The knife and the mandoline.
People who know me well know that I am very capable in the kitchen. Oh, I’m an okay cook, but what I really excel at is maiming myself. Cuts, burns, tripping over cats…I can do it all. Watching me in the kitchen is rather like watching a Peckinpah movie….lots of spurting blood and profanity.
Why, just last week I almost excised the tip of one of my fingers whilst cutting potatoes. The knife is on my shit list. It is on a time out. It is in the dish strainer, glinting at me as I type. She devil! It’s probably a bad thing that I have my back to it at this time. A few months ago, Dan bought me a mandoline. A mandoline is a food cutting device that gives you neat, uniform slices of food, which helps insure that each slice cooks at the same rate. I haven’t used it because it is sharp. Very, very sharp. I am afraid of it like I am afraid of power tools and people educated in northern Europe.*
Last night, I was going to cook a dish that required julienned carrots. I was going to have to make a terrible decision. The knife….or the mandoline. Now, the knife is a known. I know that using it will cause some small blood loss, and some very bad words. It’s a comforting routine. The mandoline is so sharp that I know that even a hint of an inkling of a twinge of a thought of using it will cause my fingers to start bleeding spontaneously. But I also know that it will give me neat, uniform slices of my fingers, which will insure that each slice cooks at the same rate. So I choose the mandoline.
The mandoline came with an instruction booklet. It must be made by Ikea, because there are no words, only pictures. This is not good. I figured it would come with an instructional DVD. The box was certainly big enough. I mean, everything comes with an instructional DVD these days. There was one in the last set of bath towels I bought, I’ll have you know. The mandoline comes with a few different sets of blades, which when used in their various configurations gives you different results. Slice, crinkle cut, and julienne, which is the one I wanted. Now the pictures show the blades easily being popped out and moved around into these various configurations. Well sure! An hour, a screwdriver and some percussive finesse later, I had the correct configuration of blades set up.
This infernal machine came with a finger guard. It’s a disc with four sharp prongs on the bottom of it. You impale the food to be cut on the prongs, and then slide the food down, and over the blades. Your fingers are protected. Carrots are long and skinny. The prongs are an inch or so apart. So the carrots kept falling off the prongs, and I had to keep re-sticking them. Did I mention that the prongs are very sharp? I l have a sheet of paper towel that proves it. After some wailing and gnashing of teeth, and some swearing, I very gingerly passed the carrots over the blades by hand until I had enough. I am still not sure whether all the sweating I was doing was from terror or hot flashes.
I then had to clean the machine, a process which, judging by the illustrations in the booklet was fraught with danger. I was able to nick my finger by merely thinking about pulling the blades out and cleaning them.
All in all, I’d have to say that my first mandoline experience was okay. Not too much blood was lost, which is a good thing, because normally by this point I’d be a bit woozy and a quart low. I think I’ll use the mandoline more often. I worry, though, what will happen if the knife finds out about it. I’ll start banking some of my own blood now, just in case.
*Unlike the US, Europe seems to have a great education system. Ergo, they’re smarter than me. Ergo, I’m afraid of them.
= new reply since forum marked as read
They are dangerous in skilled hands. If you're unsure of yourself, it is best you avoid working with it. By the way, worse than a big, ultra sharp, professional mandoline is a kinda sharp, less than *really* sturdy amateur mandoline.
You might want to think about a mezzaluna. It forces your hands to be out of the danger zone. The downside is, while it is excellent for chopping, it isn't very good for slicing.
My husband says I'm a danger to myself in the kitchen. I don't own a mandoline and I think I'll keep it that way 
You should write more!
aA
kesha
I use cut resistant gloves when working with a mandoline. They are cheap to buy. Effective at preventing cuts. And can be washed in the washing machine. I also don't bother with that stupid little safety hockey puck finger guard...just use the gloves as it is much easier.
and have only used it once years ago. It sits gathering dust. I type this with my left index finger wrapped in gauze after an unfortunate encounter involving my extra sharp paring knife and a whole chicken last night. Loved your post.