Knife Skills Unlocked: Expert Tips for Sharper, Safer Kitchen Tools

Host Cindy Peterson and Darian Tomas, co-founder of a unique knife-sharpening solution, dig into the real-life frustrations home cooks face with their kitchen tools — and learn some new vocabulary while they're at it! 

From the dilemma of never using prized chef’s knives out of fear of ruining them, to common mistakes we make when storing and sharpening knives, Darian shares his journey from a small Canadian town to developing an accessible product designed for busy families. 

Together, they cover everything from the science of blade angles and the pitfalls of glass and stainless steel cutting boards, to the “relationship” we each have with our favorite kitchen knives. 

Whether you’re a pro or just trying to slice a tomato without frustration, this episode is full of practical tips to help you feel more confident — and a little more joyful — in the kitchen.

Products featured in this episode:

CINQ Rolling Knife Sharpener

For more thoughtfully curated joy, check out berryandbasil.com and follow the store for all the latest products, events and sales at @theberrybasil. 

Follow the show at @joycuratedpodcast and make sure and subscribe to us on the podcast app of your choice. It helps us grow and share the story of all the brands we love. 

For more thoughtfully curated joy, check out berryandbasil.com and follow the store for all the latest products, events and sales at @theberrybasil

Follow the show at @joycuratedpodcast (Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok) and make sure to subscribe to us on the podcast app of your choice. It helps us grow and share the story of all the brands we love. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

I never used my nice knives. They were showpieces. And one day I was just like, this is ridiculous. I'm using cheap, the cheapest knives in my drawer every day as workhorses. And I realized I wasn't using my nice knives because I didn't want the burden of having to sharpen them. I was worried I would ruin them. And then I was worried if I brought somewhere, that's an expense, but also they might ruin them. And so I started thinking that there you know has to be a better way. There has to be a way that I can do this at home without learning how to whetstone. I've got two small kids, they don't let me take an hour to sharpen knives.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Welcome back to Joy Curated, and welcome to today's episode of Cindy's Vocabulary and Spelling Corner. Today we're talking with Darian Thomas with Sync. That's spelled C-I-N-Q, if you're wondering, about tips on keeping your knife sharp and why that obviously matters in your kitchen. I'm also realizing I forgot to ask Darien how they came up with that very cool name. I think we're gonna have to get back to that at some point. So as we were recording this conversation, I realized I had a new vocabulary word of the day, and that word is strap. Not to be confused with strap, which apparently is what I've been confidently calling it this entire time. The packaging very clearly says strap. So I'm not exactly sure what I was thinking, but by the end of this episode, you're going to know exactly what it is and why it matters. Thanks for joining us. Let's get started. All right. So, Darien, tell me a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Great. Yeah, I am from Northern Ontario in Canada, small town. Grew up with two brothers, one sister, mom and dad. All my family still lives there and not my hometown. Went to school for international business, where I met my co-founder on the first day. He sat beside me and said, uh, can I stay here? And been inseparable ever since. That was in Niagara Falls. And then in 2013, I moved out to Edmonton, Alberta. Been here ever since. My wife joined me in 2013. And we have I have two small kids, uh a six-year-old and a four-year-old boy.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Perfect. Tell me about your small town. House when you say small town.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Small steel town. But the closest other town is three hours away. Toronto is eight hours away. So like remote, but not tiny, but yeah, remote.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Yeah, perfect. Well, I laugh because small town when I was like, okay, I bet it's about 50,000, 60,000. So Chamberlain, uh, where our store is, is 2900.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

That that's a small town.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

That's a small town. So no, I love it. It's all the perspective of it. Okay. So tell me about how did the idea of sync, how did that begin?

