Sharpening stones and files. I can’t imagine using dull knives. I can’t stand knives duller than hair popping sharp. I have excellent knives that hold a crisp edge and I sharpen those every 30 minutes of super fast chopping (10 seconds on a 9k stone).
Not just knives but scissors, trowels, shovels, cooking spatulas, dust pans, vegetable peelers, can openers, toenail clippers, all need to be sharp. Not being able to sharpen all of those would be a tragedy.
If you are delaying getting into sharpening, just do it. It will serve you for the rest of your life, and I sharpen every single day (I’m a woodworker). Its truly a luxury to have sharp tools, all the time. So satisfying.
Aside from that, chocolate. The cravings will never go away.
Air conditioning, but I would argue that is a very expensive necessity.
and I sharpen those every 30 minutes
I’m sorry, what?
If I sharpened my knives after every 30 minutes of use I wouldn’t have any steel left after a couple of months, tops. My knives are shaving sharp, I use them for several hours every day.
If your knives hold an edge and are profiled correctly, sharpening every 30 minutes (even a quick touch up) is entirely unnecessary. Professional meat cutters and fishmongers annihilate cutting for 10 hours a day and require razor sharp tools, and they don’t spend even close to as much time as you’ve claimed touching up their edges.
Don’t get me wrong, I love sharp knives, but either you’re exaggerating or doing it wrong.
I use a 9k stone and sharpen for like 10 seconds, so its not that much material. I have an extremely high standard of sharpness.
For the first 30 mins to an hour of work, the edge absolutely flies through food. (Hair whittling/hair popping)
Afterwards its still very sharp and cuts very well ( clean shaving)
Then it starts to struggle with tough skins and delicate foods (bell peppers, tomatoes, etc) this is usually where it stops shaving.
I like to keep my knives so sharp that it flies through everything.
Do you have some suggestions for a novice sharpener on how to get started?
Coarse diamond stone and a thin cheap knife. The coarse stone is fast so you get immediate results and feedback, which is crucial for learning. You want to use a cheap knife since you can damage knives with bad technique. Cheap knives are also softer and sharpen faster
Diamond plates are much more straightforward than waterstones. You dont need to soak it, water it, flatten it, etc. They aren’t necessarily better, but they require much less maintenance
Also I highly recommend freehand. Youll always encounter a knive that doesn’t work with this, or that system, but you can sharpen every knife, tool, scissors, etc, on a normal sharpening stone.
Spices. Very much spices. If I was limited to like 5 good ones I’d make do but I have a drawer with like 50 spices in it I use regularly and it’s my happy place.
Same, one of the things that influenced my decision to buy my house was a long cupboard next to the hob that would be perfect for a 48 jar spice rack. The rack is now full and there’s a small crate of miscellaneous spices sat on top of the cupboard.
The only time I agree with the people going on about how we live like Kings in the modern world (absolutely fucking not) is about how many spices we can just have for cheap and not the cost of a horse.
100%
It kills me when I go to someone’s house and the only spices are black pepper and cinnamon. Salt does not count.
Toilet paper.
(I’d argue that’s more a necessity but) Bidet plus a a toilet rag covered in the stains from your previous toilet rag adventures?
Electricity
Hot showers and a bidet.
We just finished a big holiday trip, 2 weeks visiting both sides of the family. Stayed with one family and then the other. After that…yeah…seriously considering getting everyone bidets next year for Christmas…
Travel bidet
We recently got a bidet ourselves. There are portable ones. Basically a water bottle with a pump and sprayer on it.
Yeah, but there’s something a lot more gross about spraying yourself with a bottle than just turning a knob and letting the plumbing do it.
Maybe it is because I have a hand held sprayer that it does not bother me. But either way it is still better than stuffing your hand in there with a wad of paper.
I genuinely think I’d go insane if I wasn’t able to buy Brie or Blue cheese. I don’t need it every day of course, but any less than once every two months would be unspeakable
I have a bit of a compulsion to scan the grocery store for marked down fancy cheeses and bakery stuff. I’ve tried some pretty awesome stuff I never would have gotten otherwise.
that picture exactly
If there is a luxury whose absence would break you, then I would suggest you do a little “fast” from it, occasionally.
100%. For caffeine, I drop it on the weekends (much to the annoyance of my gf) and that monday morning coffee makes all the difference in the world. For cheese, I’m usually okay without for a few weeks.
Music, without a doubt. Specifically, being able to choose particular songs to listen to. I’d get pretty miserable after a few days.
Find a radio station you enjoy and experience new to you music
No such thing anymore. 50% commercials, 50% whatever music the overlords want us to consume.
Plus you can’t listen to an album on the radio which is the best way to listen to most artists’ work.
Yeah I think I would never have gotten into prog rock if I was limited to the radio. That would have sucked.
healthcare
Private Space. My own private Bedroom Especially. Also, a good bathroom. Especially a good toilet and shower. Make them clean too.
Healthcare, condoms
Its sad that health care is considered a luxury.
Eh, what’s the alternative? Healthcare requires high level of education and expensive equipment. Similar to air travel.
It’s a luxury due to high costs.
Most other countries have the costs be very affordable
The average cost of the NHS per person in the UK is £3,268, not being able to opt out of the cost doesn’t make it cheap.
To me it’s absolutely a luxury and despite the NHS not being perfect, there’s an awfully lot of people around the world that envy the system.
Must be in the US if Healthcare is a luxury
Chocolate.
Proper chocolate, not the shit that Cadbury turn out since it was bought by the cheese people.
No wonder they lost their royal warrant. That’s the first thing that Charlie has done since the Prince’s Trust that has really impressed me.
That’s super interesting, I actually like him a bit now because of that
Electricity.
If you lose electricity most people lose access to:
Hot water
Running water (if you have a well)
Air conditioning
Indoor heat
Television
Internet
Indoor lighting
And hot meals if you don’t have gas.Losing electricity would cut you off from almost all of your luxuries as we’ve become completely dependent on it over the last century or so.
Yeah but no electricians no more electrocution… Think of the positives lol
it sounds like a necessity
Not necessarily, you could absolutely survive without electricity, I live in a predominantly Amish area that proves that.
It just wouldn’t be any fun.Hah, that’s fair
It’s a utility and so I agree it’s a necessity. A luxury would be some of the things electricity allows like Internet.
The Internet access should be classified as a utility but good luck getting ISPs to stop lobbying against that
Yeah in the modern age internet access should be considered a necessity. There are a lot of things you can’t do without the internet (like get a job or pay bills).
High-quality food. For me, food is one of the main sources of enjoyment, and if instead I’ll have to shove something down my throat just to satisfy hunger, I’ll get very depressed very quickly.
