We have a serious lack of good knives in our kitchen. While I possess a somewhat decent Chinese cleaver, I am still searching for the perfect santoku. With the holidays already here, I am aware that certain pieces of cutlery are missing from my collection.

For carving, I would like to find a decent electric knife, hopefully in a stainless steel or black finish. It’s an essential tool especially for carving turkeys and rib roasts. I’ve found a Hamilton Beach Classic Electric Knife with Case – Chrome (74275) available for sale at Target, which looks like it fits the bill.

I’m still shopping around for a santoku knife. Recently some conversations on Chowhound led me to discover a couple of sites for shopping fine santokus and other kitchen blade essentials: Sur La Table (which also has 2 locations in Dallas and Plano) and Japan Blades. At one point I had eyes only for the Shun knives, but there appears to be a world of Japanese knife makers to choose from. And the vast variety and utility of these Japanese knives have made me aware that no cook should be without a santoku, gyuto and a nakiri. (And how about converting those petty knives into steak knives?)

Even Henckels has their own line Japanese cutlery, called Miyabi. I found these while shopping for knife block sets…which would be an excellent value given that we are in dire need of some good steak knives.

If I had to settle, I found a decently priced, functional block set that I’m interested in purchasing made by J.A. Henckels International. While the International arm isn’t as revered as the German arm of Henckels (Zwilling), I believe the Forged Synergy 13-piece Knife Block set will satisfy any temporary needs for a kitchen knife set. It retails for around $140.