I was zipping down the back road on my red Vespa today, a quick jaunt home for lunch on my day off, when I saw him - the knife-sharpening guy! I swear I hadn't seen him in a year it seemed. Back then he sharpened my Swiss Army knife - the one I've had for twenty-five years - and he did a great job. So I stopped and burbled something in Chinese, but I was too excited to make any sense. I scooted home, got my ten-inch Henkel chef's knife and went back to find him, just as he was packing up, but he agreed to sharpen my knife.

A large, burly guy, he flipped on his generator and kick-started his grinding wheel. He spent a good five minutes on the wheel - my knife hadn't been sharpened in over two years. He handled the large knife with a finesse that can only come from years of doing this. He'd stop occasionally and give it a dip into cool water. He moved from the grinding wheel to a silicon carbide sandpaper wheel, flopping down a pair of sunglasses with side shields. The wheel made a low buzzing noise as he pressed the blade to it, and he stopped often to give the edge a critical look.

He turned off the generator on his truck, killing the power to the grinding motor. He then straddled a seat with a worn, tilted work surface in front of it. Opening a draw in the stand, he took out three grinding stones and dropped them into a bucket of water (these are water stones - different from oil stones). He selected the coarsest stone first, placing it on the tilted surface, and took the knife, giving it the most delicate and gentle slice directly on its edge - the blade perpendicular to the stone. So very gently he did this, and just once, enough only to remove the burr from grinding. He then proceeded to move the blade back and forth against the wet stone for several minutes. He stopped, once again removing the burr from the second side, and continued with the gentle grinding motion.

Three stones - two of them double-sided. Five different surfaces he honed this knife on, not counting the grinding and sanding wheels. Occasionally he'd stop and draw the knife through the wood on the stand, again giving a skeptical eye to the blade, touching it with his thumb. The whole process from start to finish was probably 15 minutes. This was by far the most careful and thorough sharpening this knife had seen - and I've owned it since college.

Finally he gets up, looks in the back of his truck, grabs a plastic shopping bag and scrunches it up in his hand. He holds the blade horizontally and makes this kind of zippy back and forth motion against the crumpled bag. As if by magic, ribbons of plastic seem to float on the blade of the knife, dance momentarily under some haze of static electricity, then blow off into the breeze. He grabs a sheet of paper and slices it effortlessly into thin strands of ribbon that, again, flutter away.

Holy cow, was this thing sharp.

Tonight, cutting onions, it basically fell through the layers. I couldn't even pull the knife a half length, it was cutting so fast. As I cut garlic for my greens, the garlic was sliced so finely I had to PULL the remaining garlic in my hand off the blade due to suction!! The greens were nothing. And, I have no idea if this was related, but the veggies all smelled wonderful! No crushed, torn leaves, just clean, open slices and juice glistening along edges.

I'm sorry, but you just don't find this along the street living in the States. And for US$2.50! This is what I like about living here...