Season 1 · Stop 4 of 10 · The Old Mill · Apprentice level: Prep Cook · New friend: Mo the muskrat
Every Monday the Riverbank Inn sends a boat downriver for supplies. This week Chef Tamás took Pippa and me along. Our first stop was the Old Mill, where Mo the muskrat grinds the inn’s flour and sharpens half the knives on the river.
I’ll be honest: I didn’t think I needed him. My teeth sharpen themselves every time I chew, so I assumed my new knife would do the same. Three weeks of chopping had proved me wrong. That morning I’d tried to slice a tomato, and the knife just sat on top of it, like a paw on a balloon.
Mo took one look at my knife and sighed the sigh of a muskrat who has seen everything. “When did you last hone it?”
“Hone?”
He handed me a long white rod. My first strokes sounded like a beaver gnawing a fence post. “Lighter,” said Mo. “You’re not felling a tree.” Five gentle strokes per side, and the knife slid through the tomato like it was apologizing.
Chef Tamás watched from the doorway. “Honing straightens the edge,” he said. “Sharpening makes a new one. You’ll need both. Knives don’t grow back, Gerzsi.”
Pippa, meanwhile, had sharpened nothing and eaten four of Mo’s flour biscuits. Everybody has their talents.
Chef Tamás’s real lesson: At work the knife gets honed on a steel before every single use. Real sharpening on a whetstone happens about once a month, and some knives go to a professional sharpening service. For home cooks: hone often, and when the knife is truly dull, take it to a professional instead of experimenting on it.
🎒 Gear from this adventure
- Idahone Fine Ceramic Rod, 12″: Mo’s white rod; ATK’s Best Buy honing rod (about $38)
- AccuSharp Gourmet 15°: ATK’s Best Buy sharpener (about $15)
- Chef’sChoice Pronto 463: ATK’s winner for 15° knives (about $50)
The full, sourced guide: How to keep a kitchen knife sharp. Prices checked October 2026. Affiliate links: how we make money.
Gerzsi and his friends are made up. Chef Tamás and his lessons are real.
