Apples to Apples

If anyone of you has trouble getting your kids to eat fruit, then I suggest finding an apple peeler. This isn't a new gadget or another name for your spouse with a knife. This is something that has been around almost as long as apples have been around.

Number One Son is a somewhat picky eater. He always orders the same food at every restaurant we visit. A bacon cheeseburger with fries. The Mexican and Chinese restaurants have to do some creative cooking sometimes for him. He likes some fruit, but usually not apples. Don't ask me why. I thought everyone liked apples.

Anyway, we have an old style apple peeler. Ours actually is relatively new, but the basic model is an old design. It resembles a large U-shaped metal brace. One end has a crank and the other end has a do-hicky. As you probably have guessed, the do-hicky does the amazing work.

We first, stick the apple, butt first, onto the end of the crank. Then the fun starts. You can probably guess that the kids fight over who gets to turn the crank. As the kids turn the crank, the apple spins with it moving ever closer to the do-hicky. Once the apple comes in contact with said do-hicky, the apple's peel magically starts to come off of the apple like a ribbon and curls up on the cutting board. The peeled strips are so thin that there is almost zero waste. Sweet Pea thinks the ribbon peel looks like the round red onions that come with your salad at a restaurant.

As the spinning apple loses its clothes, it passes through a ring at the other end. This ring slices the now naked apple into a spiral and separates it from the core. So you are left with a core less, nude apple with a slinky like cut throughout.

Now who wouldn't love to eat an apple like that? Well, no one in our house. N1S will now eat a whole apple for lunch. Sweet Pea, who loved apples to start with, now has another way to snack.

It's funny what kids will eat and what they won't. The chefs on the Food Network always place such importance on presentation. Now I know why they do.