I am a self-proclaimed kitchen knife snob.

It's my parents' fault, really. See, I'd always been somewhat afraid of knives. When I first started cooking, I wouldn't even chop an onion--I made Andy do it! But my parents have this [great little local knife store](http://www.heimerdingercutlery.com/) that they love so they OF COURSE got us a starter knife or two as a wedding gift. And once I made my first cut with that blade, I was hooked. When you have a sharp knife, it's actually a lot less scary than a dull one, because you're not having to labor and position your fingers to get through whatever you're trying to cut. No, when you press down, the blade cuts, et voila! A chopped onion.

The tricky thing with knives that I've learned is that even excellent brands make cheaper versions to sell at big-box stores. So that Wusthof knife block you bought at Target? It might not have the same quality Wusthof knife that you could get at a chef's store. And then even within the Wusthoff brand there are divisions! The knives I own come variously from the Wusthoff Classic line, Wusthoff Gourmet, and Wusthoff Grand Prix. Who even knows what they all mean!

You really don't need as many knives as come in a knife block. I have a few knives that I use all the time:

• a paring knife
  
  
• a chef's knife
  
  
• a serrated "sausage" knife (that also works well on bread, tomatoes, meat, etc)
  
  
• and a slightly larger paring knife (some websites seemed to call this a "slicer" or "sandwich" knife)
  
  

I also have a little ceramic paring knife that I LOVE. Honestly, I mostly bought it at first because it was cute, and inexpensive, but it's actually a great little knife.

I keep them all in an in-drawer knife block rather than one that takes up precious counter space, and it works pretty well for my purposes.

One thing I've learned about knife care is that there's a difference between honing and sharpening. Honing, what you can do at home with a so-called sharpening steel, straightens the blade of the knife. As you use it, the blade naturally bends *just* slightly, making it so that when you cut, the blade isn't necessarily dead-on. So, by honing it, you re-align the blade, and it is effectively sharper.

Sharpening, on the other hand, actually creates a fresh edge for your knife. The blade can be dulled by use--coming into contact with cutting boards, etc--so having this done professionally every so often is not a bad idea. I always wash our knives by hand, and I take them to [The Cook's Warehouse](http://www.cookswarehouse.com/) once a year to be sharpened. It costs some money, but compared the price of the knives it's negligible and will make them be of service for much longer! (Unfortunately the ceramic knife can only be sharpened by the company that sells it, which is in Japan, meaning you have to ship it. So that one might not be happening.)

(P.S. Another tip is that glass cutting boards are hell on your knives. Wood is really the best, but plastic is better than glass.)

So there ya go. A little glimpse into my kitchen habits, and a brief primer on good knives.

**What's your favorite kitchen gadget?**

As I’ve written before, a lot of weeks I end not cooking at least one of the meals I had planned on. For example, last week, on Thursday I worked the late shift at work (12-8 instead of 9-5) and had picked up take-out Singapore noodles for lunch, and I ended up eating the leftovers for dinner. Then, on Friday, Andy made last-minute dinner plans with a newly-returned-to-Atlanta friend and co-worker, so I ate a personal sized frozen pizza with avocado on it and Ben and Jerry’s Vanilla Heath Crunch ice cream. Ahem. Somehow having the meal plan actually helps me feel MORE freedom to be random like that. And I’m also realizing that for my general sanity and to make time to accomplish things I want to accomplish some nights ya just have to say CHUCK IT! and eat whatever you eat. This week might be a little less random, but it also might not be! :-)

SUNDAY
unstuffed cabbage roll skillet
Oddly enough I had planned to make this last week with ground turkey that I actually didn’t have in the freezer, so it worked out for the best that I didn’t get to it! Hah.

MONDAY
chicken noodle casserole
Last week I found a rotisserie chicken on Manager’s Special at Kroger AND I used a coupon on it..woo hoo! I shredded and froze it as soon as I got home, so I’m using the meat this week.
salad

TUESDAY
Henri’s po-boys
I’m picking up a catering tray for a work event and just decided to be wild and crazy and pick up sandwiches for Andy and me while I was there! This place is sort of an Atlanta staple that I’ve never tried.
frozen tater tots
cut-up fruit

WEDNESDAY
chicken avocado soup
cheese quesadillas
carrots and hummus

THURSDAY
cheesy chicken parm meatballs w/ fettuccine
broccoli

FRIDAY
My parents are coming to visit and we’re going to a Hawk’s game, so we’ll grab arena food. Yummy every once in awhile!

SATURDAY
Out again, this time at Manuel’s Tavern for a monthly installment of the Atlanta Science Tavern. Yep, for real.

What’s on your plate this week?

I’m linking up with Organizing Junkie’s Monday Menu Plan!

I had tapas after work the other night with these ladies.

We were a little less, uh, on top of each other, and we’re a few years older. But these girls have been in my heart now for a long time.

We went to high school together at The Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science, so for two formative years of our adolescence we basically lived together. (Well, in the case of the one in the middle, we DID live together!)

I think when you get through the years where you wear matching t-shirts and ribbons in your hair:

and dress up like this for Halloween:

you’re basically bonded for life.

