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A Quick Guide to Outfitting Your Kitchen

© 2001 By Gordon Reeder

You love your Mother's Kitchen. It's full of pots and pans and every imaginable utensil and gadget. When you start out on your own, you want a kitchen that is outfitted like Mom's. But, Mom spent years collecting all her kitchen gadgets. Eventually, you too, can have it all. But for now restraint is the rule. Below are some guidelines to outfit your first kitchen. I wrote this from the cook's point of view, I didn't mention the plates, glasses, and silverware that you will need. Nor have I mentioned anything about appliances. Maybe that will be another article.

Pots and pans Later you can add

Don't cheap out here. Get good pots and pans. It is almost impossible to cook well with cheap pots and pans. The food that is ruined will cost more than if you just bought a good pot in the first place. You can tell a good pot because it is heavy. Look for a thick flat bottom that will spread out the heat and sit square on the burners. Give it a rap with your knuckles, a good pot will respond with a solid thunk, a cheap pot will ring.

Baking dishes Later you can add

The baking dishes you buy depend on what kind of baking you will do. If you plan to make a lot of cakes or muffins then you obviously need the cake pans. If you want to try out my pie recipies, you will need the pie plate. I found that the 9x13 pan, the pie plate, and the casserole should be glass. It cleans up much easier. If you are lax about cleanup, you will find that metal baking dishes will wear out quickly.

Utensils

You can collect kitchen utensils forever. For a start you should buy a good quality set that contains as many of the items listed. You can then fill in the others individually. You will notice that I recommend two spatulas. On should be metal or hard plastic. The other should be soft plastic for use with your nonstick skillet. Don't use metal utensils in a non-stick skillet.

The 'wooden' spoons should be plastic not wood. Plastic is more forgiving of bad cleanup habits and will last longer.

Cutlery

This is also an area where you do not want to cheap out. Get good cutlery and it will last forever. Several years ago, you had to pay about a hundred dollars to get a good piece of cutlery. But lately I have been seeing some good cutlery available for good prices. Here's what to look for. A good blade, get a hard stainless steel alloy. One way to judge the hardness of the blade is to hold the knife lightly by the handle between your thumb and forefinger. Tap or snap the blade with your finger nails. A hard blade will have a slight ring, a soft blade will sound dull.

Look for full tang construction. This means that the blade extends through the entire length of the handle. There should be three rivets attaching the handle to the blade. Look for hard composition plastic handles. Soft plastic tends to wear out, wood tends to rot and split, hard plastic is immune to these problems.

Etc

There is not too much to say here. The cheap set of stainless steel bowls I bought 20 years ago are still going strong. The cutting board should be plastic to stand up to bad cleanup habits. It should also be large enough to be useful, 14" on the long dimension should be about right.