evens

[calimac]

You know the theory for how to get a piece of cake or some such cut evenly between two people? Ask one of them to cut it and the other one to pick. That will give the cutter an incentive to cut evenly and not cheat.

But what if - I was thinking while slicing brussel sprouts in two for B.'s dinner - what if the person doing the cutting isn't very good at slicing exactly in half? Then the cutter will be cheating him/herself.

Comments

Well ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Things like cake or pie are relatively straightforward to cut evenly. I often cut things in half, then quarters and eighths. Cutting into six pieces is more challenging. With a square pan, I usually cut 9 or 16 pieces.

However, if you're really bad at portioning, there's another approach. Break it into small pieces. Once it's kind of in a pile, you can portion it approximately by volume. This also works for situations where, say, all the chocolate chips are on one side of a cookie.