Sharp Slicer Jess Rice

Any cook who starts a raw vegan restaurant (AVO) better know how to chop, slice, and dice, as vegetables require a lot of it. Enter Jess Rice, a chef who knows her way around a knife (a new Shun knife at the time of our photo shoot). “Knife skills are very Zen to me,” says Jess. “When I was training chefs at AVO, I was giving them a raw food lesson. And for the raw food people, I was giving them a chef lesson. I was literally walking around the kitchen with a ruler.”

Since leaving her restaurant AVO in 2015, Jess has done a little bit of a lot of things, most of which revolve around music and food. In the fall and winter, she was on the road with Neil Young. Shortly after, she was cooking for Depeche Mode before their show at Ascend Amphitheater. Most recently, closer to home, she appeared on Trisha Yearwood’s show Trisha’s Southern Kitchen, demonstrating once again how to chop, slice and dice.

With her gregarious personality and gift of gab, Jess showed Trisha and sister Beth how to chop herbs with precision and without bruising them. Trisha got the hang of it pretty quick and said she would never cut any herbs that pretty. Jess is a big fan of Trisha as well: “Trisha is one of the nicest people ever,” says Jess. “I mean really fun and down to earth. She has an awesome crew on the Food Network who really know their stuff. They actually measured my cuts on the vegetables.” Jess teaches regularly at Graze restaurant in East Nashville, and her knife skills classes regularly sell out.

We asked Jess to demonstrate her amazing knife skills for us, as spring and summer bring lots of fresh greens and herbs, which means a lot of chopping. And of course, everyone needs to know how to chop an onion, whether you’re a dedicated home chef or the occasional dabbler.

First rule of order: buy a good knife. Jess was using a new Shun knife that is “perfectly balanced,” as she demonstrated by balancing it on her wrist. With knife in hand, we went to work on ingredients that use different chopping skills and that appear in one of Jess’s favorite recipes featured here, her Kimchi Spring Rolls.