OUR NEWEST DOODAD DE CUISINE

The OXO Spiralizer, our latest household gadget.

Dee, in her desire to drop a few excess holiday pounds - a desire shared by all too many of us in January, including Yours Truly - got it in her head to purchase a spiralizer. I agreed that it was a capital idea for pretty much the same reason. We found one at a local Household Goods and Kitchen Doodads Emporium and grabbed it immediately.

A spiralizer, in case you are unfamiliar with the concept, is a contraption that converts cylindrical vegetables into ribbon- or noodle-like spirals by passing said vegetables through a set of blades. It’s something akin to a mandoline slicer, except that it works by twisting the veg against the blade rather than using a reciprocating motion. (It’s also a bit harder to slice your fingertips off with it.)

You can shred zucchini with a box grater or with a food processor, or you can slice it into paper-thin discs with a mandoline, but with this gadget you can convert it into flat ribbons or long, spaghetti-like strands. Throw on some ragu bolognese, and bingo! You’ve got a Pasta Sauce Conveyance Device that is not only tasty and vaguely pasta-like, but that has a fraction of the calories of actual pasta. Winning!

Pretty much anything that is round or cylindrical can be spiralized. Potatoes (both sweet and white), squash, zucchini, beets, carrots, whatever. You can use it to make interesting looking salads or to hack up ingredients for fritters (this last being an application that defeats the “drop a few excess pounds” objective, alas.)

But I have my sights set on more perverse interesting goals. It is only a matter of time before I try to spiralize an entire salami. Hey, it’s cylindrical!