→ November 29, 2016
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Gift guide for cooks, 2016 edition.

As usual, this is a repost of the previous year’s list, with new items I’ve added clearly marked, and some minor edits to the rest. I rewrite these posts in full every few years when there’s enough new material to merit it. Enjoy and feel free to ask questions in the comments.

I’ve seen a few “Christmas gift guides for the cooks in your life!” over the last couple of years, but most of them are like this 2014 gem from Grub Street, with recommendations for things that no one could possibly need – a “rosemary stripper” (I have two of those; I call them “hands”); a “banana slicer” (use your paring knife, genius); a $140 toaster (makes toast); and a $1600 set of Thomas Keller-branded pans, which, unless he forged them personally out of pure adamantium, are a colossal fucking waste of money. These are not gifts to by the cook in your life; these are gifts to buy the person in your life who pretends to cook but really just likes playing with toys. Toys don’t make you a better chef; they just make you a less socially responsible one.

I do have a few pricier toys in my kitchen, but aside from one, they’re all highly functional, at the middle to low end of the price range for their jobs, and built to last a long time. I’ve had my chef’s knife for over a decade, my food processor for 17 years (my next upgrade – looking at this Cuisinart model), my Dutch oven for about eight years, and just replaced my 18-year-old stand mixer when we moved in 2013. You are free to call me cheap, but I think I’m just prudent. I’ll spend money in the kitchen if it gets me something I need. I will not spend money to get a famous name, a fancy design, or a paperweight to live at the back of a gadget drawer until we move again. If I can make do with something I already have in the house – binder clips, a (clean) putty knife, a (clean) paintbrush – I’ll gladly do that instead.

Therefore, what I recommend here – for your cheffy friends or for yourself – is largely what I own and use. If what I own isn’t available, or isn’t good value for the price, I recommend something else. I am also willing to answer any and all questions about these or other suggestions; if I include it here, that’s an endorsement that it’ll be money well spent. I’ve already posted my cookbook recommendations in a separate entry.

The most important tool for any cook is a good chef’s knife, and I love my Henckels 8″ chef’s knife, although I have a discontinued model with a different handle. . It’s a workhorse, has only needed professional sharpening once, and is a comfortable grip and weight for my rather small hands. However, it’s $55, and I doubt it’s worth the premium over the $30 Victorinox 8″ chef’s knife, which America’s Test Kitchen has long recommended and, therefore, so have I.

The basic knives any home cook must have are a chef’s knife, a paring knife, and a bread (serrated) knife. The bread knife is good for more than just slicing bread – serrated blades are safer for slicing tomatoes, and they’re excellent for chopping chocolate and other hard foods. I have another Henckels four-star model, also eight inches, but the same blade is available with a different handle for just $13. You might look at a 10” blade if you get a lot of large, artisanal loaves. Any strong paring knife will do, such as this OXO 3.5″ paring knife at $15. With a modicum of knife skills, you can tweak and hull strawberries with one of these without any risk to your fingers or waste of fruit. It’s also good for cutting citrus supremes, slicing apples and pears, pitting olives and cherries, and other fine-motor-skills work.

I do have two other knives I use frequently, but they’re not essential for most cooks. One is the santoku, a very sharp knife with a thin edge but wide body that’s ideal for slicing vegetables and hard fruits; I recommend a 7” blade, which you can get in this two-santoku Henckels set for $27.50 and just … I don’t know, regift the 5” version or something, because I can’t see any use for it. The boning knife I own, from Henckels, appears to be discontinued, but there’s another Henckels 5.5″ boning knife for $26 that looks like it has the same blade. A boning knife is ideal for breaking down a whole chicken – it’s substantially cheaper to buy a whole chicken (sometimes called a broiler-fryer, usually 3-5 pounds total weight) and cut it into parts, and you get the bones to make stock – or for deboning other cuts of meat like short ribs. Some folks recommend a flexible blade instead, but I have never used that kind so I can’t give an opinion.

I finally caved and bought a home knife sharpener last year, buying this Chef’s Choice Diamond Hone 3 Stage Sharpener, a manual sharpener that turned out to be both easy to use and very effective; I sharpened every knife I own and even a few pairs of scissors, including the kitchen shears some of you saw me using to spatchcock this year’s Thanksgiving turkey. (Note: I think this may be why my kitchen shears didn’t work so well this year.)

My pots and pans aren’t a single set any more; I have some remnants from an All-Clad anodized aluminum set I got with rewards points in 2001, but have swapped out certain pieces to get better nonstick (coated) skillets. What you really should get for your loved one (you may include yourself in that category) is a a 12″ Lodge cast-iron skillet, an absolute workhorse that can handle about 90% of what I need from a skillet or a saute pan. I still use a nonstick skillet for egg dishes, and a saucier (sadly one that’s no longer made) for sauces or custards, but the Lodge skillet is past a decade old and just keeps getting better. The work of seasoning them is nowhere near as arduous as you’ve heard.

New for 2016: I got a Lodge 10″ carbon steel skillet (over 50% off right now, at $21) last Christmas, and I love it. It’s not as nonstick as the cast-iron one, which I’ve had for years and thus has built up more of a coating, but for getting a pan rocket-hot quickly and working fast on something small, it’s great. The only thing I haven’t had luck with in this skillet is eggs, which stick to pretty much anything non-Teflon if I’m the chef.

If you want to splurge on something, get an enameled cast-iron Dutch oven, great for soups, stews, braises, deep-frying, jam-making, and caramelizing huge batches of onions. Cast-iron doesn’t distribute heat well, but it holds heat for a long time. These pots are heavy, but I use mine for every saucepan duty that doesn’t involve boiling water or cooking grains on their own. They go stove to oven (as do the skillets) and can take the hours of low heating required for a proper braise. I own a Le Creuset that I got on sale at an outlet store because the color was discontinued; if you’re not quite that fortunate, try the 7.5 quart Lodge model for $86.

I upgraded my stockpot last year with this $30 Excelsteel 16 Quart Stainless Steel Stockpot. I make stock constantly throughout the year; I buy whole chickens, break them down myself, and freeze the carcasses and necks for future stocks. I also made a turkey stock after Thanksgiving with the backbone, neck, and the picked-clean roasted carcass, and the result was so full of gelatin that it was solid at room temperature. (It made an unbelievably rich turkey and soba noodle soup.) I needed a good stockpot since my previous one’s pseudo-nonstick finish had started to fade; this pot is also taller and heavier so it holds the heat in more effectively and I can do a double batch with two chicken carcasses and plenty of aromatics. I usually have to get at the interior bottom with a little Bon Ami, though. It’s also been my go-to pot for sous-vide cooking, since it’s deep enough to hold my circulator.

