Faux Pas Birthday Gifts

Street People Atelier Light the Night t-shirt // Zara shorts // Le Chateau oxfords // Miu Miu sunglasses from VuSunglasses.com // Nella Bella bag available at Shoppers Drug Mart Beauty Boutique. 

I’m just going to put it out there. Is it OK to ask for a knife for your birthday?

My family seems to think not. You know, everyone says I’m “so hard to shop for” blah blah blah because I have such specific tastes yadda yadda yadda. But I make it painfully easy for those who I 100% expect a birthday gift from to get me precisely what I want. How? I just tell them. In the words of Jenna Lyons: “Always ask. Never assume.”

This year I gave everyone a few “ideas” of what I’d like for my 30th birthday. On the top of my list? A bread knife. Well, allow me to qualify that a smidgen more. A Global bread knife.

What you don’t know about me is that one of my summer jobs during University was at a kitchen and restaurant supply store slash cooking school slash knife sharpening mecca: Nella Cucina. (The one on Bathurst – those who know the family beef will understand my parenthesis). Anyways, after I cut my first peach with a MAC pairing knife one day on my lunch break my entire life was flipped upside down. Thus began my obsession with Japanese knives. Of course, the style and balance of a Global fit my needs just swell.

The only problem was that after purchasing two Global Santoku chef’s knives for my parents on my employee discount, summer came to an end and so did my summer job.

But now I’ve got my own place with my own kitchen stuff and hence begins my voracious amassment of culinary things, and more importantly, knives. Seriously, when I get married my entire registry is going to be Global knives, which brings me to my original point. Is it faux pas to ask for a knife for your birthday? My sister bought me my first Global chef’s knife last year for Christmas – but when I asked for the bread knife for my birthday she replied with: “That’s scary.”

She got me an Hermès scarf instead, which wasn’t on my list but I most gladly let it slide.

I then proceeded to ask my boyfriend for the bread knife. His reply: “Really? For your 30th you want me to get you knife? Your friends are going to tell you to break up with me.” He had a point but I couldn’t let him see my assent. So, I casually pulled a Jedi mind trick and passive aggressively quipped: “Well, it’s either a $150 bread knife or a $1200 Chloe bag. Those are the only two things I want so, I’ll leave it in your hands. I’ll be happy either way, baby.”

And now I’m a proud owner of a Global bread knife that cuts a loaf of French bread like a fucking zucchini. Clean. Swift. Spine-tingling.

Thanks, baby.

NB: I gave him a penny in exchange for the knife. If there’s one superstition I adhere to, it’s that you never take a knife for free. You must always pay for it with a symbolic penny so it doesn’t bring you bad luck. 

Photography by Daniel Kim of Walking Canucks 

Justine Iaboni