"I can’t understand why people are so emotional about sous vide. You seem emotional about it, too, no? :) " Possible. I try not to. Because there is no mystery and no excitement to the science of temperature control. It’s not a new invention, and it is just plain cooking with control heating. Very boring stuff. Funny it can get people very upset that I cook meat with electronic temperature control instead of poking with my fingers. Take a look below a PM I got recently in another cooking forum from a chef: [““You sir, are a belittling, know it all, think your better than everybody else, piece of trash. ------- You are ignorant, arrogant, and aren't worth a peas weight in food knowledge. Your a foodie hipster.-------Congratulations on your little home cooking competition wins. Your dishes look atrocious and wouldn't even be found and on a 1M star menu. Your technique and style bogus and outrageous.------- Get lost on your other forum where immersion circulators and SV are all buzz. Hippie. Good day sir.”] “I think any negative emotions are in part a reaction to the seeming fanatacism of some. “ Frankly, I don’t know which side is more fanatic. Each time all I said my dinner was cooked sous vide, a ton of people will immediately blame me for taking over the cooking world. “You're right, meat isn't smart, on the inside it does not know what the external heat source is. BUT, meat reacts differently to heat over time, hence so much discussion about cooking times. So while technically it may be true that you cannot overcook a steak in a SV bath, I'm here to say that in my experience a naturally "good" steak starts to go south with times stretching past what is needed to bring the core to temp.” And you are not wrong in your statement above. But why would anyone cook a steak longer than necessary? SV does not mean long cooking. It means by controlling precise temperature, if the kind of meat requires longer cooking time, you will not be over cooking it in the SV method. “An aside, the notion of saving money because the steak retains more water doesn't fly with me. Water is cheap. I don't think you can value the water loss at $10/lb or $20/lb or whatever. You're not going to be more full because you ingested a tablespoon or two of water. The question really becomes whether the water retention is beneficial to the final cooked product.” I am very confused. I hope you are not saying meat shrinkage is not a bad thing to meat texture. “In the case of our modern day pork chop, I'll say yes. In the case of a prime steak, I'm not sure. “ When you have a nice prime steak, SV will not take any longer than other cooking methods. But tell me do you have a way to cook London Broil into tender steak using any normal method? I am not talking about cutting the meat thinly across grain kind of tender, I am talking about tender as in butter tender. Well, that takes me 48 hours in the SV cooker. Do you have a way to cook brisket medium (cheap select grade, not prime) fork tender ? I just had pulled brisket tonight, fork tender. It took 72 hours. Good luck with you steaks. A billion people have enjoyed a billion steaks cooked the normal way. No doubt another billion for sure will be done the same way and enjoyed the same way. dcarch

There are good recommendations here, but, whatever you get, buy a sharpening stone and learn how to use it. I don't care what anyone says, good quality knives will require periodic sharpening. It's not enough to just use the "sharpening" steel that comes with most sets...that only straightens the edge at the microscopic level. Real sharpening must still be done occasionally. Here is a link that might be useful: Knife Sharpening

Rosesinny--I think the idea of having to sharpen the Fusionwood blades one scallop at a time would nix them for me--even though the inner part of those scallops might not dull in my lifetime! It might also be hard to sharpen the point and handle ends of the blades which are straight but short. They are striking knives, though. (No pun intended!) Thank you for the link to the micarta handled knives. Some of the micarta handles are pretty attractive, though in steak knives, I think real wood is what I want. But that may change. Annie-- Recently I had to replace the paring knife I must have thrown out in the garbage. At our local Williams Sonoma and cutlery store I handled both Wusthof and Henckels in a wide range of prices and styles. And quality. Just the name didn't indicate as much as I expected. I finally chose a Shun Kaji which I love using. Incidentally, careful reading of the eBay listings shows that at least some of the cheaper listings for Wusthof knives which look like such a good deal are for seconds. Some of the handles clearly show splits and rough spots. I'm still looking for WHERE to buy once I decide WHAT to buy. Any suggestions? Thanks everyone for all the helpful info.

Visit one of the Knife forums and you'll realize there are many knives better than Gerber. http://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/forum.php?s=49fd145075eff46fde0788c9835cf2de Although you don't need anything better for steak. Just properly sharpening a straight bladed knife would be enough. Here's a Chinese knock-off of an excellent sharpener(patent expired). https://www.amazon.com/Sharpener-Professional-Sharpening-Fix-angle-III/dp/B015XKSNS2/ref=sr_1_18?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1477982940&sr=1-18&keywords=edge+pro+knife+sharpener