How to: stock your kitchen with tools

Los Angeles, Ca, March 7th, 2015 – Buying kitchen tools can be confusing and overwhelming. Every celebrity chef, kitchen store and T.V. infomercial has a million products that “you just can’t live without.” Quite frankly, you can live without most of them. Stocking a kitchen with the right set of tools is a work of art. Everyone has their favorite utensils, so they will encourage you to buy things you don’t need, but you really only need a select few multi-purpose utensils to master cooking in a limited kitchen. The other, specialty items crowd your kitchen while only making one particular job easier (examples – the egg slicer, onion chopper and herb scissors). They are conveniences for large kitchens, not necessities.

When it comes to kitchen tools, your first priority should be to buy a quality chef knife. A chef knife can help you slice, dice, cut, peel and much more, making it your most crucial tool. The many gadgets and gizmos that do the same things as a knife are great, but when you’re trying to figure out what you can and you can’t live with out, a chef knife is an absolute must. Anything else will just eat up space in your already cramped kitchen, leaving your kitchen overstocked with fancy gadgets that have missing pieces, cause frustrations and collect dust.

After purchasing a chef’s knife, make sure to buy a few more of the following essentials: Wooden spoons, plastic spatulas, metal spatulas, tongs (both metal and plastic tipped), peelers; strainers, can opener, slotted metal spoon, ladle, poultry scissors, Microplane/zester.

Here are a few more things to ask yourself before purchasing kitchen tools/gadgets/machines:

1. when buying tools for your kitchen, ask yourself, will you use it for more than five different recipes or cooking ideas? If the answer is no, don’t buy it. An item that is used for one purpose usually gets put away quickly.
2. Does it have a lot of pieces? If the answer is yes, make sure they will be easy to keep track of and if they aren’t reconsidering buying the gadget.
3. Will you have room for the kitchen gadget in your kitchen? If the answer is no, DEFINITELY don’t buy it. There is probably another gadget that can complete the same task as the larger gadget but in a more company size.
4. Does the kitchen gadget fit in your budget? If no, but it’s pretty and fancy and it is name brand, again keep looking. There are so many cool kitchen tools on the market and you can find them almost anywhere at any price.
5. Do you already make the food that the gadget is built to make, i.e. an ice cream maker? Making ice cream can be done without an ice cream machine, believe it or not. And a lot of other foods can be made without specialty machines and gadgets. The odds are, if you aren’t already making the particular food you may not make it even with the fancy machine, so reconsider buying the tool/machine/gadget.

Here are a few kitchen tools that are perfect for starting your kitchen’s debut:

Kitchen Tools: