Essential Cook's Tools

Julia's Delight

I grew up watching Julia Child cook. I learned a lot from her and from Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I loved her straightforward manner, her edict to have fun, enjoy, learn. She was possibly the first grown up I saw make mistakes and laugh at herself for it. And, she loved her gadgets.

I'll admit her joy over a newly discovered pea-sheller made me giddy. I watched with envy as she dropped whole English peas in and got perfectly shelled peas out. The thought of having just the right tool for any job, no matter how infrequent or unlikely, was sort of like an adolescent's attraction to any potential love object. The girl next door or this month's centerfold - both look as good and seem imbued with possibility when you have just discovered hormones.

Watching the French Chef when I was a budding cook, I was smitten by every possible utensil, gadget and tool. If Julia used it and was tickled by it, wasn't that proof that the object was worthy of my envy?

Now that we're miles away from adolescence and sadly, past Julia's lifetime, we've matured in both love objects and kitchen gadgets. Those that would have our love must earn our respect, as well as their place in our limited drawer space.

All gadgets are not created equal.

Readers often ask my advice when setting up house or mastering new cuisines or dishes. What are the essential tools? What are the nice to have but not necessary ones? What are the ones we should pass on altogether?

I have just a few rules when it comes to kitchen tool purchases. No uni-taskers, form and function, buy quality tools or wait until you can, balance "cool factor" against likely utility/frequency of need.

I am assuming here that your essential tools are covered. Good knives (only a few are needed), a few pieces of cast iron (enameled or not), a large pasta pot, a Dutch oven, nested glass bowls.

Back to the pitters and peelers.

Admitting that I've succumbed to gadget-envy in the past, I hope to steer you clear of my regrettable purchases. Here's a list of tools I love.

Gadgets to Get and How to Use Them:

• Melon-baller - also useful for coring apples and pears, removing capers from their jar and brine.
• Sugar bear - this little terra cotta bear keeps your brown sugar from turning into a solid block
• Pizza stone - not only for pizzas, helps pie crusts crisp, great for bread baking, too
• Magnetic knife bar - okay, so this one is a uni-tasker, but it protects your expensive knives and prevents nicks in blades and fingers from knives stored in drawers
• Speed-pours - Pop these into your olive oils and vinegars. Keep frequently used items in reach, at the ready for easy cooking. I have a lazy Susan near my stove with oils, vinegars, Shiaoxing wine, etc.
• Pepper mills - I have several, each with their own peppercorns (white, green, Ecuadoran, Balinese). Peugot mills are superb.
• Potato ricer - Even if you only use it for fluffy mashed potatoes and gnocchi light as a feather, isn't that enough?
• Peeler - I was once given an elegant steel peeler along with some special dates as a Christmas gift "to make life easier and sweeter." A thoughtful gift, to be sure. Over the years I've found the inexpensive plastic ones made by the Japanese have excellent blades that will last a long while if hand washed and dried.
• Spider - this is like the mack-daddy of the old slotted spoon. It's a Chinese-made wire basket on the end of a sturdy bamboo handle. I use mine to blanch veggies and to remove pasta from boiling water.
• Silicone - brushes, spatulas and cooking spoons. Absolutely heat resistant and no stray bristles on your barbecue. Silpat silicone baking sheets are great if you bake lots of cookies.
• Whisks - one or two in different sizes are a real convenience for whisking together a bit of cornstarch and water, an egg or two or a large amount of wet ingredients such as eggs for a frittata.
• Bowl scraper - This slips into the drawer without hogging valuable space. They're useful for moving chopped items from the cutting board to the prep bowl or pot.
• Rolling pin -A uni-tasker but a necessary one if you bake pies, tarts and quiches.
• Microplane zester/grater - for Parmigiano-Reggiano, zesting citrus, grating fresh whole nutmeg and cinnamon.
• Salad spinner -I use mine all the time for rinsing berries, spinning greens and herbs.
• Large pasta pot with inserts - adequate water to pasta ratio is essential to well-cooked pasta. The colander insert makes draining easy and the steamer basket can be used for dumplings as well as a myriad of other items.

What are your favorite tools? What's the most disappointing gadget you ever purchased?

• New! Best-ever vegetable peeler. Read about it here.

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