Review on Swissmar Borner V Prep Mandoline V 5000 by Amy Cosme

I used to have a couple of mandolins and in my experience they were very cheap and didn't work at all. They were full of junk, and they were dangerous because they don't cut well, causing them to stick and slip your hand. This one cuts really well, it's almost scary. When I first got it, I made a test slice out of red potatoes. I didn't think it worked properly because it didn't require any power at all. I looked down and saw that half of the potatoes were already cut. When I say no power needed, I don't mean little or almost no power. I mean, it seemed to me like nothing happened. I got this because I recently bought a dehydrator and need thin, even pieces of food. It definitely helps. It's fairly well made, has enough attachments to make any thickness you want, and has julienne cutters in two thicknesses. Very thin red onions are great for pizza, sandwiches or salads. I'm fine with a knife, but I can't slice it thinly. Although the manual specifically warns against this, I tried the "rotate 90 degrees" trick to see if it would cut and it definitely works. Pull it back through the julienne prongs, then twist, lower, repeat. Perfect little cubes. Try slicing an onion into the same cube using the smallest straw attachment. small diced onions, work GREAT in meatloaf. The handguard works very well and I usually feel pretty safe with it. However, I cut bananas and they were too soft to use a handguard. I started doing it unsupervised, got distracted for a split second and nearly ripped the pad of my finger off. Two weeks and about 12 bandages on my fingertips and it still looks pretty bad. It's pretty obvious, but this thing is hot! If you're an easily distracted monkey like me, don't try to make bananas without a guard. For this reason I bought a Chef'n Bananza banana cutter specifically for this purpose. I'm a musician, so I prefer to hold my fingertips. With harder foods (onions, potatoes, apples, etc.) it works very well and very reliably. The fact that it's self-contained and has a bowl for catching food with a lid is great. I am very happy with this slicer.