Cooking is fun. Eating is fun. Sometimes you want to get the cooking done so you can get to the eating. We can respect that.

The following tricks will have you prepping produce quicker than ever before, and they’ll cut down clean-up time, too. No special tools are required. Never bought a cherry pitter? Use a paperclip! Want cubed watermelon? Have it now!

Get these time-saving tips below, then tell us in the comments what other foods you’d like to be able to whip up in seconds. You’re welcome!

Pare And Slice An Avocado Without Any Mushy Mistakes

Kin Community
What you’ll need: An avocado, a spoon and a knife.
What to do: Use a sharp knife to cut around the pit, then twist the two halves apart. Hit the pit with the knife to embed it in the blade, then remove it from the fruit. Slice the flesh of the avocado without cutting through the tough, outer skin, and then scoop out the insides with a spoon. Full instructions here.

Peel A Banana Struggle-Free

Crazy Bananas
What you’ll need: A banana.
What to do: Peel the fruit from the bottom, not the stem. Counter-intuitive, but works like a charm! Full instructions here.

Shuck Corn Without Making A Stringy Mess

Carl Blemming
What you’ll need: A husk of corn. a sharp knife and a microwave.
What to do: First microwave the corn in its husk for three to four minutes. Use oven mitts to remove the corn from the microwave, and cut off the shank. Use a knife to lead it out of the husk. Full instructions here.

Pit A Cherry With A Paperclip

Chow
What you’ll need: Cherries, a paperclip.
What to do: Bend the paper clip open, then push it through the stem end of the fruit. Twist until the pit comes out. Full instructions here.

Cut Grapes In Half — Fast!

Wayne Lambright
What you’ll need: Grapes, a sharp knife and two tupperware lids or matching plates.
What to do: Sandwich a bunch of grapes between two plates or lids. Add pressure with one hand, then slice (away from your face) with the other. Full instructions here.

Segment A Grapefruit For Immediate Enjoyment

neotech40
What you’ll need: A grapefruit, a serrated knife.
What to do: First you’ll need to remove the center of the grapefruit (that part with the thick, white stem) by coring it as you would an apple. Then, take the tip of the knife and set it right at the edge of the cored hole. Cut segments all around the fruit (without cutting through the top hole) and there you have it: Beautifully sliced grapefruit wedges. Full instructions here.

Peel And Cut A Kiwi With Ease

Min0M03
What you’ll need: A kiwi, a spoon and a knife.
What to do: Slice off one end of the kiwi. Take a spoon and circle it around the circumference of the fruit, getting right under the skin. Cut the now-skinless fruit as desired.Full instructions here.

Peel A Mango With A Cup

Crazy Russian Hacker
What you’ll need: A mango, a sharp knife and a hard plastic cup.
What to do: Cut the fruit along its pit. Then place the rim of the glass just where the skin meets the fruit and push the mango down the side of the glass. The skin should peel off in one piece. Full instructions here.

Peel An Orange Without Squirting Juice Everywhere

CrazyRussianHacker
What you’ll need: An orange, a sharp knife and your hands.
What to do: Carefully cut the orange (perpendicular to its stem) without breaking into the actual flesh of the fruit. Once you’ve cut all the way around, use your fingers to scoop off each side into bowl-shaped peels. Full instructions here.

Dice An Onion Like A Master Chef

Good Housekeeping
What you’ll need: An onion, a sharp knife.
What to do: Trim off the stem of the onion and cut it in half through the root end. Peel off the skin. Make horizontal cuts perpendicular to the stem of the onion (but don’t go all the way through the root). Then make vertical cuts (still keeping the root connected). Then chop across the width of the onion to the size of your liking. Full instructions here.

Julienne Or Dice A Pepper Despite Its Awkward Curves

Yummly
What you’ll need: A pepper, a sharp knife.
What to do: Cut off both ends of the pepper. Stand the pepper on its cut end and slide the knife along the inside of the pepper to remove the core and seeds. Cut the pepper in half. Now you have a pepper canvas to cut into any shape you wish. Full instructions here.

Cut A Pineapple Super Quick
(And Make Pineapple Water Simultaneously)

Weelicious
What you’ll need: A pineapple, a sharp knife (and a pitcher).
What to do: Don’t be intimidated by this spiky beast! Cut off the leafy top and the pineapple’s bottom. Then cut off the spiky sides, close enough to the inside of the pineapple where you can then remove the “eyes.” Cut the skinless fruit in half. Now quarter the fruit and remove the hard, center core. Continue to slice just how you want it. Full instructions here.

Peel An Entire Bag Of Potatoes In Under 60 Seconds

SSWIFeatured
What you’ll need: A bag of potatoes, a power hose, a bucket, a drill and a cheap toilet brush.
What to do: Put the potatoes into the bucket. Attach the end of the toilet brush onto the drill. With the hose in one hand and the drill in the other, turn both on and power wash the spuds. Full instructions here.

