Experience Precision Cutting With The HORL Rolling Knife Sharpener
- Steve Fiore
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
As a child of the 80’s, I am way too familiar with the Ginsu knife commercial (video is linked below). Do you remember it?
The Ginsu commercials were all over the TV and it was fascinating to watch as a kid. These knives were so sharp, they cut through tin cans as well as tomatoes with ease. What they were playing up is your frustration that your knives weren’t sharp and could barely cut through an over easy egg.
When I was a kid, and I was a bit embarrassed to share that up until recently, there were only three options for dealing with dull knives. You lived with it, you went to a professional to sharpen it, or you bought a new one. I think most people either just lived with it or wound up buying a new one.
Regardless of your knife, don't forget to leverage a great wood cutting board to protect your blade from prematurely dulling.
Summertime Mistakes
When I was in high school, probably around the age of 17, I saw an advertisement in the newspaper for a part-time summer job. I remember it vividly. I drove up to a small office building in Edison, NJ and attended an informational session about Cutco Knives. These knives promised something very similar to Ginsu in that they were sharp and you needed the entire set that cost at least a few hundred dollars (maybe more but my memory is a bit fuzzy on this one). I was so excited about it and all I had to do was pay $25 to get started and they handed me a set to go sell.
The Rooted & Refined Living Expert Tip:
"With a sharp knife, it just glides through the food. Sharpen your knives regularly to experience the feeling of cutting through your food like it's a hot knife on soft butter."
I went home and shared the “new job” with my mom and stepdad, Bill, and they shared that while it was probably legitimate, this was not something that I should be pursuing. The selling premise was that you would have to sell directly to family and friends of family… of which they weren’t keen on me pushing these expensive knives onto our family and friends. The concept is very similar to selling life insurance.
Later that day, I took a trip back to the Cutco office and returned the knives and got my money back. Again, my memory is a bit fuzzy, but it is possible my mom or Bill called the Cutco sales manager or wrote a letter explaining I was 17 and this was not something I should be participating in (I wonder if my mom remembers this story).
Coincidently, my college roommate of three years, Bill, sold Cutco knives during one of the summer breaks and was wildly successful.
My New Knife Set
When Mary Beth and I got married (now 27 years ago), we had a knife set on our registry. For about 20 of those years, we had the same set. I never really thought much about sharpening it as I just learned to live with dull knives. We each had our own chef’s knife, and the set came with a few other smaller knives, along with some steak knives. Over the years, on Mary Beth’s trips up to Maine with her mom, they purchased a few other serrated knives that we would use for cutting tomatoes and other soft items that our original set couldn’t cut.
It wasn’t until about 7 or 8 years ago that we saw a vendor at a farmers market stand offering to sharpen knives. We started talking about it with one of our neighbors and he offered to do it the next time we saw him as he used his belt sander in his basement. Our newly sharpened knives gave us a new lease on our existing set for a few years.
The test that I was fascinated by was our newly sharpened knives could now cut through tomatoes with relative ease.
All was good until two things happened. Mary Beth’s knife handle broke and I decided it was time for me to get a new chef’s knife. As I have shared in previous posts, I am not happy with my current chef’s knife, so I won’t be posting a recommendation about it (It cuts but I just don’t like the feel of it).
Over the course of a few months, we both had new knives and they were sharp and all was good. Over time, I realized that I should expect more from my knives and they should cut tomatoes with no effort at all. When they started to get dull, I brought up the conversation to our son Michael and he shared that from the initial research he did, HORL was the best option.
HORL Rolling Knife Sharpener
I did a bunch of research on the topic of knife sharpening as there are a few different kinds including whetstone, which seemed a bit more complicated than the effort I wanted to expend. I then looked at HORL Rolling Knife Sharpener and did some research going to a few of the standard product review sites. The feedback was all the same, regardless of the site. Whetstone is a good option if you are more of a professional chef or if you want precise control, but if you want chef quality without the effort, HORL is the way to go. As I dug into my research, there were a lot of lookalike options to HORL but the reviews, both written and via YouTube, were that the cheaper versions don’t glide as nice and didn’t sharpen as quickly and efficiently.
The great thing about HORL is it’s small, packed away under my cabinet, and only needs to come up every 6-12 months (I am sure there are specific recommendations as to when to sharpen your knife, but I use my tomato test. If my knife starts to struggle to cut the tomato or my tomato gets smushed in anyway by my knife, it’s time to sharpen it. By the way, I use my chef’s knife to cut everything now including very small grape tomatoes.
If you are in the market for a knife sharpener, I highly recommend HORL. It is simple to use, offers two “settings” of 15 degrees (Japanese knives) and 20 degrees (American knives) based on your knife origin, which attaches via magnet to the knife. It offers a diamond cut circular end that just rolls along the knife to sharpen. The other side is used to just smooth out any rougher edges.
The paper test. Your knife is sharpened when you take a clean sheet of copy/printer paper and hold it with one hand and then cut through it. If it cuts with a sharp, clean cut of the paper, you are good to go.
Two other key points to know, if you aren’t familiar already. First, a dull knife is more dangerous to cut food than a sharp knife due to the additional effort you need to place in cutting, leading to more injuries. Second, most (if not all) professional chefs will recommend that if you are going to spend any money on a kitchen utensil, it should be a good chef’s knife. Many will say you don’t need any other knives. To that end, I don’t use the serrated knives anymore to cut tomatoes, only my HORL sharpened chef’s knife.
Last part of the story. My mom never really liked to cook although I thought she was a good cook. She often complained and after I moved out, she didn’t cook or entertain like she used to. Mary Beth and I thought it would be a great idea about 25 years ago to get my mom and Bill a new set of knives as we liked our new set from our wedding. Instead of buying them a good chef’s set, we got a bunch of serrated chef’s knives which were a flop of a gift. Serrated chef’s knives just don’t cut it😊
Start Your Own Knife Sharpening Sensory Experience
If you have a passion for cooking food at home, having a sharp knife is a requirement and it will elevate your sensory experience in the cooking process. Try it today and let me know your thoughts in the comments!
For Transparency: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products I truly love and use myself.
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