On my first trip to France, I bought a classic French pot lid in a flea market. Ten inches in diameter, it is a tin-lined copper disk with a cast iron handle. Little did I know that it would become one of my most-used kitchen tools. Or that the copper lids would become really expensive. On the hunt to find an alternative, I finally found a new iteration that is affordable and incredibly useful.
Read MoreA Cook’s Favorite Gifts for Cooks of all Stripes
Every so often, a friend calls to ask me what cooking equipment to recommend. LONG story! You’ll find an extensive list of equipment for a basic kitchen in A New Way to Cook, along with 700+ pages of essential techniques and recipes. For now, here are my tried-and-true favorites, from high to low and back.
Read Morekitchen reno: what stove will really make you happy?
Our friends Christopher Hirscheimer and Melissa Hamilton, creators of the wonderful Canal House cookbook series, have a friend in the appliance business who keeps offering to get them a big new stove for their kitchen studio. NO, they keep saying, We love our little side-by-side stoves! Every great dish Melissa and Christopher come up with…
Read Moregifts: a perfect all-purpose cook’s spoon and…
I often bundle the the charity gift cards I give for Christmas with another teeny-but-potent gift: like this $4 tasting spoon from Branch. It is my idea of the perfect all-purpose cook’s spoon: long and thin, and slightly odd, similar to a treasured spoon a friend bought me from South America many years ago. Or I’ll…
Read Morethe oddness and power of real cook’s tools
Just about every cook I know has a favorite fork or a spoon that they use for all sorts of purposes in the kitchen; they reach for it before any other tool when they need to toss or stir or shift something in a pan, because it feels right in their hand, makes them feel…
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