More "As Seen on TV" Junk: The Vidalia Chop Wizard

I am a strictly by-the-recipe (and sometimes by-the-box) chef. I only make a few things really well, and most of those dishes could probably be made by my 8 year old niece fairly easily as well. If I'm making something big or elaborate, I have to start the prep hours in advance or nobody would eat at a decent hour here. One thing that takes me forever is chopping and dicing. I totally envy those chefs who can whip out a knife and, in just a few flicks of the wrist, have a perfectly diced onion. Not me. This Christmas, I decided to make some shrimp scampi. The recipe said that the prep would take 15 minutes because it wasn't very involved--the most complicated part was dicing an onion.

It took me an hour. And I didn't cut the pieces small enough, because the garlic burned before my onions turned clear when I was trying to saute it. The next day, there was a present under the tree for me: the Vidalia Chop Wizard. I know you've seen the commercials for this thing, an effortless press from a cheerful blonde reveals amazingly diced vegetables of all kinds. But does it really work? Is it worth that magical TV price of $19.95?

Yes, actually.

The chop wizard has a few pieces. There's the base, cleverly disguised as a measuring cup; the lid/lever; a dicing blade; a chopping blade; and a small plastic 'cleaning' tool that looks like a cheap comb. Everything but the cleaning tool is made of a surprisingly sturdy plastic. The base and the lever/lid part separate from each other--I'm sure this is supposed to be helpful when you're trying to clean it, but it did fall apart at one point when I was trying to empty it out. That was probably the only thing that irritated me. Changing the blades is also quite easy. You just pull one out and drop the other one in.

I used both blades that came with the Chop Wizard--one to chop an onion and the other to dice bread for homemade stuffing. I had to cut the onion in half, and then cut it down again or else I couldn't get the lever down at all. Even dicing the bread required a significant amount of force. Eventually I figured out that I need to start lifting weights or put less in the chopper before I lower the handle. For someone who can take 15 minutes to dice up the bread and another 30 to chop an onion, I was done with my prep in record time--6 minutes. And I'm sure, as I learn what is too much for the chopper to handle (or, at least, how strong I need to be to operate it), it will go even faster.

The cleaning tool didn't exactly remove anything from the lid/lever thing, but it was useful to poke bits of chopped onion that hadn't fallen into the base. Dicing the bread made a huge mess out of the whole thing, and the cleaning tool was useless there. But, another good feature this product is that everything is top-rack dishwasher safe, so getting it clean is remarkably easy.

If you're an experienced chef who can whip through chopping and dicing, it probably isn't a necessary staple for your kitchen. But for someone like me, slow and unskilled with a chef's knife, the Vidalia Chop Wizard certainly made my life easier.