New tool invention

[Leon]

My wife uses one like it also, I will say it does not get much simpler and works well but cleaning is more trouble, naturally.

[Upscale]

Personal experience or hearsay? I just happen to be in the market for a garlic press and my primary interest is quality/function over price.

[10x]

Nah! He needs Vince, "The Shamwow Guy". You following me camera guy?

Joe aka 10x

[Lew Hodgett]

IMHO, a sharp chef knife, a decent cutting board, and 5 minutes time beats a garlic press hands down including reduced clean up time.

Have a press lying in a drawer that haven't used in years.

Lew

[Lew Hodgett]

"Upscale" wrote: .

That makes two of us.

Works for me.

You already have the knife and cutting board in service just to clean the cloves.

Adding a press gets more equipment involved.

Speed is a relative thing.

I can't think of a recipe that uses garlic that would find finely chopped garlic unacceptable.

YMMV.

Lew

[Upscale]

Maybe I don't know what a garlic press is supposed to do. So far, I've been using the knife/cutting board route chopping it into fine bits. Forgetting about cleanup for the moment, I figured a garlic press would be faster. I presumed (maybe wrongly) that a garlic press mulches it up into fine paste so that it would disseminate into the mix faster than the chopped method. Am I mistaken?

[Chris Friesen]

This one is a whole lot faster than 5 minutes. And I just rinse it out when done.

[FrozenNorth]

I have one, pretty much never use it, once I learned to just smash the clove with the knife flat, remove the skin, then finely chop, technically the knife just needs a quick wipe for a cleanup.

The garlic press, leaves a bunch of garlic crap, embedded into the blades, and around the sides of it, much more effort for cleanup, and definitely no difference as far as the upcoming garlicky good meal goes.

Just my two cents Canadian.

[notbob]

It reduces garlic to a pulp and extracted juices, as opposed to just smaller pieces of garlic. This is often preferable for making real garlic butter, dips, etc. Zyliss makes some good stuff, but their garlic press is only okay. Having used many over the years, I find this one far and away the best press:

several cloves, built like a tank, and has long handles for good ease-of-use leverage. Reasonably priced, too.

HTH nb

[J. Clarke]

"WHACK . . . rat-a-tat-a-tat . . . scrape" and it's done. At least if you have two Chinese knives and know what to do with them it is.

[CW]

You will find these things in any headshop in the country in a wide variety of sizes and materials. Used for grinding marijuana.

[Upscale]

Possibly a garlic press is capable of squeezing all the juice or essence out of a clove without having to clean away the outer shell. That would make it quite a bit faster I think.

Hey, don't any of you other woodworkers out there do any cooking? What exactly does a garlic press do?

[Lew Hodgett]

Lew

[Rich]

That's the problem with all these gadgets, you have to get the cutting board out to start the process and cut the bits small enough to fit the device and I look and say well as long as I have a knife and the board out finish the job and only two things to clean. And if you're using garlic isn't there going to be an onion around somewhere in the recipe? Well at least at my house there is! There is one born every minute or less these days!

Rich

[Robatoy]

I cook a lot. Mostly mediterranean dishes; Italian and Greek are my favourites. My spanakopitas and raviolis are to die for. I make my own pasta from scratch. No extraordinary skills, just some simple, solid recipes... and first grade ingredients. Some very basic methods include: NEVER cut your garlic buds. Crush only. NEVER go beyond a very, very light tint of distant amber when sauteing garlic. NEVER 'cut' lettuce, always break the stuff by hand. NEVER peel potatoes. ALWAYS wet your hands before handling garlic, for obvious reasons. Learn to cook with one hand... the other one is for handling wine.

Now I am farking hungry...damnit....

[Lew Hodgett]

If you want to give Lee Valley your money, buy a microplane.

Can be used as a grater for herbs, nuts, etc, then washed and used in the shop for wood working.

How's that for staying on message?

Lew

[LD]

I got a video with mine, Can't remember where I put it ...

The commercials seem to pop up now and then real late on one of the oddball cable channels. Can't remember the last time I saw one. Hispanic guy. What I should have said is get the guy who Wrote the Script for the Zyliss vise demo.

I bought mine at a show here in Portland (OR) maybe 15 years ago. I watched the demo three or four times before I bought. It's one of the best 'stupid' purchases I've ever made. It gets Used!

IIRC, Zyliss is one of those companies that makes everything from kitchen gadgets to oil drilling platforms.

[LD]

than kitchen gadgets. Industrial machinery comes to mind. There was a Chinese knock off on the market about 5 years or so ago.

[LD]

Okay. I don't like the name.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yeah, 'mule' has some bad pr these days. Generally means somebody running drugs.

[Robatoy]

As an aid to certain trades, serious amateurs, and those who don't already have a solution to stationary assistance, the tool certainly has a place. I have had 4 Workmates, still regularly use 2, and I have a Triton Superjaw. So, it is not for me. As a storage and transportable solution, it needs drawers, wheels etc. It is essentially an expandable workbench with a bench vice. I like that part. Great concept. Incomplete. The name is awful but a focus group could disagree. Names don't need to be descriptive, just memorable? It is probably just me.