You’ve probably seen today’s Carefree Celebrity lurking around IGA,
just waiting for a chance to practice his signature move – the
stealth grocery drop. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve paused
to choose a head of lettuce and turned around to find some
outlandish thing has appeared in my cart. Once a giant frozen fish
was looking up at me head and all, and seemed to be begging me for
a ride home.
Another time, four or five pineapples had sprouted where only a
couple of pounds of bananas had been before. Usually I’ll see him
trying to disappear around a corner, or standing perfectly still
over by the kumquats so he won’t be noticed, but his efforts to
keep his giggles under control give him away every time.
Glen Cotton is many different things to many different people.
He’s IGA’s meat cutter, a gentleman farmer, pastor of the
Clearwater Baptist Mission, and a devoted father to Justin, Laura,
Luke and Jacob. He is married to one of the most tolerant women in
Delta, the charming and talented Kathy Cotton. I remind Glen
regularly that in my humble opinion, from the moment she married
him, Kathy became an instant candidate for sainthood. I think it
took a few years for the reasoning behind this to sink in, but
finally he’s lost that questioning look when I mention it and now
he readily agrees with me every time.
I asked Glen for an interview because I thought he could give us
some tips on keeping kitchen knives sharp and boy, did he pack a
lot of information into his thirty minute lunch break with me a
couple weeks ago. I wanted to know how he got started meat
cutting, and it’s a simple and direct route that began when he was
just fifteen years old.
Glen began his working life by bagging groceries after school at
the local A & P market back home in North Carolina. He eventually
moved up to grocery stocker and when he was about 20 years old,
the meat manager asked him back for a little chat and offered him
a chance to learn the special skills of butchering. “I’d found my
niche,” Glen said, with his signature grin, “I took to it right
away.”
His mentor was a wonderful teacher and also had the highest of
ethical standards – something Glen found wasn’t always true in
other stores. “Never sell anything you wouldn’t eat yourself” was
the Golden Rule in the meat room, and it’s served Glen well in his
many years in the business.
Talking about meat cutting lead nicely to talking about knives,
and that’s what today’s column is all about.
For a long time I’ve been wondering how to keep knives in good
shape and it just made sense to ask a man who makes his living
using them every day. I’ve always been frustrated that I can’t
seem to use a sharpening steel the proper way, or keep a fair edge
on the blades of my cutlery, so I started there and asked Glen
what the biggest mistakes were that home cooks make with knives.
I cringed when he mentioned that most people just toss their
knives in a drawer and let them rattle around with all the rest of
the utensils. Of course, I’d been doing this for years with my
favorite knife – the one that won’t fit in the butcher block on
the counter. Glen says all that banging around against other
things just takes the edge right off a knife and ruins it. He
keeps his good knives in their own separate drawer, laying flat
and not too crowded so they don’t bang into anything else. I
redeemed myself a little bit when I told him I’d just purchased a
simple plastic gizmo that fit right into the drawer and held
knives vertically. He thought this was a fine idea and would work
great, especially if you don’t have a whole drawer to devote just
to knives.
He said the second mistake people make is to cut things other than
meat with their good knives. I cringed again, since I’ve been
known to grab a knife to open a stubborn box or use one to snip
through some plastic. Cardboard is about the worst thing you can
cut with a knife, he said, and I tried to just keep writing notes
so he wouldn’t see my guilty expression!
Another thing people do is over-sharpen knives, and this was
something I’d never heard of before. Glen explained that if you
spend too much time working a blade, you go beyond sharp and all
the way back to dull. You’ll know you’ve over-sharpened your knife
in a big hurry the first time you try to slice something.
He does recommend keeping knives in a sheath if possible, or laid
flat in a drawer as mentioned above, and also said those counter
top wooden knife blocks are fine. He washes his knives by hand
right after he’s done using them, and never puts them in a
dishwasher. He makes sure the blades are completely dry before
stowing them away to avoid rust on the carbon steel.
To sharpen good knives, Glen suggests using a whetstone with a
little food grade mineral oil for lubrication. He’s fond of a
particular brand called TriStone that has coarse, medium and fine
surfaces in separate areas. Working from coarse to fine gradually
hones the blade back to sharp, and then you can maintain the edge
with sharpening steel. It only takes two or three strokes on each
side of the knife per each level of stone to get a good edge. I
told him that for years I’ve seen people use those sharpening
steels and they just rake knives back and forth over them a dozen
times or more, thinking they were sharpening the blade. He said
you only use the steel to maintain the razor sharp edge after it’s
been sharpened, and one or two long, angled strokes against the
against the steel is all you need. He just eyeballs the beveled
edge and matches that angle to the sharpening steel for the best
results.
Glen also mentioned ceramic sharpening steels and said they are
really great and easy to use, just kind of expensive (about $40),
and they are more breakable than the old fashioned whetstones we
are all familiar with.
