The good: This set includes a pair if scissors which works just fine. It also has several rubber spatulas and plastic spoons, the latter which I have found myself using pretty frequently. There are about a dozen different knifes, including 5 kitchen knives (paring, larger chef knives, etc) and 8 serrated (steak? I don’t know, I only ever use my one utility knife) knives. The knives all came with cardboard sheaths and were plastic wrapped. All these are dishwasher safe and come in a carousel for easy access. The carousel also had enough room to add some of the tools I already had.

The whole set was also reasonably priced. We paid somewhere between $20 and $20 so I can’t complain one bit for the sheer number of pieces we got.

The Bad: The sheath and plastic had fallen off of 1 knife. I was careful and noticed but someone could easily have been cut. However, out of a dozen or so knives, this wasn’t bad. I don’t really need 8 serrated blades. I think 4 would have been enough and they could perhaps provide 4 other types of knives, too. The carousel tends to “stick” and doesn’t swivel well so I wind up moving the whole thing but it’s really not a big deal.

The biggest downfall is that the knives had rather angular handles are I cannot use them for long before they start to hurt my hands and cause serious crampage. I think they could easily cause blisters. I was cubing potatoes once, and tried 3 different knives all to no avail. I wound up resorting to my old one-size-fits-all utility knife which has never caused pain to me at all. I haven’t yet used this for steak or meat because I never eat steak but I think it would be less of a problem because you use the knife much less frequently and with less force with that sort of cooking.

There are also a lot of reviews on Amazon for similar products which talk about the knives rusting. I have yet to have that problem but I have not washed them in the dishwasher or used them frequently enough for this to occur.

So if I consider the main purpose to replace my utility knife, then this 21 Piece Cutlery set from Farberware fails. Still, if I focus on having other tools like spoons, spatulas and a pair of scissors, then I am still better off. Furthermore, if I ever invite 7 other people for steaks or need to cut fresh baked bread, I’m probably set. For my infrequent need of cutlery, I could have done worse. When i’m ready to replace this I will definitely make more of an investment and take time to read reviews as well.