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Yeah. Really, you know, the the cliched story of there's gotta be a better way, you know, have a problem myself. So I found a solution. So for a number of years, I was in housewares sales distribution. I was working with some amazing brands, European, American, and really got into it. I've always loved to cook. I used to help my mom bake. My mom was a prolific baker back when I was young. So I always loved liked being in the kitchen and cooking and never thought of being in housewares. I was in tech for a long time. And then got into housewares, really loved it, spent time in there, and you know, grew a collection of fantastic product. I've got copper cookware, I've got beautiful knives. And the cookware, okay, I'd hear, I'd wear, use it here and there. The knives, I never used my nice knives. They were showpieces. And one day I was just like, this is ridiculous. I'm I'm using you know, cheap, the cheapest knives in my drawer every day as workhorses. And I realized I wasn't using my nice knives because I didn't want the burden of having to sharpen them. I was worried I would ruin them. And then I was worried if I brought somewhere, that's an expense, but also they might ruin them. And so I started thinking that there you know has to be a better way. There has to be a way that I can do this at home without learning how to whetstone. I've got two small kids, they don't let me take an hour to sharpen knives, and and better than a pull-through. And so started looking out out there, and the concept of rolling knife sharpeners has been around for a little while. But I said, like, I've got I've got a diverse set of knives here with all different angles, and the resonating theory of existing rolling knife sharpeners, where you take Asian knives and you sharpen them at 15, and you take Western knives and you sharpen them at 20 degrees. And I said, I've got some that are 16, some that are 10, some that are 25. How does this make any sense to change the angle of my knife? It does seem like the right way to do it, but it doesn't seem accurate. And if I want to precisely uh sharpen my knives, there's got to be an actually precise way to do it. And so I was speaking with my co-founder, Spencer, who we've been longtime friends. He has started and scaled businesses in the health tech space. And he said, well, we just make one. And you know, I've I've dabbled in entrepreneurship, but never thought of it as a real career or avenue to create a product. And through a lot of research and development with Spencer, we designed the five sides, the five angles that we wanted to support. And really it came down to me wanting to be able to sharpen my knives better or confidently without the intimidation or or burden of someone else sharpening them, me worrying about work ruining them. And then we just got started.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

You know, I always say so many products have come out from solving a problem and creating, you know, just a solution for something that bothers us. But obviously, if it bothers us, if it if it's an issue for us, it bothers, you know, how many other people. So uh you said you you never used your great knives. So how often would you sharpen your mediocre knives prior to sync?

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Yeah, at the time I was sharpening them probably every once a month, I would say. Like I have a range of of really cheap knives with soft steel. And if I'd frustrate through a tomato, squishing it um or sawing at it, trying to sh to cut a tomato. And I'd sharpen it every month because you like you just work through it. You figure it out, you'd like push a little harder, use the tip or the heel to start the cut, and then you get through it. And so then you put it back in the drawer and you don't think about it until the next time you go to cook, and then you are still squashing that tomato, and you go, okay, maybe this time I'll sharpen it. So yeah, it was probably about once a month, which is, I think, way more than the average person probably.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

I was gonna say, because you know, I think it seems overwhelming, and you're right. We just get so used to it, and then we just become, I guess, numbed to what it feels like to have a sharp knife because we just aren't used to it. So what about kind of the obviously they always say the most dangerous knife in the drawer is the dullest? You know, you described how we just adjust the where we're cutting on the tomato to get through, and then we just kind of figure it out. But I think we just get known to that. We even realizing that our knives are dull. So with your knives and kind of the again, the mediocre knives. At what point with the softer steel do you notice, okay, I'm gonna need to upgrade, or this knife just isn't going to be able to be sharpened like it needs to be?

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Yeah. Um, I think we all, you know, we pushed through, we figured out, and you know, with a tomato, we're we're uniquely aware to it not being sharp enough. But if you're chopping uh a carrot, there's not that sense of, oh, this isn't sharp. So chopping up a carrot, just use force and then okay, I'll just get through it. It's every time you go to make that sandwich and you're slicing a tomato and it's frustrating again and it's not it's not slicing. And so for me, it was always when the tomato or something like that came out. If I'm cutting grapes for my son, even then, you know, oh, why am I squishing? Oh, because it's not sharp. It would probably be for me, like honestly, like three months of going, oh yeah, it's been a month since I sharpened, I should do this again. With those knives, I started going like, I gotta do something more and something better, because it either has to last longer or I've got to be able to sharpen faster or more frequently.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Let's kind of go back to how we we treat our knives in general. What do you think one of the worst things do we generally do as a home cook to damage our knives?

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Probably the worst thing is throw them in a dishwasher. I know I've done it before before really realizing that it is a really horrible place and really bad environment in a dishwasher. It's it's abrasive, it's jostling, there's hot temp changes. It's a horrible place for a knife, but you don't realize it because it comes out and if it was dull before, it's still dull. That's probably the worst thing. And then keeping them in a drawer that is the same every time you open it, they slide around, bump in a little bit. And what you know, going through working in housewares, working with amazing knife manufacturers, realizing that that edge is so fine that just those slight bumps um and dings and and shuffles can make it dull, and over time it'll dull until you really can't use it. Those are probably the two worst things I think people treat their knives.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

So in storage, you know, when you in the drawer, we have great a knife holder that fits in your drawer if you prefer to have it in your drawer. You know, of course, there's knife blocks, so it's up, the edges are not jostled around with other things. How do you store your knives?

SPEAKER_00 10:53

I'll be honest, some of them still in a drawer, but they are in the knife holder, so they're not jumping around bumping into other other utensils because I have a lot of knives, and so uh have to keep them somewhere. And then I also have uh we start we created a knife block because I wanted to keep my nice knives around and they're beautiful pieces, so I wanted to show them off. So you have a rotating magnetic knife block that just holds them there, and so the edge never touches anything. But I've used you know the magnetic strip on the wall, those are fantastic. Anywhere where we're not bumping edges, but I don't use knife blocks anymore because I don't I just don't buy my knives that way. And then even then, a lot of people they buy the knife block, it's great, they've got a good set of knives, but the blade, the edge goes should go up because especially if it's the angled ones, because then every time you pull your knife out, you're dragging that edge against the wood or whatever the the blocks made out of. It's it's funny that like that solution is a good solution, but it's generally used improperly. You want to be edge up rather than edge down.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Okay, so that's completely that makes total sense. If we use a knife block, that edge needs to be up to protect the block. So you know it's not yeah, you know, there's some blocks back in the day that you know it was like self-sharpening knife block. And maybe that's a little bit of a different beast, but you know, it's kind of the same concept uh of the pull-through uh knife sharpeners that I think are great.

unknown 12:30

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

But if you're off a little bit on the angle, if you know, if I'm not right at 90 degrees, or or maybe, you know, I had a gentleman come in that was a little bit shaky and he just couldn't seem to hold that straight perpendicular at 90 degrees. So bringing it out of the knife block, you know, that would be an example of that's interesting. And it's that is okay. That's a that's a huge take on how we store our knives if we use the knife block.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

It's a simple thing anyone can do if they're using a knife block is just flip those those knives over, and then that edge is protected you're pulling out on the spine, and then just storing them is not affecting the edge anymore.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Yeah, cool. What cutting board? What kind of cutting board do you prefer to use?

SPEAKER_00 13:19

My daily driver is uh very Epicurean style. I worked with a company called Combeck out of the Netherlands for a long time, and they do the recycled paper similar to Epicurean. They're generally soft on knives, but they're dishwasher safe. That's so much easier. I have walnut boards, booze boards. I I'm always cutting on wood though.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

Right. You know, in the previous episodes of the podcast, we've taught, and as kitchen store owners, when we've all gotten together, it's been like, oh my gosh, the TikTok trend of the stainless steel cutting board.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

What's your take on that?

SPEAKER_00 14:00

I can understand some of it. I don't think the experience would be very nice. But it's like growing up, my parents got into glass cutting boards. And chopping just made this loud banging sound. And so cutting on stainless would feel odd to me and sound weird. You know, wood or those, you know, recycled paper or or caficure style cutting boards, they're soft, they're nice to hold, they feel good. Yeah, I I much prefer those. But yeah, I saw the stainless steel stuff and I I I just don't like that experience of cutting on something that's super hard.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Yeah, and that's hard on our knives too. Of course, if we uh, you know, our knives are meant to be used and and the importance of the tool. And so with the sink, you know, and I love how the the holder for the okay, so how what do we call the the parts? What do you call the main roller?

SPEAKER_00 15:01

So yeah, we call that our our roller. That's uh just what we call it, and then our our magnetic base, which has the angles on on the five sides, and then there's the diamond sharpening discs and our honing disc as well as our angle finder. That's all included in the box.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

So when I'm, you know, if I have a knife that I have not sharpened for years, what disc do what grit of disc do I start with?

SPEAKER_00 15:31

I want to start with the coarsest. So in our kit, we include a 400 grit disc, which is the coarsest, then we do 1000 and then 2000. Um, it's very much like sandpaper, you'll feel the difference, but the lower the number, the bigger the grit. Um, and that's going to remove the most amount of metal. And so if I did this a couple years ago, we were hosting for Thanksgiving, and I wanted to do some nice carving, and I found I believe it was my grandmother's really old, just like 10-inch chef style knife, but it probably sat in my parents' drawer, and then it sat in my drawer for a long time, and it could not cut anything. And so I went to work on it, and you know, start with the 400, it's gonna remove the most amount of metal, so it's the most efficient at taking a really dull knife and bringing it up to sharp, and then you want to move progressively through 400, 1000, 2000 beyond.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Can you over-sharpen a knife?