I don’t own a proper mandolin slicer, but I do pretty well with a handheld mandolin for under $20 that works great for things like root-vegetable chips or thinly slicing onions. I use my digital instant-read thermometer almost every night, and I’ve run through at least three of them over the last ten years. Amazon tells me that I bought my Microplane classic grater in November of 2003, and I’ve had their coarse grater for almost that long. The former is great for zesting citrus fruits or grating nutmeg; the latter is ideal for creating a snowfall of hard cheese over a pasta dish. I now own four silicone baking mats, two of which are amazon brand, now listed at two for $14 but which I got cheaper on Prime Day this summer.

I own two scales – a chef I’m friends with on Twitter made fun of me for this – one, this AWS Digital Pocket Scale for weights up to about 2 kg, which is ideal for precise measurements like grams of coffee (more on that in a moment), and a larger scale that’s long discontinued. This $13 Ozeri scale looks like a more than adequate replacement, measuring up to 12 kg; I rarely need to measure more than about two pounds of anything, maybe a little more for some large-batch baking but that’s about it. You need at least one good scale if you’re serious about baking, though; the best bread and pastry recipes all use grams, not cups or liters. I finally killed my digital candy/frying thermometer this year, replacing it with an old-fashioned, $7.50 analog frying thermometer. I use it for jam, macarons, and my various deep-frying experiments (see the sous-vide discussion below). You absolutely must have one of these to make caramel, any kind of jam or preserves, or true buttercream frosting.

New for 2016: It’s a unitasker, but the Twist’n Sprout – yes, whoever named that should be fired into the sun – does core Brussels sprouts faster and less perilously than a paring knife could. There are two sharp blades at opposite sides of the device, and once you’ve trimmed the very bottom of the sprout, you impale it on the central spike, then twist the sprout to remove as much or as little of the core as you’d like. I used it to get through two-plus pounds of Brussels sprouts at Thanksgiving this year and it absolutely saved me some time.

Other things I always appreciate getting or often end up buying for myself: Wooden spatulas (not spoons), silicone spatulas, good (not decorative) metal measuring spoons, Pyrex or similar measuring cups for liquids (never measure liquids in a plastic cup designed for measuring solids).

I don’t have this exact brand/model, but I love having a few silicone ingredient cups in the kitchen. I use one for measuring and pouring out coffee grounds, and I often have another one next to the stove with salt or freshly ground pepper or toasted sesame seeds to add to something right before serving.

Now, for the expensive stuff:

* New for 2016: I’ve gone full geek, getting an Anova sous-vide immersion circulator (pot not included) and using it frequently for cooking chicken legs, chicken breasts, steak, and pork. Serious Eats has many recipes for it, and I’ve used their chicken thighs recipe many times, often cooking entire chicken legs that way. (I’ve discovered that, if you can handle some spattering, you can take the drumsticks, pat them dry, then bread and deep-fry them for some of the juiciest fried chicken you’ll ever taste.) I’ve cooked skirt steak, which can be tough even when cooked medium-rare, sous-vide and it melted in our mouths. Sous-vide cooking takes time, and some up-front investment – I caved and bought a FoodSaver vacuum-sealer, although you can do it with zip-top bags too – but once you use it you’ll find it indispensable.

* I’m looking to upgrade, as I mentioned above, but I believe this Cuisinart classic 7-Cup food processor is what I own; we got ours in 1996, and in all that time I’ve just had to replace the plastic bowl, which cracked during a move. At $130, it is an essential, at least in my mind; it makes so many things easier, from pie doughs and biscuits to pesto and hummus and nut butters and mayonnaise (although I do that by hand because I’m a wacko) … and the pumpkin pie I make every Thanksgiving.

* I have this Vitamix 1782 TurboBlend “food preparing machine” (it’s a blender, stupid), and it’s amazing. I can make smooth vegetable soups with it, no cream required; don’t toss those broccoli stalks, just peel, quarter, and roast them, then blend them with some vegetable stock and season to taste, maybe with some basil oil and toasted pumpkin seeds on top. I used it at Thanksgiving 2015 to make the carrot soup in Hugh Acheson’s The Broad Fork. The blender is down to $328 (from four bills), but that’s too much if you’re just making milkshakes and smoothies (and there is nothing wrong with just making milkshakes and smoothies). You’ll probably be fine with just a basic blender and the food processor.

* I have the 5-quart KitchenAid stand mixer, which is about $270 right now. I kind of wish I had the next model up, mostly for bread-baking, which is still a bit of a chore for this model, but it’s great for everything else – mixing up cookie dough, brownie batter, quick breads, whipped cream, and Italian meringues (for macarons). The pasta-maker attachment is overpriced, but it does the job, and the grinder attachment has been good for me in a handful of uses, especially for turning stale bread into bread crumbs.

* Coffee is my big kitchen weakness, at least when it comes to spending money; I’m fortunate to have a few friends in the industry (whom I met through social media) who work for direct-trade roasters and have tipped me off to good sources of coffee and helped me pay for the gear I own, which is wonderful but expensive. The Baratza Virtuoso burr grinder is the least expensive grinder of its kind and caliber; when my first one had an issue with the motor, I sent a quick video of it jamming to Baratza and had a new machine within two weeks. I do make pour-over coffee at home using this Hario V60 ceramic dripper, but my preference is espresso, for which I use a Rancilio Silvia machine that is a wonder. The boiler is huge, so it bounces back quickly between shots and you can heat up the steam wand before your shots go cold. (You can probaby beat that price by $30-40 if you shop around.) If you get your ratios right – for me it’s 17.5 to 19 grams per double shot, depending on the bean and roast – you’ll get great crema, 30-32 grams of output in 25-30 seconds, with almost no bad pulls. I use it every morning and I miss it when I travel. I weigh the beans, grounds, and output on the AWS digital scale I mentioned above, which came recommended by a barista at Lord Windsor Roasters in Long Beach, California.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,
→ December 1, 2015
→ By

Gift guide for cooks, 2015 edition.

With only a few minor new recommendations from last year – a knife sharpener, a small digital scale – I’m reposting the 2014 guide with the additions marked as such. Enjoy, and as always, feedback and suggestions are welcome.

