For use with your Shun cutlery, this naturally beautiful Bamboo block provides slots for your essentials, including a honing steel, wide knife or cleaver and shears. It's the ideal way to keep knives at hand while ensuring precision blades remain sharp and safely stored when not in use. Bamboo is also highly durable and easily wipes clean with a damp cloth. Made in the ancient city of Seki, Japan, Shun knives rely on extremely sharp blades, made of Japanese VG10 steel clad with 32 layers (16 on each side) of a proprietary blend of high-carbon stainless pounded so thin, it delivers precision slicing, cutting and chopping that is unprecedented by any of its German competitors. Imagine, a knife made the same way as ancient Samurai swords, handcrafted still today. Sharper out of the box than other knives, the Shun Classic maintains its sharpness longer, since the finely-polished blade edge has a natural tendency to remain straighter, yet when required, it can be honed using a standard steel or sent to the factory for free sharpening. The wavy, Damascus-look pattern on the blade creates minute air pockets that offer stick resistance, so food releases easier and prep time is reduced--plus it's rust-free. The ebony Pakka wood handle, a highly durable combination of layers of white birch wood and resin, is designed in a ???D??? shape to fit firmly and comfortably in the hand, with the bonu

Shun knives are a significant investment in superb craftsmanship and deserve the best storage possible. This bamboo block features 11 slots positioned horizontally, which keeps pressure off the extremely fine edges of Shun blades. The variety of slot sizes ensures all your Shun cutlery can be accommodated, from that large cleaver or santoku to small parers. There's even a hole for a sharpening steel and a lower opening for kitchen or poultry shears. Stable on its nonslip feet, the block is finished with a clear water-resistant finish that can be wiped clean.

Bamboo, a grass, grows so quickly that it has become popular as an eco-friendly, renewable replacement for slow-growing trees. Harder even than maple, bamboo makes excellent cutting boards, kitchen utensils, flooring and counter tops. Add in the attractive, natural variations in color and its tough, non-porous quality, and bamboo is clearly an excellent choice for products for the modern home. --Ann Bieri