I have always loved kitchen stores. Long before I knew how to use just about anything you could find at them, I could always be convinced to buy that one cool thing that savvy cooks couldn’t live without and once home, they lived pristinely in my kitchen, except for when I was in a relationship. I always seemed to pick men who were stellar cooks and they happily used my well-equipped kitchen.

I was the customer that cash register displays were conceived for. This was how I acquired my inexpensive tomato knife...an impulse buy in Williams Sonoma one day when there was a particularly long line. I couldn’t imagine why one would need a special knife just for tomatoes but one day I might. And for many years, I abused it and used it for everything I was not supposed to.

Eventually, during a drought in the relationship area of my life, I finally decided to learn how to cook. As I traveled from novice to competent to really good cook - I don’t think I will ever be considered “un cuisinier sérieux” - I rarely had to race to the kitchen store to pick up something I didn’t already have.

And while I now use almost every piece of equipment I acquired so long ago, the one that has become my favorite is my old friend, my tomato knife.

It cuts beautiful, paper-thin slices of juicy tomato without savaging the skin in any way and for some odd reason, though I’ve used it everyday for years, it has never needed sharpening. I think it has magic qualities. I credit it with encouraging me to become a gardener.

I put in a full vegetable garden every year, but in reality, I only do it to grow all those beautiful varieties of delicious, vine-ripened tomatoes that never really taste as good when you buy them, even at a farmers’ market. And, when I harvest them, my trusty tomato knife is ready and hungry and tireless.  

Lisa Demberg recently relocated to Colorado with her daughter Olivia.  She is a television executive and producer, presently employed as a consultant to Fox Television Studios.

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