Along with everything else, impeccable knife skills.

Adrenaline rushes aren't dangerous if they're done properly. Personally I'm going to make sure my little boy is exposed to plenty of 'scary' things as he grows up so he can learn about risk and how to assess/handle it properly.

I saw a great documentary about this with Danny MacAskill called Daredevils: Life On The Edge. It looked at adrenaline junkies and investigated why they do what they do. At the end of the program there's a really nice choreographed sequence with MacAskill and various others performing tricks as they descend down the step into an underground station in London, and through the station itself.

The sequence was directed by a hollywood stunt specialist who has worked with all the top guys in big blockbuster movies and he said that the stuntmen and women, far from what most people think, are the least likely people in the world to do something risky. There are two parts to this. Firstly they've learned how to be very good at assessing risk. They understand extremely well what makes something safe or risky. They've had a lot of experience and have learned from it.

Secondly they are very highly skilled. What would be very risky for us to do isn't for them because they have the training to perform safely. We only think what they're doing is dangerous because we ourselves would be very likely to be hurt doing it.

If you insulate a kid from risky experiences you deny them the chance to learn in a controlled environment. It's like teaching a kid to cook. If you look after them really well and provide everything they need and cook them fantastic nutritious meals every day until they leave home they'll love you immensely for it. Then they'll move out, try to look after themselves and end up burning the house down with a pan fire or cut the end of their finger off with a knife or shave the skin off their hand with a grater.

Teach a kid how to use a sharp knife safely and how to sharpen it and keep it keen and they'll be safe for the rest of their life. Kids should be able to use sharp knives, under strict supervision of course, to learn the safe way of doing it. They should be doing 'dangerous' things to learn to do them safely. Part of the learning process is probably going to hurt. They may well get a few cuts before they get their knife skills up to scratch, but if they're in a controlled environment these should be small compared to the injuries that happen when someone with no idea about knives forces a blunt one through something tough.

As for adrenaline sports, the more they fall over the better they learn to balance. If this kid goes on a bit of a bigger slide and gets thrown off in the corners it's going to hurt, but it's not going to kill him. He'll find his limits and respect them more.

I'd rather my kid makes his mistakes while I'm still around to clear up the mess

I own about 15 kitchen knives, none of which cost more than roughly $10 individually -- and most under $5 or so. I don't have very well developed knife skills, so I am fairly hard on knives (as eluded to in the video). But, replacing a $5-$10 knife when I mistreat it won't break the bank.

I'm sure my slow, clumsy cutting would make any professional chef weep or facepalm, but I am not an overpriced restaurant worried about the judgements of strangers. And even my meager skills are plenty adequate enough to reduce any food item that I purchase into smaller, bite-sized pieces of food item. Plus I've never lopped off a finger or cut myself bad enough to require stitches or medical attention or anything.

So, I'm happy enough with my cheapo knives and subpar (but adequate) skills in using them. The video does provide good general advice though!

Angelina Jolie's butterfly knife skills has been added as a related post - related requested by kulpims on that post.

Girl showing off her knife skills has been added as a related post - related requested by kulpims.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Girl-showing-off-her-knife-skills

Tags for this video have been changed from 'russian, man, bread, cut, slice, loaf, knife' to 'russian, man, bread, cut, slice, loaf, knife, skills' - edited by SlipperyPete

Morimoto shows off his knife, knife skills and cuts some daikons:
http://videosift.com/video/Spices-of-Life-Morimoto-Samurai-or-Chef

http://videosift.com/video/Chef-Martin-Yan-breaks-down-a-chicken-in-18-seconds
Chef Martin Yan shows off his knife skills (nice cutting board!)

Tags for this video have been changed from 'food art, knife skills, thailand, cuisine, math apparently' to 'food art, knife skills, shanghai, cuisine, math apparently' - edited by berticus

Let's see... Choggie's stock question is definitely worth an entire article. The pros and cons of homemade stock, what to look for and what to avoid pre-made stock, and a discussion of the necessity or not of stocks in the home. Bottom line for me is that I hate canned stock, and I make homemade stocks very rarely.


Karaidl
Microwaving Turkey is a pretty dubious idea to say the least. It is certainly possible, but it is not as simple as just time*weight.

According to my McGee, the dynamics for oven roasting are weight to the 2/3rds power per time, or thickness squared per time.

There are a few things you have to appreciate about microwaving- cooking things properly in the microwave is a complicated and subtle process, and misunderstood by most chefs. Firstly, microwaving is neither moist heat nor dry heat cooking. The microwaves directly excite the all the molecules in the food that are approximately the size of water molecules. This is why the microwave is so efficient at reheating already cooked food.

For cooking things from raw, on the other hand, there are a number of reasons why a microwave oven is less than ideal. Because the energy is able to penetrate a few centimetres into the flesh, it is impossible to get a nice crispy skin. By the time the skin is at a correct temperature to render the fat properly, the meat beneath it has already lost so much moisture that it is impossible to remain crispy.

If your heart is really set on trying it, I wish you luck, and my best advice is to buy a meat thermometre and check the internal temperature every few minutes. And watch out for flaming turkey. You'll want around 175 degrees fahrenheit for your turkey.

Dag
The first thing you need for pro-chef like knife skillz is a sharp chef's knife. I prefer an 8 inch Henkel for most of my chopping, but the santoku knives seem to be gaining quite a lot of popularity in the kitchens where I've worked.

There was a terrible, terrible video about sharpening knives on the sift a while back- one of my first downvotes, actually, but in my rant about how much I hated it, I linked to this article about how to sharpen knives properly.

Knife Maintenance and Sharpening By Chad Ward is an absolutely fantastic resource, and actually is the place where I learned how to sharpen my knives.

Here's a big secret though- good quality knives aren't all that expensive! You can pick up a yellow handled Henkel at a kitchen supply store for less than $20. Your knife will be wicked sharp.

I think there was a video on the cooking channel that showed how to properly cut up an onion. Ah yes- Knife Skills 101 My feelings on that video are mixed, which is why I haven't upvoted it yet, but it's handy to know the right steps. For one thing, I think I remember disagreeing with him on what exactly constitutes a "small dice", but I'll have to watch it again to remember precisely.

After that, it's just like getting to carnegie hall- Practice, baby. Practice.

maatc
ooh, I got a bunch of tips like that. that is a fun article, which I definitely have some comments on.

OK! Good first round, I'll be posting my article about Stocks in the next day or so. Keep the questions coming!