Saturday, January 5, 2013

Gadgets: Edgeware Better Zester

Does the world need another zester option?

Maybe. There are always improvements that can be made, right?

This zester - the Better Zester - from Edgeware ($14.95) has a nonstick finish on the grating side, v-shaped teeth, and and a container on the back side for holding the zest. I thought the container was a little silly, but it was actually useful for the times when I wasn't grating directly into a bowl. The container has measurements, so you know how much zest you've grated.

The measuring feature was nice, but measuring zest accurately seems sort of futile. It's incredibly fluffy, but it packs pretty well, but I guess you'd have that same problem - or worse - if you were picking up bits of zest from the cutting board and gathering them in a measuring spoon.

What was innovative was that the measuring compartment had a little rubber squeegee-like appendage that did a decent job of scraping the zest off the back of the zester and gathering it in the compartment.

The handle on this is set at an angle to the blade. I suppose there's some ergonomic reason for that, but I don't usually need to do a lot of zesting all at once, so I don't know if that's going to make a difference in my lifestyle. The snap-on cover over the business end of the blade, though, is a nice feature for safer storage.

What most impressed me about this zester was how smooth it felt when I was running it over the citrus. I had to check and see if I was actually doing any cutting or if I was just petting the lemon gently.I don't know if that's because of the v-shaped teeth, the nonstick surface, or the handle design, but whatever it was, it felt pretty effortless.

The resulting zest is very fine - and I've got to say that it's finer than any other grating or zesting device I own.  The only downside to this zester is that since it's so fine and since it's got that nonstick finish, I might be tempted to save it for zesting only, and not subject it to harder and more damaging things like nutmeg..
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