“I’ve got to go to court,” said the man from Cuisinart. “They’re going to put me in jail if I can’t prove the machine slices limes. We’re accused of deceptive advertising.”

        I hated to ask. “Well… does the machine slice the limes?”

        Carl Sontheimer, the godfather of cuisinary revolution, snorted. “Of course it slices limes. I can’t lose, unless I don’t keep my big mouth shut.”

        Sontheimer’s day in court turned out to be a highly informal trial in the office of the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs. I went along. So did Sontheimer’s lawyer. “I’ve been fighting this thing by mail, and I’m not going to miss being there for the kill.”

        Sontheimer brought three unopened Cuisinart machines, an assistant, and a shopping bag bulging with limes. He forgot his paring knife. Essential to slice off the top and bottom of each lime. “I’ll do it with the machine’s serrated blade,” said Carl. His asisistant shuddered.

       Consumer affairs are defended in a tacky little warren of cubicles. “Do we have a plug?” asked one department agent.

        “God only knows,” his colleague replied.

        Sontheimer uncartoned a virgin machine before the assemblage. “I asked an impartial shopping service to buy half a dozen markets,” he said. Consumer-affairs man Charles Greenman seemed impressed. The first lime Somtheimer unfurled was as big as a grapefruit.

        “Please… please find a more reasonable lime,” said Greenman graciously. Ever stubborn, Sontheimer stuffed the elephantine fruit into the machine and mangled it with a slicing disc. Only two recognizable lime slices emerged from the massacre. Mercifully, the next bag held normal limes. He sliced… producing rounds thing and elegant enough for high tea. For an encore, he sliced frozen meat. Then he cut his finger, and the hearing adjourned.

        Also under consideration is whether the ad would suggest to a sophisticated consumer that the machine can slice a Sunday roast. (It cannot.) Meanwhile the Consumer Affairs Department, more accustomed to pursuing sleazy furniture frauds, has released the Cuisinart machine on parole.

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