A knife-sharpener is actually a profession back in India, or atleast it was when I was growing up. There used to be a guy who would ride around in a bicycle outfitted with wooden slats carrying a wide variety of sharp knives – and a really heavy whetstone to sharpen knives with wedged somewhere in front or behind him on that flimsy bike. He was the original dare-devil; imagine riding around the bumpy Hyderabad roads with so many sharp objects close to your body!

My mom or grandmother would flag him down and present all the knives in the house to him for sharpening; in a very ‘green’ display of using human energy, he would hook up the whetstone apparatus to the cycle in a way that the stone would whirl around as he pedaled – and he help up the knives against that blade to produce a deafening ‘grrrrr’, plenty of sparks that amused my 8-yr-old self, and a brilliantly sharp edge. I would watch my mom slice through piles of vegetables the day after this awesome feat of low-tech machinery, and sorely miss the ingenuity of the true ‘cutting-edge’ technology of the good old days!

In the so-called high-tech days we find ourselves in these days, hoping for a pedaling, knife-sharpening daredevil to make his way around New York is probably a lot to ask for. However, home cooks soon come to find that sharp knives are some of the best tool to have around the house – contrary to the fears of all beginner cooks, the sharper the knife, the safer it is to use. A dull knife will slip off the surface of whatever it is you are trying to cut; use a sharp knife with precise strokes and you can slice and dice without endangering your digits.

After quite a bit of research on appliances to use to sharpen my beginner knife set, I settled on the JA Henckels model pictured above. It has a few things going for it that I like:

• the horizontal design yields a heavy, sturdy base, and a nice curved grip that I canhold with one hand while I move the knife back and forth between the blades
• The base had a rubber coating so I can lay it on my coffee table and sharpen the knives while I catch up on the latest Kardashian dramas (I mean, as I watch the NFL)
• The blade design workes on any kind of knife blade except for santoku-style serrate knives, which I don’t use anyways.
• stored vertically, the gadget takes barely any space and can be thrown in to any back-corner of a cabinet. I usually sharpen my knives once every couple of months, so I don’t need to be reaching it frequently.
• It has lasted my over 3 yrs now, and still does a great job sharpening all the knives we have.

There are a few newer models that have come out in the few years since I’ve gotten this one, so make sure you check out your closest home store to find the one that best fits your knife sharpening needs – and remember, if you happen to find a true human knife sharpener in your travels around the world, pause and take a picture with an original daredevil!

Think of the words ‘healthy natural food’ and fruits are one of the first items that come to your mind. Think of ‘fruits to eat regularly’ and the words ‘apple’ follow naturally. Yes, since we were kids we’ve always been told ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away‘, and have always looked to the shiny red (or green, in this country) orb as a quick, nutritional powerhouse that is easy to pick up from the grocery store, easy to have on hand and more importantly, easy to eat – a quick wash and a bite into it’s juicy flesh is all it takes.

Both the wifey and I love apples, and we always have our favorite kinds around at home – the crunchy, deep red ‘desi’ kind for her, golden delicious or Roma apples for me. Apples are also one of my favorite pre-workout snacks; half an apple sliced up, with maybe a dollop of peanut butter, gives me a quick burst of energy before hitting the weights without filling me up. That is where the apple slicer comes in; most of the time, I am perfect fine biting into the apple as dentists recommend (apparently, it is great for the gums) – but it tends to be a slightly messy task, and if I just want half an apple – well, I’ll save you the gory details of the travails involved in storing a half-bitten apple!

So if I want nice perfect slices to throw into a ziploc to take to work as an afternoon snack, or to have ready for my pre-gym time, I find the KitchenAid apple slicer to be the perfect tool to use. Now, I know its really not too much effort to cut and core an apple with a knife, but nothing beats just pressing the slicer down and ending up with 8 perfect slices and the core neatly separated. Just a little pressure applied, making sure that the apple is sitting up straight on whatever surface you’re cutting it on – you’ll end up with a quick slices to bag as a healthy snack!

Now, I know I am breaking Alton Brown’s edict of not having any uni-tasking gadgets with this apple slicer, but I chose this to make my first gadget review for a reason. It really has a nice, simple design – handles to grip on the side, balanced blades and is very easy to clean. It is such a cheap (around $10 I think) little tool, stores flat so you can just shove it beneath almost anything, and has really taken any excuses for eating more apples out of the way (my gums hurt so I can’t bite into it, I’ll cause a mess if I need to eat it on the way to work, I don’t really want a full apple now). I’ve started eating multiple apples in a week and always have some slices left over in the fridge for a quick dessert (cold apple, drizzled with a little honey is wonderful).

So if you’re looking to add in more apples to your diet (if you’re not, well why not?!) but are squeamish about the commitment needed to finish a whole apple – get yourself an apple slicer and get started on some slices!

THE REVIEW: KitchenAid Apple Slicer

RATING: 4/5 oranges.

The slicers needs a fair bit of pressure to cut into most of the apples, and I usually have to help out the wifey to cut her own, so it fell short on being completely perfect. But it truly is a cheap and useful gadget to have around, and works well on other similar fruits like pears. Stores flat – I stick it below my orange juicer. I’ve had it for over an year now, so it is definitely durable. The widely spaced ridges give you nice, thick slices – though a bit big for pie pieces, you may want to chop those down further – and make cleaning up the slice a cinch because there are no little crevices for apple skin to get caught in. The blade is of good quality, no discoloration at all from the apple juice even if I leave it unwashed for a while.