I originally planned to share a travel guide to Ojai, but as soon as I began typing, the issues with doing so began to surface. Moving to a small town that many people are drawn to isn’t as simple as it may seem. Ruminations on this conflict follow. As well as more straightforward thoughts about the Japanese chef’s knife I picked up at an NYC kitchenware institution, where they persuaded me to get a different knife than I planned. And if you enjoy reading this post, please pass it along.

My friend James hustled into the avocado orchard where our group gathered for Monday Hill Sprints, an early-morning exercise tradition he started during Covid. “Sorry I’m late, I was helping catch a pig,” James explained. “How Ojai is that?”

Hill Sprints are masochistic, but they get the endorphins flowing. You sprint up a rocky dirt road 10 times, do a bunch of push ups and squats between each sprint, and top it all off with a plank-as-long-as-you-can flagellation. On this morning it was seven hardy men and me. Everyone started out chatting about the weekend and their dogs’ play habits, but by the seventh sprint, lungs were heaving and everyone was corralling any remaining strength to get to the reward—a shot of perfectly brewed coffee that James brings in a jar and pours out in tangerine-colored enamel espresso cups.

Tad and I first did Hill Sprints before we bought our house, and it was one of the pivotal experiences that signaled to me that Ojai was a place with strong community, a place where good health and a beautiful environment co-existed.

This belief was reinforced at the Ojai Valley Athletic Club, the local gym that feels like an upgraded YMCA from the 1980s. They have classes for everything from aqua zumba to pilates to qi gong. I’ve never been an Equinox or Barry’s type, so I felt right at home.

And I fell in love with the tall palms, round-ball parking lot lamps, and 1970s-style arches that make up the facade of the Westridge Market, the local grocery store. Chains are not permitted in Ojai, so it’s filled with independent businesses. People in town also put farmstands by the sidewalks for their fruit trees and garden crops. Most contain boxes for paying; one has a snake fashioned out of a pipe—you feed your cash into the serpent’s gaping mouth.

For a town of 8,000, Ojai is long on community activities and volunteering. A group celebrates Pie Day (March 14) with a 3.14-mile walk, followed by pie-eating. You can volunteer for the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy, reinforcing hiking trails and clearing brush, or visit the Turtle Conservancy, home to more than 500 turtles and tortoises from around the world. Or you can take part in the Fourth of July Parade—see here—alongside dancing horses, local Hare Krishnas, a herd of goats, monster Jeeps, and a woman named Earth Friend Jen, who rollerskates on one leg through town.

What Ojai is best known for is a simple geological marvel: every day at sunset, when the sun casts its parting glow over the banded peaks of the Topa Topa mountains, the mountain face turns, ever so briefly, a rosy hue. It’s called the Pink Moment.

Ojai has long been home to creatives, seekers, and spiritual refugees. The philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti settled here in the 1920s. In the 19th century, visitors came for the Matillija hot springs as a health retreat, and eventually for the golf course built by glass magnate Edward D. Libbey (who helped fund the development of the arcade, post office, and public tennis courts, as well as the Arbolada neighborhood). Ceramicists Otto and Vivika Heino and Beatrice Wood, a founder of the Dada movement, were residents. Located just over an hour north of Los Angeles, Ojai has naturally attracted Hollywood celebrities, too, but they tend to be the type who come to escape the spotlight. They usually have homes in the hills and keep to themselves.

I’m a bit of all three: creative, seeker, and spiritual refugee; Tad is more singularly a creative. I’m also aware that we belong to a sudden rush of newcomers and tourists, largely triggered by Covid, that is not necessarily welcomed here by all. Many Ojaians value its Edenic qualities, its down-to-earth nature. Kids riding around on bikes, unmonitored. Menus without a Caesar or a crudo. Affordable groceries. A creative culture of artists, musicians, and healers.

The newcomers, who are conspicuous in such a small town, have driven up housing and food prices, clogged the main street with traffic, and opened businesses that strike some locals as invasive and annoying. It wasn’t until we bought our house that the tension between these two groups came into view.

A friend pointed me to an Instagram account called @small.time.citrus, where a local observer castigates newcomers with cutting humor—it’s sometimes painful to read, as most truths are, but always very funny. We don’t want to be assholes. We came here to be part of the community that we fell in love with. We bought a house in town so we could be part of the town. But we are heavily renovating the house, which surely doesn’t help local home prices stay affordable.

Thanks to Instagram, or maybe Covid, or perhaps to a growing desire to escape, Ojai has also become something of a “brand,” which makes matters even worse. “Ojai" stood for peace and beauty for more than a century. But there are now towels that have the “eclectic charm” of Ojai, “Pink Moment” ceramics, and even a Pepperidge Farm lemon sugar cookie called Ojai, which—for a town known for its Pixie tangerines—is confounding.

