Growing up in a single-parent household, pitmaster CJ Volkmann’s love of cooking began out of necessity with his first pan of scrambled eggs. Since then it’s become a life-long passion, fueled by a desire to share his creations with family and friends

A workhorse like the utility blade is going to be doing a lot. A dull blade is no good. You’ll be making all manner of cuts with this tool, so you need a cutter.

Gio Borges (@Smok3hous3_bbq) sat down with Dalstrong to talk about weekend picnics on nearby islands, his advice for newbie influencers, and the one person he  transports his grill to cook for.

While it is true that you might not need it as much as say, a kitchen knife, a butcher knife, or a bread knife, in the end, owning a boning knife will end up saving you a lot of money, allowing you to buy whole chickens or sides of meat that you can butcher yourself at home. 

The chef’s knife is the most versatile and useful knife in your knife set. It is the one you will grab most often, the one you use for chopping, slicing, dicing and everything in between, and it’s the one you may even want to have two of. 

From peeling vegetables to shaping garnishes to deveining shrimp, a paring knife is an essential tool when it comes to any detailed and delicate kitchen knife cutting.

Self-taught pitmaster Steve Hernandez displays mad BBQ skills on his fast-growing Instagram account @mexibeastbbq, but his true passion is inspiring people and building community. He sat down with Dalstrong to talk about why he’s not interested in food staging, why he started a mentor group for BBQers, and how the long cook is helping him heal from grief.

While considered an essential part of any professional chef’s knife collection, the serrated knife, or bread knife, often gets overlooked by the non-initiated. In truth, these saw-toothed beauties are part of the Holy Trinity of kitchen knives along with its more famous siblings: the chef’s knife and the paring knife.

With a good nonstick pan, you can make delicious dishes without a single drop of oil, both enhancing your health and saving money. 

From knife block sets to steak knife sets and everything in between. There’s tons of factors to consider when it comes to deciding on a kitchen knife set. Even those who are already knee-deep in the world of knives can find it overwhelming, so for the uninitiated it can be absolutely daunting.

Meatloaf has had a bit of a foodie resurgence in recent years. Professional chefs all over have taken the classic meatloaf recipe and put their own creative spins on it to make truly amazing meals.

When was the last time you sharpened your kitchen knife? If the answer is “gee, I really can’t remember, it was so long ago,” your reputation as a chef might be in danger.

Backyard pitmaster Christopher Bhoorasingh has made an art of combining Jamaican jerk and Texas brisket. Born in Jamaica, he traveled the world with the military before landing in Texas where his addiction to BBQ took off. He sat down with Dalstrong to talk about keeping life simple, his hack for perfect bark, and what it means to be an island boy.

If you want to talk about “comfort food,” it doesn’t get much more comforting than the delicious, thoroughly satisfying warmth of a good bowl of chicken noodle soup. There’s something about it that just feels like “home.”

For me, and I suspect for a lot of people, lasagna goes even beyond the inherent qualities of the dish itself. My Mom used to make lasagna every other Sunday when I was a kid, so its aroma and taste immediately transports me to happy memories of sitting around the table with my family.

I’d go so far as to say that the first bite of warm slice of freshly baked banana bread is like a good hug. Am I right?! If you don’t yet have this relationship with banana bread, do yourself a favor, because can’t we all use a little more comfort food in our lives? And February 23rd is National Banana Bread Day, so get to baking! 

Japanese knives are desirable for so many reasons, but mainly for their hard steel and light, thin, super sharp edge. This makes them the ideal choice for slicing, dicing and more precise cutting jobs.

Today it is hard to go anywhere without finding a pizza joint, but it’s considerably easy (and delicious) to make at home. With just a few ingredients from your local supermarket, you can make your own homemade crust and top exactly as you like for pizza night.

A mismanaged steak is truly disheartening to see, especially when it’s a high-quality cut of beef. Knowing how to cook a perfect steak is a kitchen skill that will impress any dinner guest and bump your meal up from merely “good” to “exquisite”.

Fast food may have a corner on the burger market, but few would argue that the best burger is one wrapped in waxy paper.  A juicy, thick burger made fresh to order cannot be beat. 

Dalstrong has donated 200 professional chef knives to Careers through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP) and has committed to donate 1,000 more in 2021. A workforce development nonprofit that provides underserved teens a pathway to jobs, C-CAP provides culinary, job, and life skills to middle and high school kids across the United States.