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When I was a college student, my then-boyfriend gave me a Bialetti pizza chopper as a birthday gift. As far as presents go, it was perfectly reasonable, as we made pizza weekly in my tiny apartment kitchen. But, honestly, I was unenthused. The golden rule when you have a tiny apartment kitchen is to avoid buying any tool that can do only one thing (in this case, slice a pizza pie). I had knives — why on earth did I need this ridiculously large one? And because it was a gift, I knew it would be taking up residence for at least a year or two before I could give it away without seeming ungrateful.
Clearly, I had yet to experience the glory of a pizza chopper.
In my defense, I didn’t realize how truly annoying slicing a pizza is until, suddenly, it wasn’t. The Bialetti stainless steel knife is large, but by design. It spans the diameter of a 14-inch pie, and is curved to utilize the pressure from a rocking motion to make a perfect cut, instead of slicing through the pie. It’s sturdy enough to hold a significant amount of pressure, and I can lean into the knife in a way that a flimsy pizza wheel would never tolerate. Four sweeps of the blade and our pizza is ready to be served — no sawing away at the melted cheese or crispy crust. And at around $20, it doesn’t cost much more than a (suboptimal!) pizza wheel.
The chopper is dishwasher-safe, and plenty of reviewers on Amazon say they put theirs in the dishwasher regularly with no issue. But because it’s large and sharp, I hand-wash mine right after using it, which takes only seconds.
I have not only held onto that pizza chopper for 15 years and five moves, but I also married that boyfriend, and he continues to give me gifts I think we don’t need — and then I remember how genuinely cool I feel every time I pull out the Bialetti pizza chopper.
