It wasn't like I went to college and decided I wanted to start a knife company. It was kind of a roundabout thing. I'm half-Chinese, but I grew up in South Florida in the 80s. I went to a private school that was pretty much all well-off white kids and myself. Both of my parents are immigrants—my dad is from England and my mom is from Hong Kong. I didn't have any American anchor in my house, and having that half-Asian side was a challenge. People always pick on whoever is different. After I left high school, I decided I wanted to be somewhere that was the complete opposite of that experience, so I went up to Oberlin College—a very multicultural, liberal environment. Oberlin was kind of the beginning of realizing that I wasn't a second-class citizen.After college, I lived in London and then Japan—that's where I began working for another company that made Japanese knives and kitchenware. I didn't have any previous restaurant experience. It wasn't that I always loved knives growing up—nothing like that. But I do love food and Asian food is my soul food, 100 percent. Pork dumplings: That's what I want to eat when I need comfort food.I realized that there was a lot of Japanese craftsmanship going on in the knife world that wasn't being represented outside of Japan. In a lot of ways, it's becoming a lost art—a lot of blacksmiths are getting older, and there aren't a ton of younger blacksmiths coming up to replace them. I learned about knives by working in the industry, handling a lot of knives and seeing and using a lot of different knives, speaking with chefs, and testing knives as well—cooking with them and seeing how they feel. There's no set blueprint, but in a lot of ways, I can tell when I pick up a knife if it's going to be a possibility right away: the blade geometry, what type of metal it's made of, how it feels, the finish on the knife. So usually there's a pretty strong "no" right away, or if it feels like a "yes," we'll test it.Continue reading on MUNCHIES
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