Acids do a job on blades and you are right to rinse immediately after use - I do the same.

It never hurts to sharpen your knives before or after each use (rinsing of course) and I find that the sharpeners they have on some electric can openers can also dull you knife depending on how you hold them!

Years ago we had a knife man who would come around with the cart and sharpen knives, scissors, etc. and after he died I remember my gram going outside to the concrete step and sharpening her knives on that! Worked for her!

I like my little hand-held sharpener - and by keeping up with your knife blades it's so much easier instead of waiting for them to really get dull.

Okay, here's a bit of an expansion on the original question. What about storage of the (good) knives when they're not in use? I got my husband a good Henckels knife for our anniversary (nothing says romance like a good knife ) and I hate just putting it in the drawer. I have evicted a lesser knife from the knife block and put the Henckels in there, but that only works for the time being (as I plan to get more good knives in the near future). Do I have to go buy a whole new knife block?

Hmmm. Does your current knife block not have enough storage spaces? I would get a new one then. Mine has room for 8 or so knives, I think, plus kitchen scissors.

I think it was about $40 at Williams-Sonoma. Naturally, you can find knife blocks elsewhere but mine was a gift.

It's funny you mention romance and knives - I recall some story about how in certain cultures you don't give knives as wedding gifts for some superstitious reason, but now I can't recall what the reason is.

My dad had a superstition about not giving knives away, and anytime he would give one to someone, would always ask for a penny. It had to do with giving a knife to a friend and if they cut themselves with it then it would cut the friendship. So he always sold them for a penny.

I find that my two knives from Pampered Chef are my sharpest knives because they each come with their own storage sleeve that has a sharpener. The knives are sharpened every time I take them out and put them back in their storage sleeve. Unfortunately my other good knives are only sharpened occasionally because I never think to get the sharpener out more frequently.