I have always had problems with my coordination. On the gross motor side, it meant taking eight years of adaptive phys ed (my own special gym class, sometimes with a couple other kids), being out of step most of the time in marching band, a driving instructor telling my parents I was basically beyond hope, and then crashing another driving school's car, which was the end of my attempts to learn to drive.
On the fine motor side, I had to go for extra help with my penmanship in elementary school, and I still don't know how I learned to play flute and oboe, even though I wasn't very good at either, and I could easily have been the worst percussionist the DPHS band had ever witnessed. In college, piano lab was an unmitigated disaster, but luckily it was pass/fail and showing up was what mattered most. (That I went on to major in music still baffles me. I wish someone had stopped me.)
Not surprisingly, my knife skills are absolute crap. I think I'd like to take a class to improve them, but funds are tight, and I am managing with what skills I have.
I have a Chop Wizard. (
Watch the video) Most commercials and infomercials exaggerate the difficulty and hassle of food preparation, but this is an accurate portrayal of what happens when I have to cut up vegetables. I also find chopping vegetables dreadfully boring, and after a couple minutes I can hardly stand it. So I love using my Chop Wizard whenever I need small pieces.
However, this device has its limits.
I broke my first one trying to chop a raw yam. Yams are just too hard.
While the parts are dishwasher safe, the Chop Wizard can still be a bitch to clean. Just ask Chris, who does the dishes most of the time. In fact, I often apologize to him before using it. I thought it would be nice to use the Chop Wizard to dice cooked chicken breast into little chunks to make chicken salad with, but that was not such a good idea. The chicken fibers tenaciously clung to the crevices in the top part, and it took a long soak and lots of picking at it (with the little tool that comes in the box and looks like a 'fro pick) to get it clean. New rule: no meat in the Chop Wizard.
I use my kitchen shears more often than I use knives when I am preparing food. I have two pairs of kitchen shears, so I can avoid cross-contamination between meats, produce, etc. Aside of some large or hard food (carrots, squash, yams, etc.), I find that cutting with shears is often quicker and easier than cutting with a knife. I find it easier to cut raw meat with the shears, instead of holding down a blob of meat and sawing vigorously at it while it squirms in reaction to the sawing. Occasionally, I will use shears to cut cooked meat as well, like I wound up doing when making that chicken salad. I remember cutting up rotisserie birds with shears when I worked at a supermarket. It was quicker than sawing through the chickens' ribcages with a knife would have been. I also cut herbs and some vegetables with shears, like peppers and celery.
TIP: Kitchen shears are the best tools to cut celery, because they snip through the strings with ease, and makes a nice clean edge, as opposed to ragged edges with hanging strings.
Maybe I don't really care about honing my knife skills; I have adapted in my own way.