I’ve seen a few “Christmas gift guides for the cooks in your life!” go by already this fall, but most of them are like this one from Grub Street, with recommendations for things that no one could possibly need – a “rosemary stripper” (I have two of those; I call them “hands”); a “banana slicer” (use your paring knife, genius); a $140 toaster (makes toast); and a $1600 set of Thomas Keller-branded pans, which, unless he forged them personally out of pure adamantium, are a colossal fucking waste of money. These are not gifts to by the cook in your life; these are gifts to buy the person in your life who pretends to cook but really just likes playing with toys. Toys don’t make you a better chef; they just make you a less socially responsible one.

I do have a few pricier toys in my kitchen, but aside from one, they’re all highly functional, at the middle to low end of the price range for their jobs, and built to last a long time. I’ve had my chef’s knife for over a decade, my food processor for 17 years (new bowl but original motor), my Dutch oven for about eight years, and just replaced my 18-year-old stand mixer when we moved in 2013. You are free to call me cheap, but I think I’m just prudent. I’ll spend money in the kitchen if it gets me something I need. I will not spend money to get a famous name, a fancy design, or a paperweight to live at the back of a gadget drawer until we move again. If I can make do with something I already have in the house – binder clips, a (clean) putty knife, a (clean) paintbrush – I’ll gladly do that instead. I’d rather be cheap when it doesn’t matter and spend the money when half price means a quarter of the value.

Therefore, what I recommend here – for your cheffy friends or for yourself – is largely what I own and use. If what I own isn’t available, or isn’t good value for the price, I recommend something else. I am also willing to answer any and all questions about these or other suggestions; if I include it here, that’s an endorsement that it’ll be money well spent. I’ve already posted my cookbook recommendations in a separate entry.

The most important tool for any cook is a good chef’s knife, and I love my Henckels 8″ chef’s knife, the “four-star” model (which just refers to the handle style). It’s a workhorse, has only needed professional sharpening once, and is a comfortable grip and weight for my rather small hands. However, it’s $100, and I doubt it’s worth the premium over the $30 Victorinox 8″ chef’s knife, which America’s Test Kitchen has long recommended and, therefore, so have I.

The basic knives any home cook must have are a chef’s knife, a paring knife, and a bread (serrated) knife. The bread knife is good for more than just slicing bread – serrated blades are safer for slicing tomatoes, and they’re excellent for chopping chocolate and other hard foods. I have another Henckels four-star model, also eight inches, but the same blade is available with a different handle for just $9. You might look at a 10” blade if you get a lot of large, artisanal loaves. Any strong paring knife will do, such as this OXO 3.5″ paring knife for $7. With a modicum of knife skills, you can tweak and hull strawberries with one of these without any risk to your fingers or waste of fruit. It’s also good for cutting citrus supremes, slicing apples and pears, pitting olives and cherries, and other fine-motor-skills work.

I do have two other knives I use frequently, but they’re not essential for most cooks. One is the santoku, a very sharp knife with a thin edge but wide body that’s ideal for slicing vegetables and hard fruits; I recommend a 7” blade, which you can get in this two-santoku Henckels set for $21 and just … I don’t know, regift the 5” version or something, because I can’t see any use for it. I also own this exact Henckels boning knife, which is ideal for breaking down a whole chicken – it’s substantially cheaper to buy a whole chicken (sometimes called a broiler-fryer, usually 3-5 pounds total weight) and cut it into parts, and you get the bones to make stock – or for deboning other cuts of meat like short ribs. Some folks recommend a flexible blade instead, but I have never used that kind so I can’t give an opinion. I do not own a home sharpener.

New for 2015: I finally caved and bought a home knife sharpener this year, buying this Chef’s Choice Diamond Hone 3 Stage Sharpener, a manual sharpener that turned out to be both easy to use and very effective; I sharpened every knife I own and even a few pairs of scissors, including the kitchen shears some of you saw me using to spatchcock this year’s Thanksgiving turkey.

My pots and pans aren’t a single set any more; I have some remnants from an All-Clad anodized aluminum set I got with rewards points in 2001, but have swapped out certain pieces to get better nonstick (coated) skillets. What you really should get for your loved one (you may include yourself in that category) is a a 12″ Lodge cast-iron skillet, an absolute workhorse that can handle about 90% of what I need from a skillet or a saute pan. I still use a nonstick skillet for egg dishes, and a saucier (sadly one that’s no longer made) for sauces or custards, but the Lodge skillet is past a decade old and just keeps getting better. The work of seasoning them is nowhere near as arduous as you’ve heard.

If you want to splurge on something, get an enameled cast-iron Dutch oven, great for soups, stews, braises, deep-frying, jam-making, and caramelizing huge batches of onions. Cast-iron doesn’t distribute heat well, but it holds heat for a long time. These pots are heavy, but I use mine for every saucepan duty that doesn’t involve boiling water or cooking grains on their own. They go stove to oven (as do the skillets) and can take the hours of low heating required for a proper braise. I own a Le Creuset that I got on sale at an outlet store because the color was discontinued; if you’re not quite that fortunate, try the 7.8 quart Lodge model for $97.


Isn’t she lovely?

New for 2015: I also upgraded my stockpot this year with this ~$40 Excelsteel 16 Quart Stainless Steel Stockpot. I make stock constantly throughout the year; I buy whole chickens, break them down myself, and freeze the carcasses and necks for future stocks. I also made a turkey stock after Thanksgiving with the backbone, neck, and the picked-clean roasted carcass, and the result was so full of gelatin that it was solid at room temperature. (It made an unbelievably rich turkey and soba noodle soup.) I needed a good stockpot since my previous one’s pseudo-nonstick finish had started to fade; this pot is also taller and heavier so it holds the heat in more effectively and I can do a double batch with two chicken carcasses and plenty of aromatics. I usually have to get at the interior bottom with a little Bon Ami, though.

I don’t own a proper mandolin slicer, but I do pretty well with a handheld mandolin for about $20 that works great for things like root-vegetable chips or thinly slicing onions. I love this digital instant-read thermometer, which at $10 is cheap enough that I don’t feel bad when inevitably I drop it into something and ruin it. (I’ve only done that once.) Amazon tells me that I bought my Microplane classic grater in November of 2003, and I’ve had their coarse grater for almost that long. The former is great for zesting citrus fruits or grating nutmeg; the latter is ideal for creating a snowfall of hard cheese over a pasta dish. In that same 2003 order, I bought my first Silpat silicone baking mat; I now own two and won’t bake cookies without them.

