Found at West Seattle Farmers Market
Rex Morris wants to sharpen your butcher’s block.
Posted by: Heather Fink on Aug 15, 2011 at 07:00AM
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We sure are spoiled, aren’t we? Not only does our region boast some serious bounty, but come spring a fresh crop of markets pop up and showcase the best of it. In this series, Nosh Pit ventures to a different neighborhood food fest to highlight the vendors, customers, and products that make it unique. This week we head to West Seattle, where the market happens every Sunday from 10–2.
Among the vendors tendering your typical market fare on the corner of SW Alaska Street and 44th Avenue SW sits Rex Morris. He’s West Seattle’s resident knife sharpener.
Originally from Arizona, Morris was an avid hunter as a child and acquired a multitude of tools over the years. “My wife said, ‘You own too many knives, you better start selling them.’” As it turns out, people were more interested in having their own blades brushed up, so Morris launched his cutlery business. He got his start at the farmers mart near his home on Vashon Island, but five years ago the West Seattle market got wind of his skills and invited him across the water. He’s been showing up ever since.
Prices vary depending on what you need. If you bring a standard knife it’s $1 plus $0.50 per inch. Add another buck if the knife’s serrated. A chatty guy, Morris is quick to dispense tips: “An awful lot of people will say, ‘Oh, I have this [sharpening] stone at home, but it doesn’t seem to work,’” Morris says. The trick, he advises, is to start with a coarser block. “They bring [the stone] in and it’s glass smooth, it’s the stone I would use at the very end.”
He’s also eager to reflect on years in the trade: “I suppose if you haven’t handled hundreds and hundreds of knives it might be hard to understand, [but] some of them have so much life in them that I can almost feel the people who used them to cook with 50 years ago.”
Tags: Farmers Markets