Hull A Strawberry With A Straw

ForkNPlate
What you’ll need: Strawberries, a straw.
What to do:: Perhaps this is why it’s called a strawberry, no? In any case, use the straw to pierce through the bottom of the fruit and push it straight through to the top. Pluck off the remaining leaves. Full instructions here.

Cut A Bunch Of Cherry Tomatoes In Seconds

DaveHax
What you’ll need: Cherry tomatoes, a sharp knife and two same-sized plates.
What to do: Sandwich a bunch of tiny tomatoes between two plates . Add pressure with one hand, then slice with the other. Full instructions here.

Cube Watermelon Like A Pro

This Blew My Mind
What you’ll need: A watermelon, a sharp knife, a bag.
What to do: Cut the watermelon — lengthwise — in half. Make two long slices down each side, being sure not to cut all the way through. Separate the flesh from the rind by cutting in a circular shape around the center. Slice crisscross cuts into the flesh of the fruit. Tip the melon over and watch the pieces tumble out. Full instructions here.

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Yep.

Via The Bold Italic

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Bar owner Derek Brown isn’t even sure they still make the stuff, but sitting at the bar at Old Ebbitt Grill on Monday night, he asks anyway: “We’ll take two shots of Irish Mist.” “OK. Chilled or unchilled?” the bartender replies. Brown expected the guy to laugh in his face—the way an Apple Store employee […]

A new “minimum wage fee” tacked on to receipts at a Minnesota restaurant is proving hard for customers to stomach.

Facebook users are bombarding Oasis Café, an eatery in Stillwater, Minnesota, with negative reviews, many vowing to never eat there again, after the owners began adding a 35-cent surcharge below the tax on bills this week.

“If you need to raise prices, so be it,” Ryan Stegeman, a University of Minnesota student, wrote in a one-star review hidden by the administrator of the Oasis Café Facebook page. “But to blame it on a fair minimum wage law is petty.”

Minnesota raised its minimum wage by 75 cents to $8 last week — the first increase in the state since 2009.

An owner of the café claimed the 35-cent fee was a way of “thumbing my nose at the law change,” according to CBS-affiliate WCCO.

“Shame on your protest over over a small increase in pay required by law,” wrote Facebook user Terry Edgar in a one-star review. “Hopefully customers will not continue to patronize your cheapskate establishment.”

By Wednesday evening, the café’s most recent Facebook post, a photo of huevos rancheros slathered in cilantro salsa, had 94 comments, most of them berating the restaurant’s owners for refusing to pay its employees a living wage.

Oasis, which did not respond to a call from The Huffington Post, is not the only eatery that’s asked its customers to help absorb the cost of Minnesota’s new minimum-wage law.

Blue Plate Co., which owns eight restaurants throughout the Twin Cities area, said it would make servers pay the card fee on tips paid with credit cards, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Clarification: Language has been amended to more precisely describe Blue Plate’s policy regarding customers who tip with credit cards.

What’s it like to sell your artisanal goodies at Smorgasburg, the open-air food market in Brooklyn’s trendy Williamsburg neighborhood?

The Story Exchange recently headed across the river on a steamy Saturday morning to chat with vendors who sell a tantalizing array of foodie options, from sweet confections to spicy noodles. Given that we cover female entrepreneurs, we interviewed Keavy Blueher and Allison Kave of Butter & Scotch, Lane Li of Noodle Lane and Taryn Garcia of Vendome Macaron.

From a business perspective, all four say Smorgasburg has been the opportunity of a lifetime. It’s allowed them to start food businesses with little overhead, while developing a following among the thousands who visit the market each weekend. All are planning to open brick-and-mortar locations (Vendome Macaron has even attracted an investor as a result of its three-year presence at Smorgasburg.)

“Being attached to Smorgasburg really gives you street ‘cred’… so people know that you’re a legit business,” Blueher says. “It’s always nice being able to name-drop Smorgasburg.”

Beyond the exposure, the congenial atmosphere of Smorgaburg — as well as other markets, like nearby Greenmarket in Manhattan’s Union Square — make it a particularly supportive environment for female entrepreneurs to thrive.  “The greenmarket is a real community, and you really get to know the people – not just the customers, but you really get to know all of the people that you are working with,” says Beth Linskey of Beth’s Farm Kitchen, who sells jams and chutneys in Union Square. “We really consider ourselves neighbors.”

The mood and spirit seems a far cry from the cut-throat kitchens of the restaurant industry, which have developed a reputation for being hostile to female chefs. (We recently took a look at sexism in the restaurant industry in this two-part series:  Why We Care About Female Chefs.)

Instead, the sights, sounds and smells of Smorgasburg combine in a welcoming marketplace, for vendors and hungry tourists alike. For more, read our article, A Feast of Opportunity, and listen to short interviews with the female entrepreneurs who are successfully growing businesses there.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio may have finally taken up residence at Gracie Mansion, but his Brooklyn roots are showing in this promotional video about composting.

Narrated by de Blasio’s daughter Chiara, the sweet video — a HuffPost Green excl…