I own two scales – a chef I’m friends with on Twitter made fun of me for this – one, this AWS Digital Pocket Scale for weights up to about 2 kg, which is ideal for precise measurements like grams of coffee (more on that in a moment), and a larger scale that’s long discontinued. This $13 Ozeri scale looks like a more than adequate replacement, measuring up to 12 kg; I rarely need to measure more than about two pounds of anything, maybe a little more for some large-batch baking but that’s about it. You need at least one good scale if you’re serious about baking, though; the best bread and pastry recipes all use grams, not cups or liters. I’ve also done horrible things to this digital oil and candy thermometer over the ten years or so that I’ve had it, including making forty or more batches of jam, dozens of batches of macarons, and engaging in numerous deep-frying experiments, and it still rocks. You absolutely must have one of these to make caramel, any kind of jam or preserves, or true buttercream frosting.

Other things I always appreciate getting or often end up buying for myself: Wooden spatulas (not spoons), silicone spatulas, good (not decorative) metal measuring spoons, Pyrex or similar measuring cups for liquids (never measure liquids in a plastic cup designed for measuring solids).

New for 2015: I don’t have this exact brand/model, but I love having a few silicone ingredient cups in the kitchen. I use one for measuring and pouring out coffee grounds, and I often have another one next to the stove with salt or freshly ground pepper or toasted sesame seeds to add to something right before serving.

Now, for the expensive stuff:
* I believe this Cuisinart classic 7-Cup food processor is what I own; we got ours in 1996, and in all that time I’ve just had to replace the plastic bowl, which cracked during a move. At $100, it is an essential, at least in my mind; it makes so many things easier, from pie doughs and biscuits to pesto and hummus and nut butters and mayonnaise (although I do that by hand because I’m a wacko) … and the pumpkin pie I make every Thanksgiving.

* I have this Vitamix 1782 TurboBlend “food preparing machine” (it’s a blender, stupid), and it’s amazing. I can make smooth vegetable soups with it, no cream required; don’t toss those broccoli stalks, just peel, quarter, and roast them, then blend them with some vegetable stock and season to taste, maybe with some basil oil and toasted pumpkin seeds on top. I used it this Thanksgiving to make the carrot soup in Hugh Acheson’s The Broad Fork. The blender is nearly $400, however, too much if you’re just making milkshakes and smoothies (and there is nothing wrong with just making milkshakes and smoothies). You’ll probably be fine with just a basic blender and the food processor.

* I have the 5-quart KitchenAid stand mixer, which is about $265 right now. I kind of wish I had the next model up, mostly for bread-baking, which is still a bit of a chore for this model, but it’s great for everything else – mixing up cookie dough, brownie batter, quick breads, whipped cream, and Italian meringues (for macarons). The pasta-maker attachment is overpriced, but it does the job, and the grinder attachment has been good for me in a handful of uses, especially for turning stale bread into bread crumbs.

* Coffee is my big kitchen weakness, at least when it comes to spending money; I’m fortunate to have a few friends in the industry (whom I met through social media) who work for direct-trade roasters and have tipped me off to good sources of coffee and helped me pay for the gear I own, which is wonderful but expensive. The Baratza Virtuoso burr grinder is the least expensive grinder of its kind and caliber; when my first one had an issue with the motor, I sent a quick video of it jamming to Baratza and had a new machine within two weeks. I do make pour-over coffee at home using this Hario V60 ceramic dripper, but my preference is espresso, for which I use a Rancilio Silvia machine that is a wonder. The boiler is huge, so it bounces back quickly between shots and you can heat up the steam wand before your shots go cold. If you get your ratios right (for me it’s 17.5 to 19 grams per double shot, depending on the bean and roast), you’ll get great crema, 32-35 grams of output in 25-30 seconds, with almost no bad pulls. I use it every morning and I miss it when I travel. I weigh the beans, grounds, and output on the AWS digital scale I mentioned above, which came recommended by a barista at Lord Windsor Roasters in Long Beach, California.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,
→ December 1, 2014
→ By

My 2014 gift guide for cooks.

My analysis of the Mariners’ deal with Nelson Cruz is up for Insiders.

I’ve seen a few “Christmas gift guides for the cooks in your life!” go by already this fall, but most of them are like this one from Grub Street, with recommendations for things that no one could possibly need – a “rosemary stripper” (I have two of those; I call them “hands”); a “banana slicer” (use your paring knife, genius); a $140 toaster (makes toast); and a $1600 set of Thomas Keller-branded pans, which, unless he forged them personally out of pure adamantium, are a colossal fucking waste of money. These are not gifts to by the cook in your life; these are gifts to buy the person in your life who pretends to cook but really just likes playing with toys. Toys don’t make you a better chef; they just make you a less socially responsible one.

I do have a few pricier toys in my kitchen, but aside from one, they’re all highly functional, at the middle to low end of the price range for their jobs, and built to last a long time. I’ve had my chef’s knife for over a decade, my food processor for 17 years (new bowl but original motor), my Dutch oven for about eight years, and just replaced my 18-year-old stand mixer when we moved last June. You are free to call me cheap, but I think I’m just prudent. I’ll spend money in the kitchen if it gets me something I need. I will not spend money to get a famous name, a fancy design, or a paperweight to live at the back of a gadget drawer until we move again. If I can make do with something I already have in the house – binder clips, a (clean) putty knife, a (clean) paintbrush – I’ll gladly do that instead. I’d rather be cheap when it doesn’t matter and spend the money when half price means a quarter of the value.

Therefore, what I recommend here – for your cheffy friends or for yourself – is largely what I own and use. If what I own isn’t available, or isn’t good value for the price, I recommend something else. I am also willing to answer any and all questions about these or other suggestions; if I include it here, that’s an endorsement that it’ll be money well spent. I’ve already posted my cookbook recommendations in a separate entry.

The most important tool for any cook is a good chef’s knife, and I love my Henckels 8″ chef’s knife, the “four-star” model (which just refers to the handle style). It’s a workhorse, has only needed professional sharpening once, and is a comfortable grip and weight for my rather small hands. However, it’s $100, and I doubt it’s worth the premium over the $30 Victorinox 8″ chef’s knife, which America’s Test Kitchen has long recommended and, therefore, so have I.

The basic knives any home cook must have are a chef’s knife, a paring knife, and a bread (serrated) knife. The bread knife is good for more than just slicing bread – serrated blades are safer for slicing tomatoes, and they’re excellent for chopping chocolate and other hard foods. I have another Henckels four-star model, also eight inches, but the same blade is available with a different handle for just $9. You might look at a 10” blade if you get a lot of large, artisanal loaves. Any strong paring knife will do, such as this OXO 3.5″ paring knife for $7. With a modicum of knife skills, you can tweak and hull strawberries with one of these without any risk to your fingers or waste of fruit. It’s also good for cutting citrus supremes, slicing apples and pears, pitting olives and cherries, and other fine-motor-skills work.

