I was asked by Felicia to sharpen a our knives because we had to slaughter some people. No, just kidding. We actually invited some of my Junior College friends over the next day, and we have to be prepared, so that the knives can cut through Poh Piah cleanly. Nothing more dangerous than a blunt kinfe, no kidding.
So, faced with this steel rod that came with our kitchen knife set, I held it in my hands and stared at it for a brief moment. Then I decided I needed help. I had to draw on all the power of the world available to me to find out how to make this thing work. So I did the most natural thing there is to do. I sat down in front of my computer and Googled. There were a million helpful and not-so-helpful tips dished out from various sources. Some were talking about sharpening knives to slaughter cows.
Finally, I came upon this site that was exactly what I needed. But I found the images a little confusing, so I had to do a little bit of trial and error, based on the instructions. After a couple of fingering and sliding, I had to assume that the knife was sharpened. Which basically left me with the testing portion. Apparently, you can test using your thumbnail, but I decided to skip that and just cross my fingers and hope for the best 
Tags: how-to
December 18th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
Man … the natural thing to do should be give your friends a call or sms … friends like me who love cooking. Hahaha.
Not sure how you did it but basically there are 3 ways.
1. Use the old Chinese way – a sharpening stone. Rest the short end of the stone against a wall, put some water on the stone, face the blade towards the wall, apply force when you glide your knife towards the wall and take away the froce when you glide your knife towards you.
2. Use the modern way – a knife sharpening device. Glide the knife in between the device in one swift motion and your knife will be sharpened very nicely. I have not tried that but seen the demo in stores.
3. Use the emergency way – back of a procelain plate. Well if you don’t have those two devices, turn over the plate (procelain), face the blade towards you and glide your knife away from you in one swift motion. Then face the blade away from you and glide your knife towards you. Repeat a number of times till you are satisfied with the result. This is a temporary method. For best result, use (1) or (2).