Follows The Sun

It is probably possible to cook with no utensils at all. Really good vegetables, for instance, are often stupefyingly delicious with nothing but a quick wash in cold water. The rest of the time, however, you’re going to need some tools.

So, to start out, your Batterie de Cuisine*- the stuff you need to cook. Lots of people many gadgettes to improve their food. There are breadmakers and pasta machines and standing mixers, and they are all very well, but they’re not needed for every day cooking, nor are egg poachers  or even rolling pins – use a wine bottle. I have had limited pocket money as long as I’ve been cooking, so I use a few things, over and over again. With the exception of a few suggestions (the 10×17 inch rack and the springform pan) I own everything listed below, and use it all with relative frequency. I have a few other things, but if it’s not listed here than I probably hardly ever lay a hand on it. And there are some common and useful items that are not listed at all: an electric mixer, for instance. I haven’t had the cash, recently, and besides, I feel kind of good and earth-mother-y when I’m beating eggs or whipping cream by hand.

Most of the stuff I use is of pretty good quality. Some things, especially baking things and big pots, can and should be bought used, at yard sales. Most of this stuff I have because I’ve been asking for a pot or a pan or a knife every birthday and Christmas for years – I could never have afforded it all myself. You don’t need all these things to cook every dish. Get started with what you have, and if you want to make something but don’t have the equipment (or anything that can reasonably be put to use) then get it, just like you’d get any other ingredient. Don’t look at the list and panic. The things accumulate. Start with what you have, and as you slowly accrue more kitchen implements, keep some very useful items in mind. They are**:

The Bare Essentials

1. A big chef’s knife. Mine is a 10 inch Forschner.  It costs about 30 dollars, and I use it every time I cook, without exception. It slices, it dices, it smashes cloves of garlic. I feel lonely without it. It’s a European style knife, unlike the now famous Shun knives, which are Japanese. I don’t know that one style is better, but I do know they require slightly different usage.
2. A  6 quart pot, preferably of a heavy dutch-oven style.
3. a 12 inch skillet, with a heavy bottom and a tight fitting cover. This can be nonstick (which helps immensely with eggs) but does not need to be.
4. Mixing bowls. A few will do, but this is a more-the-merrier item. Some of them should be glass or metal, the rest can be plastic. I like deeper bowls with narrower mouths, but this is a matter of preference.
5. A cutting board or boards – I use color coded ones to prevent cross-contamination from chicken to beef to veggies, and although I have a wooden butcher board I always use a platic board on top.  I have no use for a small cutting board – you can cut a small thing on a big board, but you can’t cut a big thing on a small one.
6. Scallop-edged tongs. After one summer cooking in a restaurant in Brooklyn, I relied on these so heavily I thought I was turning into a lobster. They turn food, they pick it up, they move it around. If you pay more than 10 dollars for a pair you are a fool.
7. Measuring cups and spoons – I use liquid and dry measure interchangeably, so you could get by with one set of spoons and a single graduated measuring cup. But more are handy.

Extra Stuff To Make Things Easier

1. One or two small, sharp knives. I like victorinox utility knives. They are very sharp – use then till they aren’t and toss ’em. They cost around 5 dollars a pop.
2. A sharpening steel. So far as I know, any type will do. Steels, unlike whetstones, don’t actually sharpen your kife – they keep it from getting dull. As you use your knife, the fine edge of the blade will bend over. Running a steel along it at a 20 degree angle before every use undoes this, and keeps your knife sharper, longer. It will still get dull, and must then be sharpened by grinding some metal off the blade. Have somebody who knows how to do this teach you, carefully, or leave it to the pros.
3. 2 more pots – a 10 quart stockpot (mostly for long pasta, sometimes stocks) and little sauce pan (for a bit of pasta, peas, rice, ramen), say, 2 quarts. These are very good things to pick up at a garage sale – with the exception of the stockpot, which will only ever be used for things that involve a lot of liquid, you’ll want to look for heavy bottoms.
4. Another pan or two –  a 6 quart saute pan, for instance, and perhaps something smaller (again, heavy bottom and tight fitting lid), or a cast iron skillet. These will add to the variety of omelets, stir fries, sauces, and braises you can make.
5. Wooden spoons and a flat edged wooden spatula, some plastic spatulas, slotted spoons, whisks – this stuff will accumlate. It is the Stuff You Like To Cook With. Buy ’em cheap, use ’em till they season. If they break, toss ’em out.
6. A 13×9 inch rectangular pan and a 8×8 inch square pan. My are pyrex. These are for roasting vegetables or meat, or making brownies or square cakes. A few pie dishes and perhaps a spring form pan are also helpful in baking.
7. A half-sheet pan or two. These function as cookie sheets, but are used for a lot more than making cookies. If you can find a pan with a fitting rack (you’ll want an 11×17 inch rack), get it.
8. A box grater. For cheese, potatoes for the latkes, onion.

A Few Less-Common Things I Recommend (Optional Extras)

More or Less in Order by Frequency of Use

1. A Microplane grater. For downy clouds of parmesan or to neatly get the zest off a citrus fruit or add a bit of nutmeg, there’s nothing like these, which are adapted from wood shops prettied up and moved into the kitchen.
2. A small sieve. Very useful for getting the seeds out of lemon juice, the bits out of a reduction.
3. A funnel. It’s just handy.
4. A set up for making coffee. It’s not necessary, but I wouldn’t go a day without it. Mine is a kettle, krups coffee grinder (I buy my beans whole), a #2 Mellita cone and filters. I recently got a French Press, but I like my single-brew cups better, so I’ll reserve it for friends. The grinder can also be used for spices.
5. A board scraper. I actually use a plastic putty knife from a hardware store for this purpose, but I would like to get a stainless steal one like this.
6. A salad spinner. Very for drying veggies and fruits.
7. An instant read thermometer. Really useful for meat.
8. An immersion blender: there is nothing like it for sauces, purees, and soups. With one of these and some deep bowls, I’ll doubt I’ll ever need a standing blender.
9. And the ultimate optional extra: a food processor. There are some jobs that take about 20 seconds with one of these and about 2 hours without, but I find they are few and far between. I decided to split the difference and got the model shown here, which does 3 cups at a time. I’ll almost certainly have to do several batches every time I use it, but it was cheapish, and easy to store, and is very portable.

* This is French. French is the Language of Cooking, except when it’s not, in which case Italian, Chinese, Japanese, or Spanish is. Very seldom is English the Language of Cooking, and when it is it’s almost always dialectical. Food is a regional delight – but how you talk about it is not as important as how it tastes, when you get right down to it. So relax.

**With the exception of the two knives and the items in the “Optional Extras” section, I do not specifically endorse any of the items linked too. I tried to look for equipment that would meet my specifications or tastes were of a reasonable price, and that was similar to the items with which I actually cook, but I have not product tested any of these. The links are just for reference.