Chef Jordan Andino on the Vegetable Peeler That Changed the Way He Thinks About Vegetable Peelers

For the month of November, we’ll be pulling together the items you’ll need to have as seamless a Thanksgiving as possible.

I discovered it working at the French Laundry — a Kuhn vegetable peeler was one of the mandatory items the chef required you to come to work with. Normally, when you’re peeling something, you’re always thinking, I wish this were easier. And then you have this peeler. You don’t know how bad you have had it until you have something this good.

There’s a little hole at the end, and you just loop your index finger into it, gripping the peeler with your thumb and middle finger; all you have to do to peel a vegetable is just pull. You peel 100 percent faster with this than with any other peeler.

I love the flexibility — it curves around whatever vegetable you are peeling. You can peel using the entire blade — other peelers don’t allow you to do that. It’s super light. It’s easy to clean because it has no nooks, and easy to store because it has the hole, so you can hang it on a hook. And this design — it’s the most comfortable way to peel, and you don’t have to worry about nicking the end of your fingers, which is a problem with those stick peelers. Sometimes with kitchen tools you want complex, awesome technology, but sometimes you just want the simplest thing ever, and this is it—simplicity at its best. It’s the most efficient peeler that’s out there. If I ever see them at a store, I’ll buy 10 a time.

As told to Priya Krishna

“You can’t really go wrong with an OXO peeler. The one I have has lasted basically forever; its blade is still sharp; and the handle is still satisfyingly hefty and soft in the way all OXO stuff is. Personally, I go for the side-mounted version over the Y-peeler shape because I like the added leverage, but it seems like a matter of preference, really.” — Grub Street editorial director Alan Sytsma

Paderno’s lightweight plastic Tri-Blade Spiral Vegetable Slicer ships fully assembled (just screw in the crank handle). Three interchangeable blades make noodles of varying widths; suction-cup feet lock it to any countertop so you can conquer even the most bulbous squash. The result is perfectly al dente zoodles, sturdy and long enough — as some Instagrammers can attest — for jumping rope.

Good Cook’s safe-cut can opener doesn’t function in the usual manner (cutting into a can’s sunken top). Instead, the blades work their way around the outer sides, a few millimeters below the rim, separating the entire top in a clean swoop. Unlike the traditional two-arm pinch, this one doesn’t come with a bottle opener tacked on, but its minimalist design (a single blade attached to one long, slim handle) takes up only about four inches of drawer space.