Knife Skills 101

Early this morning at 12:43am, I gave a doctor the finger.

It had been two hours since I arrived at the Emergency Room of St. Luke's Hospital. The nurse at triage complained to me about her late-night hunger. A woman two-and-a-half times my size with a breathing problem whined about being cold through her respiratory treatment tube while simultaneously sucking on Peanut M&M's. A few homeless people came in with "injuries" that required them to stay the night.

I waited patiently, slightly amused by my mishap, with my middle finger bleeding through a roll of gauze that trailed behind me because the triage nurse couldn't find her scissors to cut it properly.

I didn't cry when I sliced my finger open. I didn't panic when our cab driver had a hard time driving straight up Amsterdam Avenue. I didn't even get upset when I had to take a urine test to see if I was pregnant (the absurdity of which was made all the more amusing when my roommate told them she was positive that I wasn't pregnant, and the boyfriend of the sprained-ankle-girl questioned whether or not we were lesbians).

Not even the three-hour wait just to see a doctor had dampened my spirits. There was something rather vindicating about having my first trip to the ER be the result of a cooking accident. I was there because I had cut the cheese.

It was Mimolette cheese, one of my most favorite cheeses -- nutty, orange, and hard as wax. We were having a Delivery Lockdown Cocktail Party (awaiting a delivery from Bed Bath and Beyond) enjoying a bottle of Muscadet, Lemon Apples, Etorki Cheese and of course, the culprit Mimolette.

My other roommate couldn't slice through the cheese, and I offered assistance. I picked up the wedge, proudly poised to show off my cheese-cutting skills, and held the rind in my right hand, picked up the Swiss cheese knife in my left. A chorus of "watch your fingers" went up around the table -- which everyone did as soon as the knife skidded across the cheese and sliced through the tip of my right middle finger.

One bloody bamboo cheeseboard, one picture text message to my father, and one Google search for the best NYC ERs later ("Amanda, what are you expecting, a pre-suture spa treatment?"), I was on my way to bandage up my first serious injury that would allow me to become part of the ranks of cooks who sustain -- and relish in -- injuries from all sorts of kitchen mishaps.

Four years ago, I survived unscathed from a grill explosion in my face while grilling a filet of Tilapia. Two summers ago, I lost a bit of the tip of my right thumb while slicing vegetables on a mandolin slicer. When I was in Paris, I burned myself on my oven while pulling out a tray of roasted fall vegetables. I now have an hourglass-shaped scar on my right wrist. Since then, I've been in good shape. But this cheese knife cut was deep, bloody, and fleshy enough to seek real medical treatment. I like to think that my wound is a real chef's cut. Is it a bit perverse that I'm slightly disappointed that I cut it on cocktail cheese rather than while preparing a four-course meal?

In one week, I will get the stitches removed from my finger, and it won't look like a Frankenstein Finger anymore. I wonder if it will scar like the oven burn, or if it will return to normal like my eyebrows did after the gas grill explosion. Either way, I'm now in the Cut Cooks Club, and if anyone challenges my membership, I'll just show them the finger.