I sing a song for the bartender’s bestest pal, the Y peeler. The people’s champion of the bar. Without you, friend, we’d be lost. Yes, some bartenders choose to swipe instead of channel and the typical fruit shavers of our forefathers are just no good when we need that sweet, sumptuous peel to grace the outside and inside of our glass, speckling our stirred brown drink with citrus oil. Yes, of course a knife can be used for the task just like an axe can be used to cut a steak, and yes, a good carpenter doesn’t blame their tools but we officially live in the future and for a mere ten bucks can raise ourselves from the muck, go from barbarian level hacks to the height of an aristocrat in an instant.

At home, by yourself, there exists no other more important piece of bar equipment. When pretense dissolves and there is no audience, the drinks are barely stirred (if at all) and margaritas, gimlets, and daiquiris are reserved for special occasions, the putting on of airs if you will, when company rings the bell. Behind closed doors, in the wan light of a Sunday evening, it’s a bit of Bonded Grand Dad melding with Cynar over a freezer burned, cloudy BFR, absently stirred with a tired finger. But there remains one graceful coupe de grace because Sundays, oh sweet Sundays! are also grocery day which means someone had the presence of mind to throw a few good oranges and some lemons in the cart. Ah the excitement one feels at a little foresight! Which shall it be oh wise one? Lemon or orange? How about both? It’s been a long day of laundry and other life sucking errands. The week starts in just a few hours and so why not double down?

There were times, the dark ages, when I peeled with the same old shabby regular style peeler. A prep kitchen in a restaurant that no longer exists. The formerly indomitable Howard Johnson’s, a bastion of the fifties which faded from the light at the end of the twentieth century. Never made a comeback, never recovered. Some dying embers, unlike bad fashion choices, struggle to ever reignite. Yes, back then a rusty old rex peeler sat in a drawer begging for someone to grab it so it could give them a ragged wound and a taste of tetanus. Do you remember the king?

No, we all gravitated toward the swivel peeler in those days. You know the one.

No, no, no. This is the newer, popularized design that still sucks.

Yes, this is the one! It jangled and sang! Owned its own rhythm like an old school cash register. Oh the mountains of potatoes and carrots I peeled with this dull, tarnished beauty! The days when no one would have ever thought to save any of those said castings. When any prep cook worth a damn performed this task over the 50 gallon can so the scraps would go flying off into the trash.

But when did the revelation come? At what point did I see the Y and incorporate its fluid design into my own life? Sadly, I can’t remember. I do know that every time I move I immediately end up buying yet another Y peeler because of the pure insanity and frustration I encounter with the straight version. Where and why does the Y leave us and the straight stick around for eternity? Well, the good will always die young while the mediocre thrive. That’s life.