Enter the “Shun Kitchen Knives are Bad Ass” Contest!

Knives are arguably the most important piece of equipment in your kitchen. Sadly, many otherwise great home cooks don’t care enough to own good, solid cutlery, while others think they can’t afford the necessary tools of the trade. Both are poor excuses for such blasphemy! If you care about cooking at all, you will have at least one (if not several) high quality knives in your arsenal.

I plan to remedy this situation! Over the next few weeks, we’re going to talk about kitchen knives – how to choose the knife that’s right for you, the difference between chopping styles, cutlery ergonomics, that sort of thing.

I won’t hide the fact that I’m giddy about the opportunity to pontificate on something I’m truly obsessed with. Anyone who knows me well understands that I have a thing for knives – in fact, I own several sets of professional throwing daggers. I might be diminutive in stature, but I’m not someone you want to piss off.

To kick off this cutlery series, I’m having a little contest. Sur la Table has been very kind to provide me with a gorgeous Shun Ken Onion 8″ chef’s knife, and I’m passing it on to one of you lucky readers. This beauty, which would run you up to $250 in stores, will be given away in a random drawing on Monday, June 15th, just in time for Fathers Day.

Here’s a little more about the knife, straight from Sur la Table:

“Designed by legendary custom knife maker Ken Onion, this chef’s knife is a must-have for collectors of Shun and other quality cutlery. Flowing, ergonomic design fits the hand flawlessly for extraordinary balance and effortless rocking. VG-10 steel blade clade with 16 layers of stainless steel for a beautiful rust-free Damascus-look blade. Bamboo holder. 8¼” blade.”

I have one of these knives, and I just have to say this: it’s f**king bad ass.

How do you win it? Well, that’s easy. There are a few ways to enter the drawing:

• Post a link to this post to your Twitter account, with the words, “@sstiavetti is giving away a Shun Ken Onion 8″ chef’s knife at Wasabimon.com! http://rubyurl.com/IgCz ” Then post a reply here with your Twitter username for one entry.
• Give this post a thumbs-up on StumbleUpon, and leave a comment here with your StumbleUpon username for one entry. Don’t forget to hit the big green THUMBS UP button or it won’t work. Better, yet, leave a short review to make sure I see your entry.
• Post a link to this post to your Tumblr account, with the same wording above as for Twitter. Leave a comment here with a link to your post.
• Post a link to this post to your Facebook account, with the same spiel above. And again, LEAVE A COMMENT!
• Digg this post and leave a comment here with your Digg username.

You can enter up to five times, once for each service I mentioned above. If you want to post this elsewhere too, I’ll probably give you an extra entry if you tell me where in a comment.

Perhaps you’re seeing a trend here… you have to LEAVE A COMMENT! The last time I had a contest, people were posting links all over the place but never said anything about it here. So, please… do yourself a favor and leave a comment here! Fer serious, I’m not friggin kidding!!

Here’s a BIG TIP to make this all even easier for you: do you see a row of snazzy little buttons just under this post, about an inch down the page? Those buttons go straight to the sites you need to use to enter the drawing. Just click those buttons to do the deed, following through to make sure you’ve completed the process, then leave a comment here.

Ok, I think I’ve gotten my point across.

Good luck!!!