'Done the making'

I unwrapped the early Christmas present that was part of a Secret Santa gathering. The gifts we brought, wrapped, and shared with each other were fairly inexpensive because it was just the fun of opening everything that increased the chatter and patter and clucking about this or that.

The gift I received was actually useful, and I was glad to get it: a plastic device called a salad-cutter bowl. In this bowl, you easily make veggie salads or fruit salads by putting the uncut items into the slatted bowl, such as tomatoes and lettuce, then putting on the base and cutting along the slats. Turning the base a time or two ensures that the ingredients are cut small enough for a salad.

These were the only directions for this device printed on the outside of the box:

1. Put the ingredients into the bowl and wash to clean, make sure the ingredients are no more than 3/4 of the bowl.
2. Close the bowl and make sure the upper cover fix well with the base.
3. Cut the ingredients in the card slot into small pieces to make salad.
4. Rotate 90 degrees of the upper cover and fix again with the base.
5. Cut the ingredients again in the card slot to make them smaller.
6. Done the making. Enjoy your delicious salad!

I was happy to receive this gift because it's an ingenious and easy way to make any kind of salad for one person. It takes all of one minute to make a salad with this device. And I definitely do enjoy the delicious salad when I'm "done the making."

[Nancy Linenkugel is a Sylvania Franciscan sister and chair of the department of Health Services Administration at Xavier University, Cincinnati.]