The wood on every Sakai Kyuba handle sat in a peat bog for 2,500 years, darkening and hardening since before Rome. Here’s how bog oak forms.
Lukas Meyer
Lukas is the gear-minded one: care, storage, whetstone grits and the unglamorous maintenance that keeps a good knife good. If it involves keeping an edge alive, he's probably written about it.
Best Father’s Day Gifts Cooking Dads
Skip the knife block for a magnetic strip, add a mortar for his spice blends: ten gift ideas for the dad who actually cooks.
How to Kintsugi: 3 Step DIY Tutorial
Broken a favourite mug? Mend it with gold instead of hiding the crack. Three steps with the Minowa kit, from fitting the pieces to the final join.
12 Cooking Tips You’d Wish You Learnt Sooner
Preheat the pan and your roast veg never need flipping. Twelve small habits like that, including an egg-yolk wash and a warm knife for cake.
Valentine’s Day Ideas For Quarantine
Cook the same meal over Zoom, build a blanket-fort cinema, or graze a charcuterie board all day: ten ways to spend Valentine’s at home.
Wooden Handles: Maple Burl
What turns soft maple into a handle that shrugs off water? Resin forced deep under pressure, leaving the burl dense, tough and waterproof.
How To Organise Your Fridge: Zero Waste
Best-before is a suggestion; expiry is the one to obey, and leftovers go after four days. A step-by-step fridge reset that cuts food waste.
10 Christmas Gift Ideas For Him (Inspired By Japan)
Sake, a knife set forged by the same methods as 1,000-year-old katanas, a sushi kit and brass chopsticks. Ten Japan-inspired gifts for him.
Secrets Of Japanese Business Etiquette: Business Attire
A black suit with a white shirt reads as funeral attire in Japan. Seasonal suit colours, winter coats, and separate rules for men and women.
How To Sharpen Kitchen Knives?
Electric pull-through, manual sharpener or whetstone: which one your knives actually want, plus serrated edges, over-sharpening and smart storage.
101 On Choosing a Quality Knife Set (With Focus on Japanese Craftsmanship)
You don’t need a twelve-knife block. Why three well-made blades cover almost everything, and how a Japanese 12-15 degree edge differs from a Western one.
How to Choose A Chef’s Knife
One chef owns around 100 knives but reaches for the same 7-to-9-inch blade for most jobs. What to weigh up before you buy your one workhorse.
An Intro To Slow Living – Tips And Advice
It started with Carlo Petrini’s Slow Food in 1980s Italy, an antidote to gulping lunch at your desk. Consuming less, and actually noticing the day.
This Japanese Method Releases Stress In 5 Minutes
Thumb for worry, index for fear, middle for anger. Hold each finger 30 seconds and this Japanese technique settles you in under five minutes.
Secrets Of Japanese Business Etiquette: Avoid Insulting A Japanese
Working with conservative Japanese blacksmiths was a culture clash for us. How meetings run, and why the business-card exchange is near-sacred.
Japan’s Female Samurai Who Feared Nothing: Onna-Bugeisha
They trained with the naginata and fought to the same standard as the men. Meet Empress Jingu, who led a campaign into Korea, and Tomoe Gozen.
Japanese Embroidery And Japanese Kimono Symbol Meanings
Every motif on a kimono says something. Nihon shishu embroidery dates back 1,600 years to the Kofun period, and its patterns carry coded meaning.
This Is How We Roll: How To Cut Fish And Veggies For Sushi Like A Pro
Index finger along the spine, one smooth pull toward you: slicing fish with a yanagiba, from the straight hira giri to the angled sogi giri.
Ikigai – Japanese Secret To A Long And A Happy Life
In Ogimi, a village of 3,000 with the world’s longest-lived residents, ikigai sits where what you love, what you’re good at and what matters overlap.
Danshari – Decluttering For A Happier Life
Fumio Sasaki owns 150 things and lives in 30 square metres. Danshari is Japanese decluttering measured by how your stuff makes you feel.
Do Magnetic Knife Holders Damage Your Knives?
No, a magnet won’t ruin a well-kept blade. The real harm comes from cheap racks that drag your edge across a bare metal face.
Japanese Minimalism: What Japan Can Teach You About Living Simply
Why do Japanese and Scandinavian interiors look so alike? Six lessons on simple living, built around three materials: wood, stone and steel.
Aomori Hiba: The Tree Of Life
A house of hiba keeps mosquitoes out for three years, the saying goes; this cypress grows 250 years and carries hinokitiol, a compound that repels insects.
How To Kintsugi DYI – Japanese Art Of Kintsukuroi Repair
No glue, no filler: urushi lacquer and real gold powder bond broken pottery, and the golden seam is meant to stay imperfect because that flaw is the point.
Guide: Kitchen Knife Handle Types And Materials
Most buyers obsess over the steel, but the handle carries the knife: cocobolo, ebony and rosewood compared, plus why soft woods fail in a wet kitchen.
Tobacco, Portuguese & The Japanese Knives: The History Of Sakai Knives
Portuguese traders brought tobacco to Sakai in 1543, and the knives farmers needed to cut the leaves became the cooking blades the town is famous for.
How To Mount A Blade To A Knife Handle?
Tape the edge, wear the glasses, mind the dust: fitting a handle to a razor-sharp Japanese blade, plus a simple antler mount borrowed from hunting knives.
Top 25 Kitchen Tricks That Will Help Any Aspiring Cook
Run a pizza wheel through dough, drop a bread slice in with clumped brown sugar, microwave a lemon for 30 seconds: 25 fixes for everyday kitchen snags.
What’s The Difference Between German Vs. Japanese Knives?
One holds a near-scalpel edge but will rust; the other shrugs off abuse. It comes down to Rockwell hardness, high 50s against mid 60s.
The Difference Between A Single And A Double Bevel Blade
Western blades meet in the middle at roughly 20 degrees; most Japanese knives are ground on one side only. What that single bevel buys you, and where it doesn’t.