The Microplane

I will begin by saying I love this tool. It makes perfect zest and grates cheese well - the only thing I don't appreciate about the tool is that it is very dangerous. I was grating some Parmesan cheese over pasta the other night. It was a very skinny piece of cheese and it seemed much more efficient to grate it parallel to the mircoplane. Dumb mistake - because it took of a small chunk of skin from my knuckle. It didn't seem too disastrous at the time but about 30 seconds later I had a small pond of blood on my finger. Lessons learned.... always grate tiny cheeses perpendicular to the microplane AND develop some sort of hand shield (my friend Kerry suggested a small force field to encapsulate your hand). I'll let you know how it goes. Until then I will practice cautious grating/zesting.