My favorite three kitchen knives are a stainless paring knife with a sheath they gave me for speaking at PyCon Argentina a few years ago, a cheap cubic zirconia paring knife I had to buy a diamond hone to resharpen after I dropped it and broke the tip off, and a scabby-looking French-style full-sized kitchen knife I found buried in the garden and resharpened with concrete and broken ceramic. It's a hardened carbon steel and holds an edge better than the stainless knife.