I have this French mandoline from Lee Valley Tools. It ain't cheap, but is extremely sturdy, and the cutting width is infinitely variable. Keep in mind that it is very difficult with any tool to cut soft tomatoes uniformly thin, but otherwise, this gadget is great for all veggies, and it collapses quite flat for easy storage. Can't help you with a juicer, but my blender is a VitaMix 3600+ which is now over 25 yrs old and quite retro looking. Still love it, and after the passage of that amount of time, I've almost forgotten what I paid for it. Here is a link that might be useful: Lee Valley French Mandoline

Sort of like you thinking about the glove, as I was slicing off part of my thumb, I was thinking "wait a sec, wasn't I suppose to put the onion in the little holder-thingie?" The good (?) thing about the mandoline is that the blade is so sharp it wasn't a painful cut as it happened. I had to sit down & put my head between my knees so I didn't pass out & called my Mom for help. She came over with her friend who is a nurse. Great. Except her friend has macular degeneration and limited vision. So I called a friend's husband, an ER doctor, and he told me how to treat it. My Mom was kind enough to clean up & dispose of the onion. The next day I decided I had to get it back out and try it again or I would be afraid of it forever. Getting back up on the horse so to speak. Now I usually don't think of using it until I'm already half-way through whatever I'm slicing so I don't bother. I should probably put it in my give-away box since I so rarely remember to use it.

For all the specialty tools I have and love, I really do use a knife most of the time. About 80% with my 8" chef's knife, 10% with a paring knife, and 10% with a specialty knife or tool. This is the Kyocera paddle mandoline. It should be great for slicing table vegetables. I generally just use my knife if there are only a few of us, though I have to concentrate to get even slices. Usually, a V-slicer is better for tomatoes than a straight edge, but the angle of the Kycera's blade helps with that. And it's sharp enough to think nothing of turnips. I can definitely recommend it. Plus, it fits right in the knife drawer, can go in the DW, and is easy to clean by hand. There's a rod at the back that turns to select thickness (.5 mm 1.3mm, 2mm, and 3mm). The hand guard doesn't mash the veg, and moves back and forth easily. I've never cut myself on this one (my usual complaint with mandolines), even though the ceramic blade is supersharp and won't get dull as fast as steel. If you don't need a julienne, the Kyocera is top quality and excellent performance for $25 or less. The $10 kind (I've used one several times) has julienne blades but the deck is narrow and it's harder to slide back and forth on it, the handguard isn't as good, and many of my veg are too big for it. I was using it in a crowded kitchen and looked away, hit a bump and got a chunk out of my thumb (not serious, but still). The OXO looks like a very nicely designed V-slicer if you want the julienne blades. A lot of traditional, steel mandlines on the market have beds that are too narrow and mechanisms that are hard to clean. The DeBuyere V-slicer was a gift--very expensive and really not necessary if one isn't catering. I haven't cut myself on that either but the pusher--far more of a mechanism than a mere hand guard--is the size of a small spaceship. It's not horrible to clean, like some are, but it's awkward and heavy. I really love it, but it's overkill for most purposes. Be careful in choosing a mandoline. A lot of them aren't well designed for either safety or cleaning, or both. I agree with you about the apple culls. Salvaging them takes so much personal attention that you might as well peel and slice while you've got each in your hand. And it's nice to be able to hear the birds. In my laundry list above, I totally forgot choppers! I have an old fashioned multiblade chopper and chopping bowl (though my mezzaluna seems to have wandered off...) and a spring mechanism flat chopper. I don't think I've used the former since I got the Cuisinart (which is why I haven't gotten a new mazzaluna). I might for a small amount of apple sauce, though (or something similar), since I prefer the hand cut texture. I always make my hummus by hand (with a metal grid potato masher). The spring chopper is great for being lazy. Throw in a few cloves of garlic or nuts and go bash bash bash and one doesn't actually have to work at cutting them. It's delayed work, actually, because then one has to take apart the chopper and clean it, but that can be put off a few hours. I also have a food mill that was given to me as I was packing up the old kitchen. Soup season is upon us so I'll be seeing if I like using it soon! Most of the time I'm happy with slightly rustic and the immersion blender is perfectly fine, but supposedly the mill is the way to perfect purees. We'll see...

I have a four blade Paderno spiral cutter that was recommended in Cooking forum. It does three kinds of spiral strings and also ribbon slices. It works really well. I have a fancy mandoline that does two sizes of julienne besides slicing. It's nothing like a spiralizer, which makes long curly strings. the ribbon slice is like what the slicer part of a traditional apple peeler slicer does but it just uses a skewer rather than coring, so you don't have the hole in the middle if you're doing a potato or radish. I've heard of a chopping mandoline, but never seen one. Again, a different thing. The spirals ("spaghetti") probably are something of a fad, but I think it's the kind that will go from the latest trend to just a standard thing to do at the appropriate time. Like melon balls.