A-Peeling

Prepping vegetables for meals is one of those tasks that I often find challenging. I need to wear latex gloves when I cook so I don’t infect my finger ulcers, and this makes handling food difficult, because my fingers have been shortened by both resorption and surgery, so the tips of the gloves always flop around and get in the way. Onions, in particular, are tricky, and my lack of tears from Sjogren’s can make slicing them extremely uncomfortable.

Then there is garlic. I use a lot of garlic in recipes, but it is a beast to peel. I can’t do the trick with slamming the flat side of a chef’s knife on a clove, because I need to protect my hands. So I end up trimming the top and bottom with a paring knife and then slowly picking away the papery skin. Very, very tedious.

That is, until today, when I tried out my new silicon garlic peeler. At least a year ago, a good friend who is an excellent cook introduced me to this little gadget, which I thought was ingenious but never got around to buying—that is, until I had to order some new potholders last week to replace old stained ones that had attracted a mouse. As long as I was finally replacing those gross potholders, why not get the garlic peeler, too?

Here’s how it works: The inside of the tube is covered with bumps to create friction. You place the clove inside, then press down on the tube with the heel of your hand and roll it back and forth a few times. Presto! It neatly removes the skin and leaves you with a perfectly clean garlic clove! Rinse out the tube, and you’re good to go.

Whoever the genius is who invented this handy (literally), inexpensive tool, my heartfelt thanks. Now, if anyone knows of a good tool for easily peeling and slicing onions that won’t make me cry dry tears, I’m all ears.

Evelyn Herwitz blogs weekly about living fully with chronic disease, the inside of baseballs, turtles and frogs, J.S. Bach, the meaning of life and whatever else she happens to be thinking about at livingwithscleroderma.com. Please view Privacy Policy here.