastic or wood is a matter of personal preference, but I pay the premium for a wood handle and then promptly scrub the finish off the wood. Why, you might ask? Simple: fat. I will sometimes spend a solid hour breaking down carcasses, and, after a while, that animal fat renders a knife with a plastic handle as slippery as a live eel. Wood, on the other hand, absorbs the fat, ensuring that the all-important grip is maintained. More on this later when we get to the "ways to horribly wound yourself" section.

Keeping it sharp, one of the keys to not cutting yourself:

In this age of the Internet I won't bore you with sharpening techniques. To be perfectly honest, I don't even sharpen my own knives anymore. I leave that to Mr. Robert Ambrosi of Ambrosi Cutlery, and I recommend you outsource your knife sharpening as well unless you are looking for a new hobby.

If your knife is made of the tough and cheap type of stainless steel you will never get it as sharp as the guy at your local housewares shop. High-end Japanese and carbon steel can be made especially deadly, but you have to know what you're doing. Keep your eyes on the prize: keeping it sharp, which brings us to the matter of the sharpening steel.

Learning to use a steel properly is far more important than spending the better part of a night laboring over the whetstone. There are as many YouTube videos and online guides to using a steel as there are stars in the sky, but the key is to do it lightly. By using a steel, you're attempting to realign a few molecules of steel back into a cutting edge; heavy pressure will only lead to a truly dull blade.

Cutting yourself:

I am an expert. I have sliced off thumb tips and fingernails. I have shaved paper-thin wafers of my knuckle and buried a breaking/cimeter knife an inch and a half into my forearm. If it weren't for the stainless steel chainmail "butcher bra" that Josh from Fleisher's bought me for Christmas last year, I might not be alive to write this essay, having perhaps bled out from one of the many horrible chest wounds averted by its Mithril magic.

The most important thing when it comes to cutting yourself (or avoiding it) is awareness of where you and the cutting edge of your blade are in relation to each other. This is not such a big deal for a home cook slicing vegetables, but for a butcher it becomes a matter of life and death.