Maybe the only thing more amazing than how useful good knife skills are, is realizing just how poor my cutting, chopping, dicing and slicing abilities were before meeting Brendan. I mean, who on earth let me having a cooking show with my sloppy, inefficient technique? Seriously, guys. Hold me accountable for these things!

So let me preach to you why you should take a knife skills class (especially Brendan's at the Brooklyn Kitchen, if you live in New York):

• First and foremost, handling a knife properly will reduce the risk of catching your fingertip (or worse) under an errant blade. I mean, that's big, bold bullet point #1 right there.
• Using a knife properly actually makes cutting things feel more natural.
• It also looks impressive (we've all gotten a little jealous watching Alton Brown prep, right?)
• Practiced knife skills lead to more even food prepping, which means your food will taste better. That might seem weird, but how many times have you eaten a dish with unevenly minced garlic, so one bite had no garlic flavor at all and the next had a huge, unpalatable chunk of raw garlic? Knife skills, to the rescue!
• And - my favorite reason - improving my knife skills has made me want to cook more. It makes cooking feel as fun and light as your favorite hobby.

So, the chicken tagine. I have to admit, casseroles have never given me much to be excited about before: images of soggy, bland, gummy gray school cafeteria food come to mind. Not very appetizing. But we were given this tagine a few years ago for the holidays, and so far, had only used it to collect dust. In keeping with our chicken theme from a couple weeks ago, Brendan wanted to show you guys how to fabricate, or break down, a whole chicken into parts. It wasn't quite grilling season, and we wanted to do something fairly different from our simple roasted whole chicken.

Guys, dust gets really sticky after a few years. I cleaned that tagine thoroughly before we put it to use.

And you know what? I am so glad we used it. Brendan had never cooked in a tagine before, either, but when we left, he was thinking of getting one for himself. I'd call that a success.

We really had a blast cooking and shooting with Brendan, and we hope you guys enjoyed it, too, because we've got a bunch more episodes with him for you.

Here's the recipe for our chicken tagine. Have fun with it: play with the spices, the ingredients, the herbs.