I'm trying to describe a piece of carrot cake I ate. I need another word instead of like This is the segment I have so far: If you cut it like I do, not with a knife but a fork from the top; you can see thousands of dangling strands of carrots as you pull the piece away. Like when you tear a heavily rooted potted plant and you see all those little strands of roots hanging out. I don't like the word like I use this all the time and I'm getting tired of it. What other word(s) could I use? This is the exact image that came to mind when I did actually cut the carrot cake exactly as described. I remember looking at it and thinking of a potted plant and the string like roots dangling as a chunk of potted material breaks off from the plant.
If you cut it like I do, not with a knife but a fork from the top; you can see thousands of dangling strands of carrots as you pull the piece away. It reminded me of when you tear a heavily rooted potted plant and you see all those little strands of roots hanging out.
"... as you pull the piece away, like you're tearing a heavily rooted plant from its pot and you see..."?
I'd be more inclined to get rid of the first "like" and leave the second... "If you cut it the way I do..."
"If you cut it the way I do, with not a knife but a fork from the top; you can see thousands of dangling strands of carrots as you pull the piece away, like the roots of a potted plant." My version.
Since you're talking to the reader (If you cut it like I do . . .), switch to an imperative and just tell them what to see. If you cut it like I do, not with a knife but a fork from the top; you can see thousands of dangling strands of carrots as you pull the piece away. Picture/Imagine tearing a heavily rooted potted plant and seeing all those little strands of roots hanging out. But I would trim and condense the thought and add specific detail: Picture pulling a ficus from a clay pot, its whiskery roots in a thousand naked strands.
If you cut it like I do, not with a knife but a fork from the top; you can see thousands of dangling strands of carrot as you pull the piece away; the same as when you tear a heavily rooted potted plant and you see all their little strands hanging out. (I've changed the underlined section as you had already mentioned it was a heavily rooted plant, so there was little need to mention it again - I hope that's okay.)
