CLEAVAGE

 With the snow melt came the UPS man (on foot down our slippery long driveway) with my newest addition to the kitchen armament collection...a 6" cleaver. This beauty is a Henkel Twin Works brand, but made in Espana, not Germany as the Macy's website states...But it IS NOT made in China like so many knives are these days...you know how I feel about stuff "Fabrique en Chine!"

 "Why does one need this killer instrument," you ask? 

Well, for years I've used cutlery scissors to part out a bird, but it takes a long time and with my "arthuritus" it became harder and harder to do it. And if you buy chicken these days, you've no doubt noticed that you can buy packages of one cut, say breasts or thighs, but finding an entire cut-up chicken is more and more difficult. My theory is that most of the chicken stuff comes pre-packaged these days from the bird works and most chain stores don't want to hire "real" butchers to hack and wack birds apart. Costs too much, so they don't. That leaves us with buying whole birds if we want a variety or buying several packs and doing a mix and match repackaging, so you end up with all the various parts. Sometimes in the summer I can find a "grill pack" which is 1 and 1/2 chickens cut into halves. Whoopti dooo!

 So how much time and effort did it take to cut this chickee up? About 5 minutes, very little effort. And I wasn't rushing...you don't want to rush with this instrument, you sorta want to be in a zen-like moment...just you, the cleaver and the bird. Slowly, with fingers well back of the intended cutting site, you place the cleaver on the bird and wam! I always use my index finger to feel for the joint before I place the cleaver...no point wacking through a bone if you don't need to.  

 The other test for my new baby is rough chopping. It does fine as long as you remember to push forward with the blade. Nice clean cuts...makes it easy to quarter an onion for the soup pot! And I noticed that the handle gave me more leverage than a regular knife. 

So do I think this cleaver is a worthy addition to my knife collection and does it warrant the $60 price tag? I think so...and maybe in 5 years of hacking and wacking whole birds I'll pay for it with the price of whole birds usually at least .75 cents to $1 a pound cheaper than pre-packaged parts. And when I googled "meat cleavers" I was amazed that you could spend upwards of $600 for one (27 layers of hand hammered metal, by a Samuri sword maker)! Good grief! And yes, you can spend as little as 24.95 for one as well...and you know where it is made!
Because all my knives are Henkel brand, and are 25 to 45 years old...still going strong, I feel it's worth it to buy a relatively good one. And who knows, I might find other uses for it!