Something about that crucible of a time has made it so that my MSMS friends are still some of the people I feel the most comfortable with in the world, even if we don’t talk regularly. I wrote once about how I chose in high school to feel home-ful instead of homeless, and these two and their families were a big part of that. I spent weekends at their homes, ate dinner with their parents after church, crashed in their rooms as a way-stop on road trips. And I am beyond thrilled that Middle-of-the-pile Friend has just moved to Atlanta! Bottom-of-the-pile just happened to be passing through Atlanta on her way back to grad school in Virginia, and after a flurry of texts (and I do mean a flurry) we managed to make a meetup happened.

And boy was it nice.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about who I am and what my future holds (somewhat inspired/forced upon me by my reading of Daring Greatly, more on that later) and I’ve sort of been feeling like I needed a friend. And friends they are. With such a build up of shared history, we don’t have to fill in the blanks. We can just pick up right here, because they know that I am obsessive and neurotic sometimes and they love me anyway. And one can talk about her new boyfriend and make reference to an ex because we knew her then, and the other can tell us about driving her dad’s truck for the week and it makes us smile because we know him, too.

I know grownup friendships take work. And just because she now lives in my city, I have no illusions that Middle-of-the-pile and I will see each other every day, and probably not even every week. But it will undoubtedly be more often than we were able to when she lived 5 hours away, and I’m pretty excited about that.

I don’t know which friends are silver and which are gold: the old friends, or the new friends. I like and need all the kinds of friends. But I sure appreciate having old friends like these in my life.

Who’s your oldest friend and how often do you see them? What are your favorite ways to cultivate friendships as an adult?

My spirit-animal, Gretchen Rubin, has a theory that people in this world tend to be divided into the personality types “abstainers and moderators”. I am definitely a moderator by her definition: I get panicky over the thought of never getting to eat another cookie or french fry. I’m pretty good at eating A square of chocolate. I mostly don’t drink sodas, but sometimes I do, and that works for me.

But while the holidays this year were not the glut-fest that they often are for me, I’m still feeling like something’s got to give. If you Google “sugar is a drug” (yeah, I did that…), you get a lot of results, and I think I believe it. I find that if I just don’t eat sugar, I don’t particularly miss it…but if I’m eating sugar at all, I just want MOAR. And especially with the holidays, there are always nibblies. Spiced nuts (okay, I’m the one guilty of providing those), Whitman’s samplers, cookies, etc. etc. etc.

So I’m going to try an experiment: a sugar detox.

I’ve heard the concept of a 21 day sugar detox around the blogosphere, and it turns out it’s based on a book.

It’s ranked #237 in books on Amazon, for cryin’ out loud. Out of all the books in the world, this one about quitting sugar has been bought 237th most often. Which convinces me even more that those little white grains are addictive.

But, real talk: I’m a moderator, remember? And I also learned from my foray into the Whole 30 that being a food purist takes a load of TIME and EFFORT that I don’t feel like expending right now. I don’t feel like going crazy scouring nutrition labels for hidden sugars, nor do I feel like that would really be useful in my life. I’m going to eat cereal (though not, say, Frosted Flakes), and yogurt if I want it, and milk. I’m going to put creamer in my coffee–I’ve weened off the Splenda anyway, so it’s only whatever trace of sugar is in the tablespoon I use. I’m just honestly not worried about those bits.

Inspired by this good-natured post on Hello Giggles, I’ve decided to preemptively declare that the 21 day sugar detox is “exactly as horrible as it sounds” and just do it my way. I like fruit, which you can’t eat on the real detox. Fruit is not my problem. Rather, Reese’s Cups are my problem, among other things.

While it’s not a New Year’s resolution, PER SE, I’m trying to keep being healthy. I’m making an effort to REALLY get to the gym 3 mornings a week, which means I’m making an effort to REALLY go to bed by 11 p.m. so that getting up at 6 a.m. is feasible. And on the mornings I don’t go to the gym, I’m REALLY trying to get up at 6 anyway and do things like write on this blog and learn to code. And breaking my holiday-hangover addiction to sugar seems like a natural fit with these efforts. Hopefully if I come to a hard stop on the sugar it’ll be easier to go back to my more moderate ways.

So for this week (and maybe even just the work week!) I’m not eating sweets. Honestly, compared to going whole hog primal how hard could it be?

…I’ll let you know.

I can’t come up with any witty repartee by way of an introduction today. Another week, another menu plan! A friend of mine is just moving to town, so we’ll likely meet up with her one evening and something will get bumped, but I am always okay with that.

SUNDAY
crunchy garlic chicken over salad
deviled eggs

MONDAY
bubble up pizza with mushrooms and pepperoni
salad
cut-up fruit

TUESDAY
unstuffed cabbage roll skillet (using ground turkey instead of beef)
broccoli

WEDNESDAY
creamy shrimp and mushroom pasta

THURSDAY
soup from the freezer–I honestly can’t remember what kind it is, but it’s there!

FRIDAY
out or leftovers

SATURDAY
possibly out with my in-laws, who will be in town–if not, I’ll wing it! Soup and grilled cheese is always a good option.

What’s on your plate this week?

I’m linking up with Organizing Junkie’s Monday Menu Plan!