I do have two other knives I use frequently, but they’re not essential for most cooks. One is the santoku, a very sharp knife with a thin edge but wide body that’s ideal for slicing vegetables and hard fruits; I recommend a 7” blade, which you can get in this two-santoku Henckels set for $21 and just … I don’t know, regift the 5” version or something, because I can’t see any use for it. I also own this exact Henckels boning knife, which is ideal for breaking down a whole chicken – it’s substantially cheaper to buy a whole chicken (sometimes called a broiler-fryer, usually 3-5 pounds total weight) and cut it into parts, and you get the bones to make stock – or for deboning other cuts of meat like short ribs. Some folks recommend a flexible blade instead, but I have never used that kind so I can’t give an opinion. I do not own a home sharpener.

My pots and pans aren’t a single set any more; I have some remnants from an All-Clad anodized aluminum set I got with rewards points in 2001, but have swapped out certain pieces to get better nonstick (coated) skillets. What you really should get for your loved one (you may include yourself in that category) is a a 12″ Lodge cast-iron skillet, an absolute workhorse that can handle about 90% of what I need from a skillet or a saute pan. I still use a nonstick skillet for egg dishes, and a saucier (sadly one that’s no longer made) for sauces or custards, but the Lodge skillet is past a decade old and just keeps getting better. The work of seasoning them is nowhere near as arduous as you’ve heard.

If you want to splurge on something, get an enameled cast-iron Dutch oven, great for soups, stews, braises, deep-frying, jam-making, and caramelizing huge batches of onions. Cast-iron doesn’t distribute heat well, but it holds heat for a long time. These pots are heavy, but I use mine for every saucepan duty that doesn’t involve boiling water or cooking grains on their own. They go stove to oven (as do the skillets) and can take the hours of low heating required for a proper braise. I own a Le Creuset that I got on sale at an outlet store because the color was discontinued; if you’re not quite that fortunate, try the 7.8 quart Lodge model for $85.


                           Isn’t she lovely?

I don’t own a proper mandolin slicer, but I do pretty well with a handheld mandolin for about $20 that works great for things like root-vegetable chips or thinly slicing onions. I love this digital instant-read thermometer, which at $10 is cheap enough that I don’t feel bad when inevitably I drop it into something and ruin it. (I’ve only done that once.) Amazon tells me that I bought my Microplane classic grater in November of 2003, and I’ve had their coarse grater for almost that long. The former is great for zesting citrus fruits or grating nutmeg; the latter is ideal for creating a snowfall of hard cheese over a pasta dish. In that same 2003 order, I bought my first Silpat silicone baking mat; I now own two and won’t bake cookies without them.

I own two scales – a chef I’m friends with on Twitter made fun of me for this – one, this American Weigh pocket scale for weights up to about 2 kg, which is ideal for precise measurements like grams of coffee (more on that in a moment), and a larger scale that’s long discontinued. This $13 Ozeri scale looks like a more than adequate replacement, measuring up to 12 kg; I rarely need to measure more than about two pounds of anything, maybe a little more for some large-batch baking but that’s about it. You need at least one good scale if you’re serious about baking, though; the best bread and pastry recipes all use grams, not cups or liters. I’ve also done horrible things to this digital oil and candy thermometer over the ten years or so that I’ve had it, including making forty or more batches of jam, dozens of batches of macarons, and engaging in numerous deep-frying experiments, and it still rocks. You absolutely must have one of these to make caramel, any kind of jam or preserves, or true buttercream frosting.

Other things I always appreciate getting or often end up buying for myself: Wooden spatulas (not spoons), silicone spatulas, good (not decorative) metal measuring spoons, Pyrex or similar measuring cups for liquids (never measure liquids in a plastic cup designed for measuring solids).

Now, for the expensive stuff:
* I believe this Cuisinart classic 7-Cup food processor is what I own; we got ours in 1996, and in all that time I’ve just had to replace the plastic bowl, which cracked during a move. At $100, it is an essential, at least in my mind; it makes so many things easier, from pie doughs and biscuits to pesto and hummus and nut butters and mayonnaise (although I do that by hand because I’m a wacko) … and the pumpkin pie I make every Thanksgiving.

* I have this Vitamix 1782 TurboBlend “food preparing machine” (it’s a blender, stupid), and it’s amazing. I can make smooth vegetable soups with it, no cream required; don’t toss those broccoli stalks, just peel, quarter, and roast them, then blend them with some vegetable stock and season to taste, maybe with some basil oil and toasted pumpkin seeds on top. It’s nearly $400, however, too much if you’re just making milkshakes and smoothies (and there is nothing wrong with just making milkshakes and smoothies). You’ll probably be fine with just a basic blender and the food processor.

* I have the 5-quart KitchenAid stand mixer, which is down to $229 right now after a $50 rebate. I kind of wish I had the next model up, mostly for bread-baking, which is still a bit of a chore for this model, but it’s great for everything else – mixing up cookie dough, brownie batter, quick breads, whipped cream, and Italian meringues (for macarons). The pasta-maker attachment is overpriced, but it does the job, and the grinder attachment has been good for me in a handful of uses, especially for turning stale bread into bread crumbs.

* Coffee is my big kitchen weakness, at least when it comes to spending money; I’m fortunate to have a few friends in the industry (whom I met through social media) who work for direct-trade roasters and have tipped me off to good sources of coffee and helped me pay for the gear I own, which is wonderful but expensive. The Baratza Virtuoso burr grinder is the least expensive grinder of its kind and caliber; when my first one had an issue with the motor, I sent a quick video of it jamming to Baratza and had a new machine within two weeks. I do make pour-over coffee at home using this 8 ceramic dripper, but my preference is espresso, for which I use a Rancilio Silvia machine that is a wonder. The boiler is huge, so it bounces back quickly between shots and you can heat up the steam wand before your shots go cold. If you get your ratios right (for me it’s 17.5 to 19 grams per double shot, depending on the bean and roast), you’ll get great crema, 32-35 grams of output in 25-30 seconds, with almost no bad pulls. I use it every morning and I miss it when I travel.

I’m also a big fan and customer of Penzey’s, a chain of spice stores that also does a brisk mail-order business. They offer gift boxes and a la carte purchases; I buy nearly all my bulk spices from them as well as vanilla beans and Dutch-processed cocoa powder. Buy a box of bay leaves and a jar of whole nutmeg seeds and the recipient will have reason to remember your gift for years to come.

