Besides gourmet, organic, or international markets, my other favorite place to shop is at kitchen gadget stores. Or, even the kitchen gadget section of a store. I can often be found at my local HomeGoods, gazing longingly at this beautiful sight before me…

I don’t really know why I’m so mesmerized by kitchen gadgets and appliances, I just go with it. I hope to someday have a kitchen large enough to store all of my gadgets. For now, I mostly just look and drool over the red spatulas and baby whisks. As you may or may not know, I have sort of exhausted all of my available counter space with the recent addition of my beloved Excalibur Food Dehydrator and VitaMix Blender.

Counter space comes at a premium in our house, and not just because it’s granite.

There is just virtually none left.

SO, I didn’t NEED a mandolin slicer, but I wanted one. And, I’m kind of like a 3-year-old when it comes to kitchen things. If I want it, I generally buy it. Come hell or lack of counter space.

The fact that I can’t really close my cabinet doors when all of my dishes and things are clean is of no consequence to me these days. I just give the cabinet door my knee and keep it movin’.

I went to Bed Bath & Beyond yesterday to find a mandolin slicer. In an effort to save my knees from more bruising, I bought this space-conserving solution…

Sleekslice.

Clever name.

Slim design.

Fits into small places. Seems like a good thing.

I put Sleekslice to the test with a sweet potato. The plan was to slice up some sweet potatoes for the dehydrator. I’m going to make some fruit dip tonight, and use the sweet potatoes as “chips” to dip. Yum. Look for pictures of that later on.

Unfortunately, the “holder” thingamadonker didn’t do a very good job of holding onto the sweet potato. The surface area is much too small to fit across the diameter of a medium-large sweet potato (mine was about 10″ in diameter), and the edges of said thingamadonker are beveled, so if anything is too large, it is literally impossible to hold it.

After 3 attempts, I nixed the thingamadonker, and ended up using my bare man hands. Within 3.4 seconds, I was officially injured and bleeding. I’ll spare you the bloody finger picture. Luckily, it wasn’t a bad cut, and I’ve healed nicely.

Sadly for Sleekslice, I had to return him to the store today. I just can’t risk losing a finger for the sake of a poorly-engineered thingamadonker, and the $10 that it cost me to upgrade to a slightly larger, sturdier version of the same thing was worth it based upon the potential consequences of using my bare hands again.

Of course you didn’t think I could leave the store with just a mandolin slicer replacement, did you?

* Have you joined my Facebook Group yet?

* See how my training is going over here!

* Wonder what I’m eating?

* Everyone loves a giveaway!