For inside the house, I have a set of Wusthof Grand Prix II knives which I love. They are comfortable, balanced, and they hold an edge as well as any stainless steel knife I've had. If I had it to do over again, the only thing I would do differently is look at the Ikon series, for aesthetics. I keep them on magnet bars which I stained to match my cabinets and mounted to them. I love it. Don't think I'll ever use a knife block again. In November I needed a carving set and didn't really want the same thing I have. I looked at the Forschner Forged Professional carving set. I really liked the shape and read good reviews of it, but couldn't find any one who stocked it locally. I decided in stead to buy a Shun carving set, but before I could pick it up, I was told I was crazy to spend that much on a knife, so I didn't get anything
Point of the story, Wusthof, good. Shun, Really Good, but expensive. Forschner, Looks good, but is actually more expensive than Wusthof for 8 piece block on Amazon!
For outside the house (Camping, comps, etc) I have a set of white handle, Dexter-Russell (ish), food service knives that I picked up mostly at Sam's club. Forschner also has a line of similar quality knives (Fibrox). These are blah. Not as balanced, not as comfortable, but they do sharpen like a razor. These are great though because I don't care what happens to them. I transport these in a knife roll, but am considering getting a form of portable magnet bar.
By far I use my chef's knife more than any other. It serves primary duty slicing and dicing veggies. For slicing meats, it splits even time with my santoku and boning/utility knife. If I had to limit myself to three knifes, I would probably keep my 8" Chef's knife, 6" utility/wide boning knife, and my 3.5" paring knife. I like my other knives, but those do the most for me. A thin blade boning knife is nice, and would be more fourth, but I can live without it. It would also be hard to justify not having my scalloped utility knife. Of the them all, if I could only have one, it would be the 6" utility knife. I use it the least, but it's the most versatile. As it turns out, Wusthof has a Grand Prix II starter set which includes exactly these three knives for a really good price. Forschner has a couple of starter kits: One with the 8" carver in stead of 6", and one without that at all. In either case, the Forschner set is more expensive than the Wusthof. I think Forschner is good, but I don't think *I* would pay more for it than comparable Wusthof, but that's me.
dmp
