A friend was deciding how to cut carrots, the best way for a tofu salad. I suggested a method taught by the soup master and mystic Avishai Pearlson (http://passionfoods.weebly.com/) that results in each cut piece having the same thick top, narrow bottom shape as an entire carrot. He requires all of his students to cut vegetables in ways that *respect* the natural tendency of the carrot, for example, to grow tall--in stark contrast to the way we usually cut carrots, perpendicularly, so that we are left with lots of little circles that look more like pumpkins perhaps, but not carrots. So my friend started cutting at about a 20 degree angle at the bottom and then rotated the carrot counterclockwise and cut at a 20 degree angle again, and again, etc.