Murder!

A while back I received a citrus zester. It is labeled as such, but it doesn’t really work well for zesting fruit. You end up with long skinny strips. When I want zest, I want tiny shavings, not long strips. This is clearly the wrong tool for the job. So it has been sitting in my drawer.

Recently I had a lot of julienning to do, so I pulled it out. Just on a lark, to see if it would work. I took down a cucumber in less than a minute. It works great.

Everyone I talks to about their mandolin says that they’re worried they’re going to slice their hand off. Not owning one, I don’t know exactly why this is the case, but I can say that you won’t do that with one of these devices. You might shave off your knuckles, but you shouldn’t end up in the hospital.

Which leads me to last night. I was making an Asian salad which calls for julienned beets. I was really going to town, tearing down this beet into strips, when I looked up from my work. The kitchen was covered in red. It looked like I had slaughtered a pig. I couldn’t have paid Hollywood special effects wizards to come in and do a better job.

While I love this tool, I’ve decided that I have to use it in the sink when working with beets.