The more you zoom, the finer your garlic will be chopped – without the risk of getting garlic odours on your skin, or your chopping board. I find myself whipping out the Chef’n Garliczoom a few times a week now, and I haven’t bought another jar of minced garlic since purchasing it. As a result, I became accustomed to coming across unsavory chunks of garlic in the dishes I was preparing and sometimes the occasional finger cut. When my kids were little, they would have liked using it to help me with dinner (provided they weren’t the ones clearing the minced garlic from the blade chamber).

With advancing years, my husband has great difficulty using his hands and was finding it difficult to use our existing garlic which has a twisting action. There are a lot of things we'd rather not be doing when we step into the kitchen, and chopping garlic ranks pretty highly on that list. The Chef’n Garliczoom is incredibly easy to use: Pop a few garlic cloves into the round chamber, then roll the green wheels along your countertop to chop. It is not very efficient – two peeled cloves crammed inside feels crowded, and to get anything like a uniform chop you have to zoom the carriage back and forth hard, like an only child furiously rolling a Tonka truck, or someone trying to erase a mistake. I love how it can quickly mince several cloves at once, how I can get most of the garlic out with a few taps or a quick swipe with my finger, and how easy it is to clean (just run it under hot water).And in terms of storage, this device is ultra compact, so you don’t have to worry about adding another bulky tool to your kitchen arsenal. Still, when I got an assignment to test several kinds of garlic presses, I secretly hoped there would be one that would win me over.

Fair enough if you have problems holding a knife, but not if you’re worried about garlic fingers, or are incredibly lazy. Roll the Garlic Zoom along the counter, back and forth as many times as you need to get the desired consistency. If the item comes direct from a manufacturer, it may be delivered in non-retail packaging, such as a plain or unprinted box or plastic bag.As I see it, if I’m already using a knife and it can get the job done, why would I want to get another thing dirty? We loved the simplicity of the Chef’n Garlic Zoom when it first hit our shelves in 2008, so we couldn’t be happier that it’s back and better than before.