mandolined

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a mandolin owner without an instruction booklet is in a serious bind. But never fear! The internet knows how to use this vegetable guillotine! (okay, it's not really like a guillotine since the blade doesn't drop; however, the blade still looks like a guillotine. See?)

A mandolin (for those of you, like me, who recently discovered this kitchen gadget) is a fancy vegetable slicer that's kind of like a cheese grater but with a guillotine-like blade. Does it look scary? Why, yes it does. In fact, so scary that I decided to look up instructions on how to use it since I had misplaced mine.

Hence my journey to ehow.com and their instructions on how to properly use mandolins. I was doing all right until I got to step number 3 which reads:

Because I was slicing a particularly unwieldy zucchini, I announced to David, "It says to use this protective thing to hold the vegetable while you slice. That seems rather unnecessary, don't you think?"

I then proceeded to slice the zucchini . . . and sliced my thumb in the process.

Felled with one swoop is not even an exaggeration. As my thumb started spurting blood, I ran over to the kitchen sink where David was washing dishes. But he shooed me to the bathroom so I wouldn't drip blood on his newly cleaned silverware. By the time I made it to the bathroom, I was still bleeding enough to splatter some juice around the sink (which I found a couple of days later--it was a rather tasty find). But by this time I was also a little pale . . .

. . . before I knew it, I was on the ground of the bathroom with my head between my knees while I held out my thumb for David to bandage. While I didn't pass out, I was close enough to it that I thought I'd better get closer to the ground in case the world decided to go black.

After David had bandaged me up and some color returned to my face (this was achieved through me crying out of embarrassment (not that I was embarrassed that David had seen me almost pass out yet again. I was instead embarrassed for being such a wuss. Honestly, my scratch was more like a deep paper cut than a mortal flesh wound)), I resumed slicing vegetables. David was a little nervous to let me start playing with my vegetable guillotine, but I was hungry for dinner, so back to the mandolin I went. This time I used the protective holder and all was well.

Moral of the story: follow instructions when playing with knives, guillotines, or mandolins. Your thumb(s) will thank you for it.

P.S. Slicing my thumb to eat this for dinner was worth it (the picture isn't mine--I don't have that good of photographic presentation). It's pasta with tomatoes and zucchini noodles (as in zucchini that is sliced and chopped to look like fettuccine). Check out the recipe from Our Best Bites here!