My Wusthof chef’s knives are about 7 years old and have not been sharpened professionally for, um, ever. I use the steel (yes I know how to use a steel properly) but that doesn’t sharpen, it just realigns.
The Chef’s Choice style auto sharpeners are dangerous as hell because they can easily notch or scar your knife. Now, I could get all old school and use a diamond plate or an Arkansas stone, but I’m not experienced or good enough to get reliable results from those. Plus I can’t really pull off the psycho-serial-killer-sharpening-the-knife routine with a 3" paring knife, so why bother?
So…any recommendations on professional knife sharpening services? On Good Eats I saw him talking to a mobile knife sharpening dude, which I’d love to use, but I doubt he’s THAT mobile (then again, Alton is local to me, so maybe…).
I did break down and get a Kyocera 5.5" ceramic knife just so I wouldn’t have to deal with this again.