Useful things: strawberry huller

Looks like it's strawberry week here at the veggie blog!

Behold the Oxo Good Grips Strawberry Huller ($6, Amazon.com). I'm not usually a big fan of single-use kitchen gadgets, but I love this little sucker.

It does just what the name promises: hulls your strawberries. True, you can cut those little woody bits out with a knife. But I typically slice off most of the sweet top along with it, which seems like a waste. And the berries aren't the prettiest afterward.

This makes the whole process much more efficient:

Start by removing the leaves	Erm, this picture seems vaguely dirty
Twist and the hull comes neatly out...	...leaving just the sweet fruit.

My one complaint is that the marketing makes it seem like it will take off the leaves along with the hull. I've found that the tool often cuts through the leaves instead, leaving you with bits of green stuck on and in the berry. Now I just pluck off the leaves as I'm sorting through the berries before washing them, to avoid the problem.

If you want to try out the method without buying the gadget, I read that a star tip--the kind you use on a frosting bag--will also pull out the hulls.