Onions and garlic seem to be the basis for nearly every recipe I make, and that adds up to an awful lot of chopping and mincing. So I'm always on the lookout for gadgets that make this chore easier.

Garlic presses seem like a good idea, but we've bought several, and while they do a good job of crushing the garlic, they're also great at wrenching my wrist. Can you get carpal tunnel syndrome from a garlic press? My Kuhn Rikon makes me wince very time I use it. Kuhn Rikon has come out with a new, supposedly more ergonomic garlic press, but, at $30, I'm not willing to take a chance on it.

On the other hand, I heartily recommend another new Kuhn Rikon product, called the Twist and Chop, which works especially well with onions but can also be used to chop garlic, if you're doing a large quantity. You simply cut your onions into a few large chunks and place them in the Twist and Chop, close the lid, and give it a few twists; a few turns for coarsely chopped onions, longer for finer. The Twist and Chop is easy to clean, and costs about $18.

But if you're only using a few cloves of garlic, Williams-Sonoma has several new choppers I like. The Garlic Twist is a kind of mini-version of the Twist and Chop; you put your cloves in and rotate the lid till they're minced. It does a great job, although it can take a fair amount of effort to push the lid down and get it started, and it also requires a bit of work to extricate all the garlic. Minor quibbles, though, and, for me, a vast improvement over any garlic press I've tried, well worth $15.

Williams-Sonoma also has a pair of nifty new choppers, the Alligator ($29.95) and the Mini Alligator ($18); for some reason their website only shows the large Alligator, but I'm sure you can order the Mini, too, and it's in their stores, which is where I bought it.

The Mini Alligator dices garlic, ginger, and shallots, and can also be used to make fine dice of fruits and vegetables. We use nearly as much fresh ginger as we do onions and garlic, and I find that when you grate it, you seem to lose a lot of the juice. So I've been looking for a better way to cut up a chunk or two of ginger at a time. The Mini Alligator works as well as anything I've tried, considering how tough and stringy ginger naturally is. It's a bit harder to dice than garlic, but the end result is a perfect batch of tiny cubes, just right for soups, stir-fries or adding to your chai as it simmers on the stove.

Oddly enough, it seems there haven't been many advances in vegetable choppers since Ronco launched its legendary Veg-O-Matic, the original "Slicer & Dicer," in 1951.

Not only is the Veg-O-Matic still available, in fact, but the majority of vegetable choppers on the market seem, for the most part, to be a variation on the Veg-O-Matic's basic design. I use a kind of pre-historic Veg-O-Matic-style chopper in our kitchen upstate. Judging from its patina, I'd say it's from the 40's, and it works pretty well. Looks cool, too.

But for ease of use, I've got to go with the Twist and Chop, and I'm ready to retire my garlic press, thanks to the Garlic Twist and the Mini Alligator. My wrist feels better, already.