I was wondering if he had any advice on which knives every kitchen
should have, and I was surprised at how short the list was. Glen
recommends just three basic knives and says they will cover all
the needs of the home cook. Start with a small paring knife that
fits your hand comfortably. You’ll use this for close trim work,
paring vegetables and small slicing or mincing jobs. Every kitchen
needs a six-inch boning knife, too. These are good for dealing
with chicken or filleting fish. Round out the trio with
well-balanced eight-inch chefs or butcher’s knife to chop
everything else or in Glen’s words “from moose to celery.”
We talked briefly about brands of knives and Glen likes Foerchner,
Hook and Eye and Old Hickory knives for their high quality and
durability. He particularly likes Old Hickory for home use because
of the high carbon, tool steel blades. He did mention that chef’s
knives and butcher’s knives are different and that the carbon
steel on butcher’s knives does darken with use, something that
home cooks don’t always appreciate. I asked about stainless steel
blades since I own several and like how they look, and he said
that stainless steel is really hard, and they take a very fine but
brittle edge, but they always look nice and will work just fine
for years.
One of the topics I most wanted to cover was chopping boards. For
a long time I used a wooden one, and had seen giant wooden
butcher’s blocks in stores and meat markets. Then everyone said to
switch to plastic since it was more sanitary and didn’t harbor
bacteria. I made the switch, but still felt it was so much nicer
chopping on a wooden surface. Glen agreed and said a few years
back the Health Department insisted everyone switch to plastic
boards to prevent contamination and bacteria growth. But after a
while, what they found was that softer and more porous wooden
cutting boards actually absorbed the chlorinated water used to
disinfect surfaces much better than plastic. The plastic boards
get nicks and cuts, but the disinfectant bounces right out of them
and doesn’t penetrate the same way, so more bacteria can be
harbored in those crevices. He did agree with me that running a
plastic board through the dishwasher now and then was a great idea
with all that hot water, detergent and the steamy drying process
not many bugs are going to survive! Swiping your wooden cutting
board with a strong chlorine bleach and water mixture after
cutting raw meat is an excellent way to prevent contamination,
also.
It wouldn’t be a column without a recipe, but we ran out of
time to get to “meatier” topics, so Glen promised another
interview soon where we’d just talk meat. He mentioned he’d like
to talk about different cuts of meat and how to cook them the best
way for flavor and value, and that sounds great to me. For the
record, his favorite cut is a plain T-bone on the grill, and the
smile on his face confirmed that! He also mentioned that people
are so suspicious of fat in meat, when actually, you do need some
marbled fat in your meat for moisture and flavor.
I did manage to sneak in one last request for a behind the scenes
story he could share about his long and successful meat cutting
career. He did tell me a couple whoppers, but only with a promise
I wouldn’t print them here! The one I can share with you is that
in some of the bigger stores he’s worked in, he would often cut
the same thing for up to 8 hours at a time. If pork chops were on
sale, that’s what his life was for that whole day. It was great
practice, but he said after a while you can lose your focus and
“overdrive your headlights” and that’s when a knife will slip and
not only the meat will be ruined, but a finger or hand can get a
nasty slice, too. He rather said he’d been “sewed up numerous
times” but was also proud to be the owner of ten fully functional
fingers after so many years in the business.
With time running out, we had to wrap up the chat and I thought
I’d gotten away clean, I really did. Nearly thirty minutes and no
bad puns or groaners of jokes from the man who loves to laugh at
himself more than anyone. Glen actually got up from our table in
the IGA Deli to head back to work, and then leaned over with that
wicked little twinkle in his eye and said. ‘Hey, Joyce, did you
hear about the butcher who backed into the meat grinder? He got a
little behind in his work!”
It was a perfect parting shot and Glen scampered off to go back to
the meat counter, snickering all the way. I finished my notes and
giggled to myself for another couple of minutes, which prompted my
friend Kay at the next table to ask, “What ARE you doing over
there?” When I said I’d just interviewed Glen, everyone at her
table smiled with relief. I think they were all thinking the same
thing – at least THEY didn’t have to be on guard against Glen’s
puns!
Your CG and Mister GC do plan to come up with another interview
later in the summer, so stay tuned for that. I’m sure Glen has
some great ideas and I have it on good authority that he just
lives to barbecue anything he can, so maybe we can get him to
share some secrets of the flame with us next time.
My thanks to Glen Cotton for a terrific interview and for Kathy
Cotton for giving all of us a lesson on patience, tolerance and
understanding bless her heart. I do admire that woman so.
Next time Aunt Aggie’s beloved spouse, the always charming and
courtly Uncle Buf has promised to share some of his insights on
everything from politics to potatoes. At least that’s what I
gathered from his email to me last week. “Yup”, he wrote, “If the
creek don’t rise and Junior gets the rest of the stove wood cut,
I’m yours.” Be still my heart!