I’ve been puzzling over how to be a positive influence in the town, and looking for examples of new people doing good things. The best model may be the Ojai Playhouse. Built in 1914, the theater had been flood-damaged and abandoned for more than a decade when David Berger purchased it in 2020. A movie nut, he renovated it top-to-bottom and built out space for a restaurant next door. Rory’s Place, which was opened by sisters Rory and Maeve McAuliffe, serves local shellfish, herb salad, and hanger steak. David has screened more than 200 films in the theater’s first year. And he often hosts free screenings, as he did on Valentine’s Day with “When Harry Met Sally.”

David’s project took years. Becoming a local—just like renovating a business or home—takes time. It can’t be rushed.

The name Ojai comes from the Chumash word ʼawha’y, which means “moon.” It feels like the town is shifting phases in the most extreme way, from a full moon to a sliver that develops new light day by day. Once our house is done, and we move in, we will be official residents. Newcomers. I want us to be ones who add to the moon’s glow.

Yours in conflicted feelings,

Amanda

People often don’t invest enough in the products that are most useful to them: coats, olive oil, eyewear, shoes, glassware, and kitchen knives. During winter, you’re going to wear a coat everyday. Olive oil is a foundational flavor of many meals. If you wear glasses, they are your look. Tad would say I invest plenty in all, but with kitchen knives, at least, I can prove him wrong!

I’ve always had good knives, but never great knives. For Ojai, I decided it was time to take the leap and get one terrific chef’s knife that I’ll use everyday. I’ll add other good knives over time. For the record, I like having the following mix: chef’s knife, tomato knife, paring knife, and bread knife. A nice-to-have would be a 9-inch carving knife with hollow-edge depressions.

My first set of knives were Wusthof, purchased in Germany when I was working at a bread bakery there after college. They were workhorses: sturdy, good heft, maybe a bit stiff. I also have a set of Five Two knives, made with Japanese steel, that Food52 designed in collaboration with its community. (Only the bread knife is still for sale, and it’s a great one!)

Food52 also worked closely with Miyabi, a Japanese knifemaker located in Seki, where samurai swords were once made. After visiting the factory with my co-founder Merrill, I was won over by the thinner, sharper Japanese blades.

I became smitten with this snazzy knife from Blenheim Forge, and was nearly ready to plunk down a giant sum for it, but thought I should first make a pilgrimage to Korin, the iconic New York City store where nearly every chef I know shops for their knives. They’ve been selling and sharpening Japanese knives since 1982.

I was helped by Vincent Lau, who has been Korin’s knife sharpener for 15 years. We talked about wood-handled Japanese knives vs. the heavier Western style handles; on a Japanese knife, the “tang” (or portion of the blade that extends into a knife handle) goes only halfway through, whereas a Western knife’s blade carries entirely through the handle, which makes it weigh more. When people talk about a knife’s balance, they’re usually referring to whether or not they’re comfortable with the handle-to-blade weight ratio. There is no right or wrong, it’s personal preference.

Japanese knives tend to be thinner, lighter, and sharper (due to a single bevel edge). But for this sharpness, you give up durability. Thicker Western knives, which have a thicker spine and double bevel edge, are better for tasks like cutting up a chicken carcass and cutting through a squash stem. Japanese knives are better for slicing onions and apples.

As Vincent and I talked, I kept pointing to expensive knives with attractive wood handles, but he didn’t seem enthusiastic about them for me. So I asked him what knife he’d recommend given our conversation. He pulled out a 7-inch Misono UX10 Santoku knife that was a sleek yet less artful knife with a Western handle. It was also quite a bit less expensive—$250 vs. the other $300-and-above knives. I immediately liked how it felt in my grip.

I showed him the Blenheim Forge knife, with its faceted handle and brass bolster, on my phone. He said it’s a very good knife, but the steel is very hard and it would be a real time investment to sharpen. Aesthetics nearly got the best of me (not for the first or last time!), but the more I learned about the Misono, the more I came around to its humble demeanor.

Unlike many smaller knife makers, who outsource parts of the process, Misono makes each knife beginning to finish, so they have full control over every step.

Most knives’ bolsters are welded to bond the bolster around the heel of the blade, which adds unwanted heat to this part of the blade. The nickel bolster on the Misono is riveted on, so there’s no added heat. The blade itself is steel with enough carbon in it to create a sharper edge, so it is stain-resistant but not stainless. “Misono is a hard steel that holds its edge while maintaining the ease of sharpening,” Vincent said.

The relatively economical Misono UX10 is now packed up for Ojai. Where I ended up spending more money than expected was on the sharpening stones. I could have gone for a double-sided stone (one side is rougher for initial sharpening, the other is finer for finishing), but Vincent explained that individual stones tend to be higher quality. So two stones—a 1,000-grit and an 8,000-grit—it was. Once we’re settled into our place, I’m going to study Korin’s knife-sharpening videos (many of which feature Vincent).

P.S. I just learned that Messermeister is based in Ojai, so I’ll share more on their knives in a future post!