When a nice Polish lady offers you a Japanese knife

 Thanks to the reviews that I do for large websites, I get people crawling into my email offering me all sorts of interesting things. Baling wire. Swimsuits. Keto paleo grain-free dairy-free sugar-free nut-free soy-free gluten-free low-salt vegan chemical-free gmo-free minimally processed humanely-raised free-range fair trade raw organic whole foods. Or something.

Sometimes I even get emails about things that I pitch to my editors at The Spruce Eats, where I've reviewed over 100 things. Yeah, that's a lot of things. And some of those things were sets of things. Many many many things. I'm not new at this reviewing stuff.

So anyway, a nice Polish lady from a company called Oishya sent me a knife (at no cost to me), and it's become a regular in my kitchen.

This isn't the only knife I reach for in the kitchen, because I have a stupid number of knives. But it's the knife I grab when I want a smooth-bladed, medium-length knife. Today, I used it to dispatch a pineapple. Yesterday, I used it to slice some pork. I mean, I'm not a sushi chef or a butcher. I'm doing home-cook things here.

So let me tell you about the knife, mkay?

Like I said, it's pretty. It's got a folded and hammered look on the blade (and did I mention it's made in Japan where a lot of knives like this are made, and much prized?) and the handle is made from ... oh hell, I don't know. It's probably some kind of manmade material. It feels comfortable and not slippery at all.

Of course I also have plenty of larger, smaller, and serrated knives. But this has become the utility knife in the kitchen. Which is a little odd, since it's sold as a paring knife. To me, paring knives are shorter (and I have those, too) but I'm actually glad this is longer. It gets more use. And it's damned pretty.

The knife is lighter than many of the knives I own, but not in a cheap sort of way. More like it's agile. The handle is blue with an abstract sort of pattern that makes it easy to spot, if I didn't already know that it's in the knife block just above the serrated utility knife.

Yeah, lots of knives.

When it arrived, it was wicked sharp, and it's held its edge really well, despite the amount of use it gets. Like all knives, it will eventually need to be sharpened.

Just like the many knives I own, I have multiple options for knife sharpening. Maybe I'll get to that some other time.

I'll admit here that the knives from this company are pretty pricy, but I have to say they'd be a nice splurge if you're looking for something that's not made by a big corporate conglomerate empire of sharp and stabby things. It's a little company, founded by the very same nice Polish lady who originally contacted me. Which is pretty damned cool.

Check out their website for the history of the company and all that sort of stuff.

I love the knife, and recommend the company, if their goodies are in your price range.