Life on the EdgeGet tooled up for the fight against disposable culture...
Carry an axe or an 8in carving knife into most shops and the staff will either flee or call the police. Community Cutlery isn’t most shops. Instead, you’ll get a warm welcome and when you finally leave, you’ll have a very sharp edge to your cutting implement, some stories to tell and a new knick-knack that you never knew you needed.
Community Cutlery opened three years ago in leafy Ilkley, West Yorkshire, born out of an idea co-owner Gaz Heaton had, that got out of hand. Sounds familiar. He’s had a colourful career having been a gardener (a couple of times); henna tattoo assistant (on Brighton pier); brewer (he’s now teetotal); butcher (he’s now vegan); jacket potato seller (not Spud-U-Like)… The list goes on. He stuck at these jobs for a maximum of three years, ‘So it might be time to detonate Community Cutlery pretty soon,’ he jokes.
Running a high-street shop is not easy, but the pair love being part of an independent business.
Half of their space is a workshop where Gaz sharpens kitchen knives, garden tools, scissors and small hand tools. He also runs workshops here, teaching people how to do this for themselves at home. The other half is a beautifully curated kitchenware shop where you’ll usually find his partner George Richmond. Their sharpening service shows commitment to the values of maintaining and extending the useful life of items rather than binning and replacing.
The original shop was half the size and used to be a tiny reception space for a financial services company. To fit a sharpening and retail space in, Matt Kelly of Plaey Workshop, Saltaire, designed modular furnishings and fittings, in warm colours and natural materials. The resulting space managed to pack stuff in while feeling uncluttered. Now the premises are double the area, which shows they’re doing something right, but the style and feel is still like a Tokyo kitchen, where every tiny space must count. Things are tucked behind other things, and things fold out and while other things fold down. This Japanese style is nicely integrated with more traditional British touches like the hand-painted shop exterior and gilded signage in the workshop.
As well as sharpening, they’re also selling kitchen items that combine practicality and beauty with longevity; items like heavy enamel colanders, tea pots and casserole dishes. George enthusiastically explains how these will still be going strong in 60 years, and even if they pick up a couple of chips, they’ll be in service and looking beautiful. Her background is in cafe management, but she always felt pulled towards kitchens, how they were organised and what was used in them.
‘I just love kitchens, which is key to this job where we’re selling beautiful things for people to love.’
When it comes to the sharpening, Gaz says, ‘You’ve got to learn to do it right. Some people will say they can, but they only approximate the outcome with machinery and make a bad job of it. Here we use whetstones and sharpen by hand and eye. It takes time to learn. Our sharpening is water-cooled, done by hand on flat stones or a slow-moving whetstone wheel.’ Sharpening this way costs £1.20 per inch of blade, and turnaround is seven days. Drop into the shop with your blunt cutlery, or just stick it in the post.
Community Cutlery’s retail prices cover a wild range. I bought a pair of 580ml glass Weck storage and preserving jars for £7.50 each. Photographer Vic bought picks up a ceramic Motoshige grater plate for £12. Kitchen knives, like their bestselling Spanish-made Pallares, start at £25, while top-of-the-range Japanese blades can cost as much £500.
Having engaging staff/owners, not least their Whippet, Mookie, must help build and retain repeat custom, and Gaz likes to set the record straight regarding his specialist subject, both in person and on Instagram. Common sense and occasional comedy gold sit side by side.
‘Some people think marble or glass chopping boards are more hygienic, but they’re crap…
They’ll blunt your knife. It’s the same with bamboo, load of rubbish,’ he preaches. ‘We recommend end-grain boards, made from blocks laminated together, where the grain accommodates the edge of your knife. Not cheap, at £120 to £250, but it’s a board for life. And pull-through knife sharpeners, even the ones costing hundreds, are total bollocks. They just remove metal from the edge of the blade rather than creating the correct-shaped cutting edge’.
‘Me and George make all the decisions and there’s freedom in this,’ says Gaz. ‘I can constantly create interest for myself in the job, branch out with different products and workshops, set up an online sharpening course, or just take a day out to visit somewhere to keep the creativity flowing. We don’t have to book a day off to do that.’
Be Arsed
Knives and keeping them sharp
In addition to a shortage of plasters, one of the things sharpening lots of knives gives you is time to think, and I’ve spent a lot of time wondering why more people don’t maintain their knives. I’ve got it down to three main reasons:
Education. Some people simply don’t know that knife sharpening is a thing. All they have ever known is to buy a new knife, use it until it’s too infuriating to use it any more, bin it and buy a new one. It’s definitely down to us, the educated ones, to fix this problem.
Financial Reasons. It’s not at all lost on us that getting your knives sharpened could be seen as a luxury. It’s not expensive, but it is an expense, one that some households would not be able to prioritise.
Can’t be arsed. By my reckoning, this group overshadows the previous two ion a manner akin to a Jupiterian eclipse of a Malteser. This group know how much easier it would be to chop food if their knives were sharp, but never seem to get around to taking them to a sharpener or doing it themselves. They feel the frustrations blunt tools cause, but these gripes are left on the chopping board along with the onion skin, not to be considered until the next time the knives are called upon to limp through a spud. A vast swathe of the world’s cooks could greatly improve their standard of living simply by being arsed. It will cost a few quid but it will be totally worth it. You’ll make your work in the kitchen quicker, easier, less frustrating, safer, and you’ll improve the quality of the food you make, just by being arsed.
So do yourself a favour. Be arsed.
Gaz Heaton.
Words: Ed Oxley Photos: Vic Whitaker
First published in Issue 2 of Bother Magazine, August 2024.
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