Gourmet Live Blog

Photo: Kemp Minifie

Fess up. Has the following scenario happened to you? You learn a nifty cooking tip, then eventually forget it, only to be reminded of it much later, at which point you wonder how you could have forgotten something so smart and easy. Sound familiar?

I was kicking myself this weekend when I was testing an upcoming recipe—stay tuned for our Thanksgiving Modern Menu!—that involved apples. I called Gina Marie Miraglia Eriquez, a gifted baker and the developer of the recipe, to check just how she got to those ¼-inch thick slices of apple (for instance, she could have quartered the apples and cut each quarter into thinner wedges, the way my mother would have done it).

As Eriquez enthusiastically described her method, we simultaneously realized that she’d done a video demonstrating this timesaving trick. The photograph above also illustrates the technique, but you’d want to do it with a peeled apple—I left the skin in place for the visual appeal.

The basic approach is this: You cut the sides, or cheeks, off the apple, leaving a skinny, squared-off core. Then slice each cheek piece lengthwise.

The benefits are numerous. It’s fast, and the cuts are straight and vertical; no messing with a paring knife trying to pry a curvy core from a quartered piece of apple. Better yet, it’s safer, because each slice provides a flat surface for the apple piece to rest on, which is much more secure, lowering the risk of a bloody knife accident.

Between the photograph above, the video, and the act of writing the tip down, there’s no way I’m forgetting it again!