Mom taught me to peel potatoes and carrots and turnips when I was very young. She was 13 when she lost the full use of her arms, so no peeling for her. She taught me how.
Before last weekend, this is how I would peel a vegetable:
Pick up the carrot with chubby end in left hand, hold chest high, frantically run the peeler away from sternum, raining peels into sink. Same thing with potatoes, without a preferred end. Turnips were harder, because they are round, but still peel while suspended below ones breast bone.
Something came over me last weekend. Fatigue? Possibly. I decided to change it up.
I put the cutting board across the sink. I positioned the carrot on the board with the bulky end away from me. With my left hand I pinned down the end and with my right I dragged the peeler toward me. I rotated the carrot as I went.
That went so well I did the same with the potato: I propped it up on a cut end and pivoted it like a top, peeling down to the cutting board. I did much the same with the turnip, but I peeled from bottom to top, like I was giving it a little turnip shave.
Way, way easier. Also cleaner: there were no carrot shavings behind the blender this time. I wonder if other people peel mid-air like mom taught me. I can’t have been the only one.