Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I just bought this slicer retail because I wanted to slice onions for burgers, and doing it with a knife always yields wedges instead of slices...so I ran to the store and bought this one. I walked out thinking I'd probably just thrown away $40, but wanted to at least try it out. It set up quickly, and then I figured out the food-holder---the first thing that impressed me: It has a central set of skewers to hold the food, and a central plate that pushes the food back OFF the spikes (and out of the hollow interior) as you slice. There is a deep round hollow for tomatoes and onions; a second, more oblong area that is obviously for potatoes, and yet a third shallow area for things like cucumbers and zucchinis. It's really quite well-done, and learning to use it is *mandatory*. The people slicing their own fingers off are the inspiration for warning labels like "remove occupants from stroller before folding" and "do not look into laser with remaining eye". So I put in the onion, ran it down the ramp, and out dropped a perfect slice. Up and down the ramp 10 or 12 more times and the whole onion was there on my cutting board, every slice as perfect as the others. Then came the tomato, with exactly the same results. I rinsed the slicer off in the sink and set it on a towel to dry, thoroughly impressed. In fact, I freaking LOVE this thing! Quick tip: before you use it, give the ramp a quick spritz with some spray cooking oil (e.g, Pam). This will prevent the very first pass from sticking on the dry ramp. (Once the ramp is wet from food, you won't need to do this again, but otherwise that first pass feels awkward and maybe even dangerous because your food doesn't want to move.) Then, learn how to use the food-holder and use it. If it seems clumsy, you're not using it right. You have to push down on the top "pusher" part to keep the food coming down out of the hollow part. Somehow this just seemed to happen naturally for me, but if it doesn't for you, learn how. I don't expect to use the other blades, so not having to fuss with changing those probably made my experience even better, but I do like that they're neatly stored inside the case. I even changed them once just to see how hard it was, and it took me a minute to figure it out, but it wasn't hard; in fact, once I saw how it worked, I'd call it ingenious. In short, this was a great purchase that I'll use every time I grill out: it's just the perfect tool for thin slicing just about anything, and if you want crinkles or strings, it does them. Great job, Oxo.