One of the fun perks of doing a food blog is the occasional opportunity to try out new products, be they food samples, spices, or even kitchen tools. So I was very excited when I was asked by New West KnifeWorks if I’d be interested in trying out one of their knives from the Fusionwood line: the Petty. I’d seen these same knives featured in a recent issue of Saveur magazine, and thought they looked pretty cool, and from the writeup, they sounded perfectly functional as well.

A few days after our initial correspondence, our knife arrived in the mail. (Isn’t it always exciting when a package arrives at your doorstep? It’s a little like Christmas.) There was a bit of reading material sent along with the knife, including a history of the company, their philosophy, etc., and I liked the fact that they encourage knife owners to send in the knives once in a while for a free “tune up” — resharpening and repolishing.  But enough reading — I wanted to play with the new knife!

The Petty is shipped with a leather sheath to protect the blade, and obviously your fingers — this thing is extremely sharp!  After a few minutes of handling the knife, and using it to cut some veggies (Is there anything better than using a new sharp knife to cut a tomato?) I unfortunately came to the conclusion that it was a bit small for my hands — perhaps I’m just used to the grip I use on my chef knife, but I was continually hitting my knuckles on the cutting board.  I asked Lisa to come in and give it a try, and lo and behold, she loved it.  It was a perfect fit for her smaller hands, and she pretty much immediately declared the knife as “hers”.  Now whenever Lisa is cooking in the kitchen, she’s using the Petty — she even brought it with her on a weekend trip to a mountain cabin a few weeks ago.

For me, I’ll be sticking with my beat-up chef’s knife (and one day checking out one of New West’s chef knives), but the Petty has become Lisa’s everyday knife. The cutting performance is great, and it just. looks. cool.  Check them out here.