Mostly Practical 2011 Holiday Gift List

Normally I’m an unplugged kind of guy, I figure why complicate things with a lot of buttons and dials. Since I have only the use of one arm, I’ve had to rethink things a bit. My nonnegotiable tool kit includes basic metal tongs, a set of curved silicone spatulas, a good meat thermometer and a simple food mill or ricer for mashed-potatoes. I'll rotate some other gadgets in or out, but I find that with utensils, as with cooking in general, an arsenal of simple classics gets me where I want to go.

What is in a professional kitchen that you don’t have in yours? Many of the stock items, things such as garlic oil, ground spices and pureed vegetables, are made using the same model of equipment as yours. Food processors have become a must-have for professional and home cooks alike. Cuisinart makes the best available, whenever I plan on staying in one place permanently I’ll be sure to get one. In the meantime I’ll get whatever brand is available – just making sure that it has the highest wattage available and the biggest capacity. Black & Decker and Phillips both offer great inexpensive models. Why get a top of the line model that will last for ten years only to leave it behind after a year or two? Besides a food processor, what do you absolutely need? . Knives are obvious are obvious choices.

 All you need, for God's sake, is a decent chef’s knife. No con foisted on the general public is so widely believed as the one that says you need a full set of specialized cutlery in various sizes. All those medium-size 'utility' knives, those useless serrated things, all that hard-to-sharpen stainless-steel garbage - not one of the damn things could cut a bushel of tomatoes. Please believe me, all you will ever need in the knife department is ONE good chef's knife, as large as is comfortable for your hand.

Most amateurs get excited about buying one of the old-school professional high-carbon stainless Steel knives from Germany or Austria, like a Wusthof, and those are fine knives, if heavy. High carbon makes them slightly easier to sharpen, and stainless keeps them from getting stained and corroded. But do you really need something so heavy? So difficult to maintain?

Most of the professionals I know have been retiring their Wusthofs and replacing them with the lightweight, easy-to-sharpen and relatively inexpensive vanadium steel Victronix knives. They can cut just about anything you might work with, from an onion to a sirloin strip. You should use the tip of the knife for the smaller stuff, and the blade nearer the heel for the larger. Practice on few onions, and you’ll be cutting like a pro in less than an hour.  Nothing will set you apart from the herd quicker than the ability to handle a chef's knife properly.

Okay, here’s a couple of other knives you might find useful. I carry a flexible boning knife because I French-cut racks of veal and pork, and trim meat – I use the trimmings for stock. You can probably live without one if your butcher is doing all the work for you. But a paring knife is an essential item for every cook. I find it useful for everything from opening packages to fluting mushrooms.

A genuinely useful blade, however, is what's called the offset serrated knife. It's basically a serrated knife set into an ergonomic handle. This is a truly useful item that, once used, becomes indispensable. As the handle is not flush with the blade, but raised away from the cutting surface, you can use it not only for slicing bread, thick-skinned tomatoes and so on — but on your full line of vegetables, spuds, meat and even fish. But since it's serrated it doesn't really matter if it’s stainless steel; after a couple of years of use, when the teeth start to wear down, you just buy yourself another one.