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→ June 17, 2008
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Equipping a kitchen on the cheap.

Stumbled across this year-old article from the New York Times on equipping a kitchen for under $200. It does start with two assumptions that won’t hold for all readers: Relatively basic cooking plans (including little to no baking) and access to a restaurant-supply store. But it’s a useful reminder that what Bed Bath & Beyond wants to charge you isn’t necessarily a fair price.

On the plus side, he nabs a chef’s knife for about $10, a sheet pan for under $6 (then he says it’s not ideal for cookies – I only use “half-sheet pans,” lined with Silpats, for cookies), various useful and inexpensive gadgets, and a 14-inch stainless steel pan with steep sides for $25. He gets a decent-sized Hamilton Beach food processor for $60, which is insanely cheap, since Cuisinarts (they did invent the device) run $150-200 for similar sizes. He recommends a Microplane grater, although he then claims that box graters aren’t used much any more. (Bzzt! But thanks for playing!) His knife collection is simple: chef’s, paring, bread.

On the minus side, his pots are mostly aluminum, which I find is less effective than cast-iron or stainless steel at heat retention or diffusion. (Copper is best, of course, but it’s ragingly expensive.) There is also the potential health concern about cooking acidic foods in aluminum, although that may be much ado about nothing. He buys a “coffee and spice grinder” for $10, which I’m sure is good for spices and lousy for coffee, and he doesn’t mention that you can’t use it for both. He claims that a standard blender is more useful than an immersion blender, which isn’t the case in my kitchen. He also recommends the purchase of a whetstone to keep your knives sharp, which is a terribly bad idea unless you want to buy a new knife every year or so.

Where he really got my dander up was his list of ten things you really don’t need. The problem is that he’s assuming that you, the reader, are a moron. He disses the microwave – great for reheating, but also for quick melting or for warming up liquids to go into risotto or other grain dishes. He says of the stand mixer:

Unless you’re a baking fanatic, it takes up too much room to justify it. A good whisk or a crummy handheld mixer will do fine.

I use my stand mixer for cookies, bread doughs, cake batters, meringues and egg foams, whipped cream, and brownies, at the least. You try to knead a bread or pizza dough with a handheld mixer. So does making bread or cookies make a person a “baking fanatic?” I doubt it.

On the boning knife:

BONING/FILLETING KNIVES Really? You’re a butcher now? Or a fishmonger?

Everyone should at least buy poultry on the bone, and knowing how to butcher a chicken or duck is both a useful skill and a way to save money and get more out of what you buy. (Poultry bones make a great and highly versatile stock.) Whole Foods sells 3-4 pound chickens, formerly known as broiler-fryers, for about $2 a pound; the cheapest boneless, skinless chicken breast they sell goes for $5 a pound, and you don’t get the bones or the delicious dark meat. If the author is telling people how to cook on the cheap, at least to some degree, then dissuading people from doing any of their own butchering is counterproductive.

Last up, the stockpot:

The pot you use for boiling pasta will suffice, until you start making gallons of stock at a time.

Here’s a tip: Use your stockpot to boil pasta. That’s what I do – it’s lightweight, so it’s easy to carry when it’s full of water. True, it doesn’t have the matching strainer, but it was under $20, and the point here is to save some money, right?

I like his advice to seek out restaurant supply stores, ignore brand names, use what the pros use in their restaurants and not what they use on their cooking shows, and stop worrying about looks when utility is what matters. But some of his specific choices … well, they wouldn’t go very far given the way I cook.

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→ May 10, 2008
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The top ten home cooking mistakes.

I did promise this post in my Thursday chat, so here you go. I apologize if some of the formatting doesn’t work, but I’m posting this between flights from O’Hare and I’ll clean it up later on.

1. Salt. The food police have everyone running scared of good old sodium chloride, but it’s incredibly important from a culinary perspective as a flavor in and of itself and as a flavor enhancer. Salt intensifies other flavors in every dish by hitting the fifth taste known as umami; without salt, most foods will taste bland, flat, or even stale. Salting foods early in the process allows you to use less salt in total because you can often infuse your foods with salt by dissolving salt in the cooking liquid. Pasta water should always be heavily salted, and the cooking liquids for small grains like rice, barley, or quinoa should also have salt. Seasoning the exterior of meats helps prepare the surface for the Maillard reaction that occurs during the application of direct heat on a grill or on a stovetop pan, producing that brown crust that, for me, is the #1 argument against vegetarianism. I prefer kosher salt for most applications because it doesn’t dissolve too quickly and is easily pinched due to the coarse grain size, but I use table salt for baking because kosher salt will not integrate evenly in most doughs and batters.

Someone asked in chat what I would recommend for someone with high blood pressure who has to limit his salt intake. The best answer is an unfortunate one, but the reason that monosodium glutamate originally became popular is that it’s a tremendous flavor enhancer that delivers that same umami hit that salt does, perhaps even more powerfully. MSG has a nasty reputation and can trigger a fatal reaction in a person allergic to it (a close friend of our maid of honor’s sister died of anaphylaxis after eating MSG), so it’s not for everyone, and I personally don’t use it because I don’t need to, but it will do the job. Failing that, there are some potassium-salt products that can be used in moderation as salt replacements, and using acids like lemon juice, vinegar, onions, and citrus fruits can also help fill the no-salt gap.

EDIT: A few commenters have said that salt and umami hit different receptors on the tongue. I remember reading in a technology magazine – might have been Red Herring seven or eight years ago about umami, where the writer identified salt as the primary flavor enhancer and thus primary umami delivery mechanism in our diets.

2. A real knife. You can do a lot with a good chef’s knife, and you can’t do shit without one. It doesn’t have to be an expensive model; America’s Test Kitchen has recommended this Victorinox 8″ chef’s knife (or its 10″ version, about a buck cheaper!) for years, although I have grown accustomed to the handles on my Henckels Four-Star knives. Buy a good chef’s knife that feels comfortable in your hand, with a blade 8 to 9 inches long, and buy a honing steel to keep it sharp. Avoid home sharpeners, though, which “sharpen” your blade by destroying it.

3. Cooking by temperature. Most recipes say “bake for 20 minutes” or “grill for 15 minutes,” but those directions assume a median size and shape for the food being cooked and a degree of consistency in ovens and grills that simply doesn’t exist. The food you’re cooking is dead – even lobster dies when it hits the boiling water if you haven’t already killed it – and doesn’t know when the timer goes off. Your roasted chicken breast is done at 161 degrees, whenever it gets there, and you’re not going to know when it gets there unless you check it with a thermometer. I keep two in the house: A cheap instant-read thermometer (also useful for checking the temperature of water for green tea, which is best brewed at 160 degrees) and a probe thermometer with an electronic alarm. I wouldn’t roast a turkey or a pork loin without one of the latter.