SPEAKER_00 16:36

No, you can't over-sharpen it, but you can remove metal that doesn't need to be removed. So you would end up just like shortening your blade than more than you need to. Once it's sharp, it'll be sharp, and if you keep sharpening, you're just lowering that edge on the on the knife, and you're still gonna have a sharp edge, you're just gonna have less knife.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Gotcha. Okay. With of course, you know, I go through the discs, they're easy to kind of switch out. So if I have a doll knife, but if I have a kind of my everyday knife, should I, is that something where I should be sharpening them every few days? You say every month, because that's when we kind of think about it. But in a perfect world, how often should I be sharpening a knife?

SPEAKER_00 17:27

In a perfect world, we all act like chefs, and every time you remove a knife, you hone it. Every time you take that out, you realign that blade because the use of the knife is going to take that edge and just create either divots or bend it a little bit because it's cutting through something that's that's hard. So that's why you if you watch TV, those chefs, you know, they take out a knife and they do their honing on their honing rods. And if you can do that, fantastic. You're you're more comfortable with a knife than I am. So for for me, ideally, you would take out a knife and give it a quick hone, and then you're gonna start cutting. And if you notice that, hey, you're right, I haven't sharpened this in two weeks, but it's my daily driver, you're gonna start at 2000 and just remove a little bit of material to re-redo that edge and then hone it, and then you're good to go. Generally, that's the cadence I have, but if you perfect world, yeah, it would be every time you're gonna hone it.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

So if, you know, I have my sink sharpener in the drawer, threw away the box, you know, are there different videos or different things I can I can look at or read or watch to kind of help remind me how to properly sharpen the knife?

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Yeah, so we have a YouTube page, uh YouTube channel that has videos on how to use it. I feel like once you use it, you're gonna know how to use it. It's magnetically attach your knife to the base and then roll the roller alongside with either honing or sharpening disc. Yeah, and then this hopefully, the more you use it and sharpen it, the more happy you are with your knife, the better relationship you have with your knife. And you're gonna feel how it should be sharp. And if it should be sharp, sharpened every week, every other week, but you're gonna realize, like, oh, that one I pulled out of the knife block, I never sharpened and I haven't used it in six months. Maybe I'll have to go down to 400 and do it. Or that's my daily driver. I just have to hone it and I'm good to go. You shouldn't have to relearn it, it's pretty intuitive. But essentially, we want you to enjoy your cooking experience because you have a sharp knife, and that comes with a bit of a relationship that grows with the knife.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

What kind of knife should I not sharpen? Is there a knife that I yeah?

SPEAKER_00 19:53

You shouldn't sharpen a serrated knife, not with sink. Serrated knives have the teeth and the swales, the in-between, and each one of those swales has to be sharpened individually. So generally, there's a little sharpening rod that you would meticulously go through and sharpen each one. So we don't want to do that because all you'll do with a with a serrated knife and a sink is is remove the teeth, which is doing a lot of the cutting. So stay away from that. And then ceramic knives generally don't work, they're not magnetic. But a lot of people I see like hold their knife against our block to hold the proper angle and then sharpen it. It can. Diamonds are a super hard material, so it'll remove ceramic, but generally just your standard steel knives, and then anywhere from the cheap, softer knives you're gonna do more often in the expensive, you know, fancy Japanese knives that have a high rock well, you'll sharpen less.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

After we sharpen our knives, we have the leather strap. Uh, what is kind of the purpose? Do we need that leather strap? What's the purpose of that?

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Yeah, and so when we developed all these products, we realized that most people don't sharpen their knives at all. Ever. They'll throw a knife out before they sharpen it. I'll buy a new one. So we think a majority of our people will be very happy with just the sink kit. It gets you from dull knife to very sharp. But as you build that relationship with your knife, you then you then can take it a little bit further and you'll want to start refining it a bit more. So the leather strop is a micro refiner. So the grit on the leather, even though it feels soft, has some friction to it, which removes the micro burrs that are developed on the very edge of the steel. And so, much in the way the old timey barber takes the razor and straps it between every every customer, that just puts that really fine edge back on on your knife. And so with sync, a great way to finish is just a couple. passes on the leather strop on each side and that just removes the final little tiny burrs.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

So it's funny. So now I'm curious. You say strop. I said strap. You said strop. Is that a Canadian thing or are we talking about two different things? I mean I know we're talking about the same product. But yeah, is that it? That's the technical term and I've always mispronounced it.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

I think it's the technical term. It's S T R O P. And so I've always said Strop. This is probably the first time anyone's said I'm s I might be saying it differently, but you say it differently, we say it differently. It's the leather strap strop the final you know polishing piece to a knife. So I've said strop for a long time. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

