Dan Rodricks: Knife sharpening for tomato season by Monaldi the Moleta

It’s once again tomato season in the Greater Patapsco Drainage Basin and, in kitchens throughout the region, knives are being put to the test, and most of them are probably failing. 

We’ve all had that experience: You stand near the sink to slice a fresh tomato for a tomato sandwich and discover, once again, that your knife is dull and not up to the task. It presses against the tomato skin and even bounces back a little. You push harder and, instead of surrendering to a tidy, surgical slice, your luscious red Beefsteak pops open and bleeds.

That’s a “first-world problem” maybe, but a common experience of Maryland households every summer. 

Tomato slicing frustration (TSF) exists, however fleeting, for mainly two reasons: A lot of people, perhaps most, hardly ever bother to sharpen their knives, or they see professionally sharpened blades as dangerous.

And they are; they need to be handled in a safe manner.

But so can dull knives be dangerous from the exertion required to use them.

Ask any chef, professional or hobbyist, and they’ll insist that a well-equipped kitchen includes good knives — paring knife, chef’s knife, boning knife, a serrated bread knife, for starters — and good means sharp.

According to her husband, Julia Child complained loudly about households with dull knives. “God damn it!” he once quoted her. “How the hell do these people think they’re going to cook when they can’t even slice a tomato?”

The other day, I took five knives to Frank Monaldi’s basement shop just outside Baltimore. Frank is from a long line of Italian-American blade sharpeners; it’s been the family business going back generations to a small town, Pinzolo, in the northern Italian Alps. 

More than a century ago, the timbering industry around Pinzolo required “moletas,” workers who could sharpen blades. The town became famous for its skilled grinders. There’s a monument to the moletas of Pinzolo near the entrance to the town.

Having learned to grind saws, hatchets and axes, the moletas traveled to other cities and towns to sharpen knives when the mills closed for the winter. One of those men eventually landed in Baltimore’s Little Italy in 1904. Throughout the 20th Century, two related immigrant families — the Vidis and the Monaldis— became the best-known knife sharpeners in town.

Frank Monaldi, in his 70s now, is semi-retired. He retreated from his shop to his home when the pandemic shuttered restaurants that had been steady customers of his grinding business.

I found him working up a sweat doing yard work at his home. Happy to have a break, Frank took me around the back of his house to the cluttered basement shop.

“This is my ninth grind stone in 50 years,” Frank said, referring to the big gray wheel that he spun with his hand just before reaching for the start switch. The wheel quickly picked up speed and hummed. Frank donned safety glasses and immediately started applying my knives in the easy but precise way you’d expect from a veteran craftsman.

Frank picked up the family trade when he was in his 20s, after a stint in the Navy. He’s been sharpening knives and telling bad jokes all these years. (The one he told during my recent visit involved a guy who accidentally cut off all his fingers.)

“When things are dull, business is good” was the Monaldi motto, one that’s probably been used by every knife sharpener in America.

“You want to see some sparks, right?” Frank asked, as I snapped photographs of him at the grinding wheel.

He reached for the largest knife in my order — a 10-inch carbon steel chef’s knife inherited from my father-in-law, an executive chef in clubs and executive dining rooms in New York City. I’ve sharpened that knife from time to time with a whetstone, but it really needed professional treatment.

As Frank pressed that old knife against the grinding wheel, sparks flew. That didn’t happen so much with my stainless blades. It’s the carbon steel against the spinning stone that creates the real dazzle.

Frank gave the edge of the knife a perfect bevel, then he buffed and honed it. He cleaned up the wooden handle, too.

Monaldi the Moleta charged me $5 for each knife and, having noticed the “tips appreciated” sign among all the well-worn tools and other items hanging in his shop, I added a little something — for his craftsmanship, for his bad jokes, for still being there.

I took my knives home and slipped them into a wooden block in a kitchen drawer. Though I’m the only one who uses them on a regular basis, I wrote a note and placed it inside the drawer: “Caution: Knives sharpened August 2025 by Frank Monaldi.”

Then I looked for the nearest tomato.

Dan Rodricks writes a weekly column for Baltimore Fishbowl. He can be reached at djrodricks@gmail.com or via danrodricks.com