4. Using fresher spices. If you’ve got a cheap $10 coffee grinder with a rotating blade, I have two things to say to you: It’s useless for grinding coffee, and it’s great for grinding whole spices. Buying spices whole and grinding them yourself is cheaper two ways and maybe three. One, the whole spices tend to be cheaper per unit of weight. Two, they’ll last far longer than ground spices, which go stale in six months to a year; a whole nutmeg will last for several years, while ground nutmeg is sawdust in a few months. And three, if you’re buying your ground spices at a regular grocery store, there’s a chance you’re getting fillers in addition to your chile powder or allspice. Buy your spices whole, toast some before grinding (cumin, coriander, and fennel seeds in particular), and grind them as you need them. I recommend Penzey’s for mail-order spices, although I may be biased because I have one near my house. I’ve been very happy with their quality and prices on almost everything they sell. A corollary to this rule is to use fresh herbs when you can, especially in season. A $1.29 package of thyme from my local farmstand will keep for two weeks if left in its plastic box in my vegetable crisper drawer, and the volatile oils in fresh herbs give them a deeper, richer flavor than dried herbs can provide. This also means that those spice mixes you buy in stores are a particularly bad deal – they often contain fillers, they nearly always contain salt as the first ingredient, and they take the control out of your hands. Make your own spice mixes in small batches as you need them.

5. Fry – or, as Alton Brown’s plastic chicken once said, “fry some more.” Everyone’s afraid of frying just as they’re afraid of salt, but if you fry right, the fried food will absorb very little of the cooking oil and will amaze you with its texture and moisture. When you keep the oil hot and remove the food before it’s overcooked, the food’s exterior (usually a batter or breading) won’t absorb the fat in which it’s being cooked. The keys to frying are simple:
* Use a huge pot of oil or fill your electric fryer. The more oil you use, the faster the oil temperature will rebound after you add your cold food, which can easily knock a small pot of oil down fifty degrees.
* Use a frying or candy thermometer and monitor it. Too low and you’ll get greasy, undercooked food. Too hot and you’ll get smoke and eventually fire.
* Keep an eye on the food. If it stops sizzling or emitting steam, it’s probably starting to overcook. The force of the food’s internal moisture escaping as steam prevents oil from seeping in, but when the steam stops escaping, the food is dry and will start to suck up oil from the pot.
* Use a fire extinguisher. Duh.

6. Brine. I’ve preached the brining gospel here plenty of times, but here it is in condensed form: Brine lean meats before cooking them. That includes most pork, chicken, and turkey, and you can brine shrimp as well. Brining infuses water and some salt into the meat, helping prevent the meat from drying out as it cooks, which lean meat does tend to do, especially if you like to push your pork past medium.

7. Using proper heat. You need to learn your stove over the course of many meals to understand where “medium-high” really lies. On medium-high, a chicken breast seared in a hot pan in a little bit of oil should develop a nice brown exterior in under three minutes, but more than two. A chicken cutlet (sliced and/or pounded to ¼” thick) should cook through in two minutes per side, and a properly seasoned piece of salmon should have a slightly crispy brown crust in about two and a half minutes. Cooking over heat set too high will result in uneven cooking, with a raw interior and a perfectly-cooked exterior, or a perfectly-cooked interior surrounded by leather.

When the recipe says “simmer,” that doesn’t mean “boil the shit out of it.” Turn the heat down until the bubbles are small and aren’t coming too quickly. When the recipe says “sweat,” don’t sauté. Stir the cut aromatics in the hot oil, sprinkle with salt to draw out moisture, and let the mixture sit over medium to medium-low heat for six or seven minutes until the onions are translucent and golden.

When pan-frying, use plenty of oil and add the food when the oil starts to shimmer, which may mean starting on high or medium-high heat and backing it off as the oil heats. If it smokes, it’s too hot – and yes, I know ATK likes to talk about wisps of smoke, but they’re wrong, because smoke means the oil is breaking down. You might consider a splatter-screen if you pan-fry often, and always remember to turn the gas off or take the pan off the burner before adding any alcohol to a hot pan. (I have, in fact, ignited a few pans, and am fortunate that alcohol burns at a pretty low temperature.)

Remember that long cooking times typically mean indirect heat. On a grill, that means putting the food on a part of the grate that isn’t directly over the heat source.

8. Buy better ingredients. It depresses me to walk into the local Stop and Shop and see the sad excuses for fruits and vegetables offered in that section of the store, especially since a mile away is one of the best farmstands in the area (Wilson Farms), selling superior-quality produce at comparable prices. Food is no different than anything else in life: garbage in, garbage out. If you start with bad produce, no amount of cooking skill or seasoning is going to create a great salad or pie or contorno. Some basic rules of thumb when shopping for fresh produce, meats, fish, and cheeses:
* Produce should be brightly colored and, with a few exceptions like basil, stored in a cool area. Leafy things shouldn’t be wilted or have brown spots, and if any part of a leaf has started to break down into a slightly oozy green substance, then it’s gone bad. Solid fruits and vegetables should be heavy for their sizes, indicating the presence of plenty of moisture in the fruit. Buy whole when you can, as it lasts longer and avoids risk of cross-contamination at the store. Carrots with the leaf stems on top are better than trimmed carrots, which are better than peeled carrots, which are better than the fake “baby carrots” sold in bags (nothing more than peeled, cut full-sized carrots tumbled to give them smooth, rounded exteriors). Fresh beats frozen, and the only acceptable foods in cans are beans and, if the quality is high enough, pears, which are nearly impossible to get out of season because they store and travel poorly.
* Fish shouldn’t smell fishy; if it does, it has already gone bad, and no amount of seasoning will get rid of that taste. Don’t be afraid to ask the monger to let you smell the fish before you buy it. Fish should be stored on ice, and the monger should provide ice for the trip home if you ask for it. In warm weather, bring a small cooler to the store. Color is not an indicator of quality in salmon, since salmon farms can alter the fish’s coloring by changing the feed. Shellfish can make you extremely sick if it’s not handled properly, and salmon can even carry a rare but dangerous parasite that’s killed in cooking.
* Meats and chicken are easier to pick out, as long as they’re stored properly in a cold case and there’s good turnover at the meat counter. As with produce, the more it’s been handled, the greater the risk of cross-contamination, and the less you know about what’s in the product. If you’ve got a good knife, especially a sharp boning knife, buy whole chickens and butcher them yourself; you’ll get more bang for your buck and can save the bones (and wings, if like me you find them to be a waste of time for eating) to make stock. Remember that seasoned or marinated meats rob you of your chance to give the meat a visual inspection before buying. When buying steak, more marbling will mean a more tender end product (and higher cost, but it’s worth it). And try duck. Not only is the meat delicious, if you render the subcutaneous fat, you get one of the greatest cooking fats on the planet.
* The flavor of cheese is entirely determined by what the cow, goat, sheep, or water buffalo eats, so that “Parmesan” cheese from Argentina or Wisconsin isn’t going to rival the Parmiggiano-Reggiano from Italy. Buy cheeses from the right places, looking for an official seal if it’s from Europe (Denominación de Origen from Spain, for example). A good cheesemonger should be willing to give you a taste of any cheese you want, and be willing to cut to any size you’d like. Buy in small quantities that you expect to use in a few days; soft cheeses go bad quickly, hard cheeses can become too hard to eat out of hand, and all cheeses are prone to absorbing other flavors in the fridge. Wrap your cheese in waxed paper to give it some room to breathe, then plastic wrap to keep off flavors out. Shredded or grated cheese is halfway to stale when you buy it, and any cheese can be dismantled quickly with the use of a good box grater.