Yeah I don't know that's funny. Well I if it's spelled that way that's obviously the correct way I just I guess always assumed that yeah very funny.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

All right is there anything that I have not asked that you think is super valuable or that you'd like to share yeah I think and I I talk about the relationship with knives often because that's the experience I have is you know had a cheap knife, got some nice ones and you and you build this relationship. So a lot of people start having that you know they build collections have their favorite kind one thing that we found when we started talking about edge maintenance is not many people know the edge angle of their knife and it's something that is is important to understand. It's it's not the be all end all but when we're sharpening we want to sharpen at the proper angle because the knife was generally sharpened from the factory with a certain task and angle in mind. And so if we think about you know really fancy Japanese knife a sushi knife it's generally you know single beveled so only sharpen on one side a very low angle say 10 degrees and that's because it wants to just glide right through without disrupting anything through a piece of fish. Whereas a cleaver that's supposed to bang through you know chicken bones or something has to be a bit more blunt and so it'll be you know 20 or 25 degrees a lot of people don't know that and so you know a lot of other sharpening methods don't give you options it can change the way a knife performs any knife is going to cut whether it's you know uses more force or less whether it's super precise or not but if we start building that relationship with our knives then we start understanding their proper use and then we understand why it has a certain angle. And we provide five angles in the box and a lot of people ask why because you might have some of those knives that vary from the standard you know 15 or 20 and so we've developed a uh patent pending angle finder which helps you determine which side of our base you should be sharpening on which is going to match your factory's intended use of the knife and with that edge angle.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

So when I use that angle finder I you know that's one thing that when I first started using it I thought okay I put the edge of the blade in there explain to me what I'm looking for when I put it down into each slot.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

Yeah so there's five slots they match the sides of our base they match the angles and so you start at the smallest angle which is 10 degrees you drop your knife in and what we're looking for is there's a slot and then there's a microscopic channel and then there's a circle. So essentially we're trying to get the edge of the knife the very very tip which is microscopic so helpful to have good eyes drop it in there and what we're trying to do is reach the circle without entering it. And so you start at 10 and if it doesn't reach the circle move on to the next one and keep going until it just touches that circle. We don't want to enter the circle that means the angle would be too wide but we just want to kiss the just the edge of that circle with our edge so that it best matches what was intended for the knife. How long did it take you guys to kind of develop you know the things like the angle finder uh you know we had these angles how long did it take you guys to kind of figure out all right let's make this an easy way for people to figure out which angle they need to sharpen to uh it took us a while it was a month of design work in trying to do that and then a few more months of manufacturing production testing because to get down to something that is going to measure the edge of a knife is it's very hard. So we went through I think it was three different manufacturing techniques that could cut small enough and precise enough to match the edge of a knife and actually do it reliably. And so we it was probably six months of design and testing before we came out with something that we loved and then we even changed it after that because we went from a pentagonal disc of steel to a rectangle because we also wanted it to serve a use as uh a small knife bump stall so that you could prop your knife up on the base uh without it shifting lower because we wanted to make sure that had more value than just a test piece that you were going to use once and you know the knife angle and then you move on. Yeah we wanted to give it a bit more use.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Alright so explain to me what that second use is. So you're you're propping your knife up blade up on the countertop to store it. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

So a standard knife generally the edge if its spine is on the table against the block the edge will be above the top of the base which means the roller can hit that instead of the base. A smaller knife much shorter half an inch of blade if it's attached to our angle on the block it can sometimes be lower than it is needed to for the roller to to sharpen the edge. And that's because it lowers down and it won't be above the top of the base. And so the angle finder can magnetically attach underneath it and then just make sure that the blade never goes below the top of the base.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Okay. Okay. Well that you know because I always just you know I store my angle finder on there I guess I've never really thought about needing it for some of my you know my smaller knives. So yeah that's something I I hadn't realized. And it's one of those things you know you think oh I I can figure this out I don't need to read the instructions but I think those that's when you miss some of those hidden gems of of the multipurpose. So that's that's pretty cool. Darien thank you for joining me today and for all of your insights on knife maintenance. This is one of those conversations that really does make me feel more confident in my kitchen that I am not going to mess up my knives. We'll link to the sink sharpener in the show notes if you are interested in learning more and maybe adding a strop to your cart as well as your vocabulary while you're at it. As always you can find us at Barry and Basil in beautiful downtown Chamberlain, South Dakota or online at berryandbasil.com. Be sure to follow along with Joy Curated and Barry and Basil on socials for more conversations like this. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time