Outlaw Chef Damjan Bistričić, a cook based in the Istria region of Croatia. We stay in touch regularly through Instagram. He often sends us photos of his daily cooking and the Higonokami in action.
This time, what arrived was not the usual glimpse into his everyday life. It was a spring food festival. A massive steel griddle set up in the town square. A crowd of citizens. Television cameras.
And in his pocket, as always, was a Higonokami from Ichizo Honpo.
A Spring Festival, 630 Servings
The setting: Pula — an ancient Mediterranean fortress city with thousands of years of history, at the southern tip of the Istrian Peninsula. Every Easter, in the square in front of the Pula Market building, the city holds its traditional spring celebration. Citizens and visitors fill the plaza, and the food is free for all.
Outlaw Chef was entrusted with the centerpiece — a fritaja, the traditional Istrian frittata of eggs, wild asparagus, and spring onions.
The ingredients tell the scale of the event: 1,600 eggs. 20 kg of wild asparagus. 6 kg of spring onions. 1 kg of škalonja — the traditional Mediterranean onion variety of this region. And špalete gira volta — pork shoulder dried in the Bura, the fierce northeastern wind unique to Istria.
The original plan was for 500 servings.
But the crowd's appetite exceeded all expectations. The line never stopped. The calls for more kept coming. In the end, they cooked 630 servings.
"The citizens were satisfied, the reviews were excellent... out of the planned 500, at the request of the citizens, we had to make 630 portions."
They kept cooking until the ingredients ran out.
One Knife for All the Spring Onions
630 servings of frittata. An enormous quantity of spring onions to be cut.
Crates of fresh spring onions stacked high. On a yellow cutting board, a growing mountain of green rounds.
The tool doing the work was not a professional kitchen knife.
It was the Ichizo Higonokami, pulled from a pocket.
"If the spirit whose hand guides the steel blade of the knife is focused and sharp enough, then the knife itself will do any task that is placed before it."
Bundle after bundle of spring onions. One at a time, steadily, the blade moving through them with quiet precision.
After 630 servings' worth of prep, the Higonokami rests on its bed of chopped onions. Like a sword after battle — and yet the blade was still alive.
On the Giant Griddle
A steel pan over two meters across, set up in the town square. Under the spring Istrian sun, wild asparagus and chopped spring onions began to dance in oil.
Rising steam. The sound of sizzling. Beyond the pan, a crowd that couldn't wait.
One chef after another took their turn at the pan.
Its golden surface catching the spring light.
Television cameras captured the moment. The entire city watching.
The Edge That Lasted
On the condition of the Higonokami after the event, he reported:
"Higonokami still has cutting power. In my estimation, from 100% sharpening at the beginning, it is now at 60 to 64%."
After cutting ingredients for 630 servings, the blade still retained over 60% of its edge.
That is the reality of this small pocket knife.
An Unexpected Second Job
Arriving home after the festival, Outlaw Chef switched on his induction hob to make a moka coffee.
Then —
"PZZZZ!!! TRES!!!"
Two loud, unpleasant sounds. The induction hob short-circuited. The kitchen went dark.
"That's just who I am," he thought — the kind of man who rides a café racer through the city streets. Not a word of complaint. He laughed it off, got back in his car, and headed to the nearest shopping center for a new built-in induction hob.
And then — the Higonokami stepped in once more.
Cardboard. Plastic. Nylon film. The same blade that had spent the whole day cutting ingredients for 630 people moved through the packaging with ease.
"Its blade, which at the beginning of the day was sharpened to 100% and now after those 630 portions of food to about 70%, but still cut with great ease through cardboard, plastic and nylon foil."
At the end of this long day, he wrote:
"If this is not a reliable pocket everyday companion, then what is?"
A Note from Ichizo Honpo
We stay in regular contact with Outlaw Chef through Instagram. He shares his daily cooking, his life in Istria, and the Higonokami woven into it all — in photos and words, again and again.
Under the spring sun of Istria, a giant griddle, a crowd of hundreds, and one pocket knife.
The value of a tool is not found on a spec sheet. It is found in moments like these.
Damjan, thank you again for sharing your world with us.
You can see more of Outlaw Chef's world on Instagram.
@monsieuroutlawchef
All photographs and words from Outlaw Chef are published with his permission.