9. Sauce. I’m not suggesting that you whip up a hollandaise every time you poach an egg or steam some asparagus, but any time you sear meat in a pan, you’re halfway to a pan sauce. Deglaze the pan with some wine, beer, chicken stock, or chicken broth, then return to the pan to the heat and simmer most of the liquid away, scraping the pan bottom to dissolve the brown bits (known as fond) into the liquid as it thickens. Boost the sauce with a little cognac, some chopped shallot, some Dijon mustard, and chopped fresh herbs (or a pinch of dried); you can add a few tablespoons of heavy cream if you’d like, or even full-fat coconut milk. Remove from the heat and mount it with two tablespoons of cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes, and season with salt and pepper. I’ve also shown you how easy it is to make a beurre blanc, which is great on fish, white-meat chicken, and many vegetables. Hoisin is one of the few jarred sauces I’ll use, but you can build a simple pseudo-Asian sauce with soy sauce, honey, a pinch of dried chili flakes, some cornstarch dissolved in water (which will thicken the sauce when heated, so add this to the pan with the vegetables still in it), and a shot of toasted sesame oil right before serving. You can get a lot of extra mileage out of a simple dish like sear-roasted fish or steamed broccoli by saucing it properly.

10. Play with your food. I know it’s trite advice, but it’s true. You may not feel up to experimenting right away, but there are little things even the novice cook can do, like altering or adding herbs and/or spices to dishes, or adding extra flavors when the food is off the heat, like the toasted sesame oil I mentioned above or some toasted sesame seeds, or a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, or some slivered toasted almonds or ground peanuts. There are, unfortunately, some bad combinations of foods, but it won’t take you long to understand what foods play nicely together to encourage you to experiment more, until you get to the point where you can devise your own recipes from scratch or recreate something you ate in a restaurant just by figuring out the ingredients as you eat it.

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→ February 19, 2008
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Cookware question.

From regular ESPN reader JKGaucho comes this intriguing question about cookware:

Keith, I have a non baseball question that I thought would be right up your alley, and maybe a blog entry on the dish if you had the time. My financee and I are in the early stages of registering for gifts and after going around to Crate and Barrel, Pottery Barn and Williams-Sonoma, I found the experience rather overwhelming. If someone knows about what are the best pots, pans, knives, etc., I figure you do. I should say that when it comes to everything, easy to clean is preferred. How did you find the registering process and is there something that you would certainly avoid? Any suggestions on brands like All Clad vs. Calphalon or whatever if more than greatly appreciated.

Well, at least someone understands what marriage is all about: The gifts. Anyway, what follows is my reply to JKG.

Sure, happy to help. But there are no straightforward answers:

Pots and pans: Brand doesn’t matter as much as material. I had anodized aluminum for a few years; it’s easy to clean because it’s mostly nonstick, but the pans/pots are very heavy and you won’t be able to brown meats as well as you can with other materials. Now I have a better mix of materials based on how I use each pot or pan.

My current setup includes two anodized aluminum skillets (9″ omelette pan and 10″ deep skillet), a 12″ cast-iron skillet (heavy, but the best cooking material on the planet and quite cheap), an enameled cast iron Dutch oven (about $200) an aluminum stockpot, a stainless steel saucier with a cover, and a stainless steel saute pan with a cover. I also have a pressure cooker, but don’t use it all that often. Calphalon and All-Clad are both excellent brands. Avoid Teflon or other “coated” non-stick cookware.

Knives: This depends entirely on your hands. Go to a Bed Bath & Beyond or a Wms & Sonoma and get a salesclerk to open the case so you can hold the knives and see which is comfortable. I have J.A. Henckels’ Four-Star line and am very happy with them. I have one of the Five-Star knives (a santoku), and the only difference is that the handle has a different shape. You should get a chef’s knife (link goes to 8″; I believe mine is 9″), a paring knife, a serrated bread knife (9″ at a minimum), and a “slicing” knife (7-9″, narrower blade than the chef’s knife). If you expect to any butchering you might consider a boning knife. Get a honing steel, but avoid home sharpeners, which will destroy your knives. I like my santoku, but it’s not quite as versatile as the chef’s knife.

FWIW, the America’s Test Kitchen people rated the Victorinox Fibrox 8-Inch Chef’s Knife their best value at $23, and it’s $21 at amazon (see link). I haven’t tried it.

Registering – who knows, that was 13 years ago and I didn’t cook back then. But you named some expensive stores. I’d say register at Bed Bath & Beyond, which has most of the same stuff as W-S or C&B but way better prices on pots, pans, knives, and small appliances; and then use a higher-end store or a department store for flatware and silverware.

Also, if you intend to cook, register for a food processor and a 5-qt stand mixer. They are indispensable and expensive enough that you won’t want to buy them on your own. Other kitchen toys I use often: Stick blender (“boat motor”), blade grinder (for spices, not for coffee!), digital kitchen scale, roasting pans (get at least two different sizes), V-slicer (or a mandoline, if you have wealthy relatives), salad spinner, eight different colanders (and I use them all, often), electric carving knife, and a waffle iron with reversible grids that are flat on the other side for pancakes.

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