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Beelzebib

Eric Wareheim

Amazon

Bookshop.org

Ammu

Ethiopia

Africana

Chicken and Charcoal

The Outdoor Kitchen

Charred

Mi Cocina

Persiana

Bavel

Cook This Book

Diasporican

Foodheim

Home Style Cookery 

In Bibi's Kitchen

An Invitation to Indian Cooking

Mezcla

Mission Vegan

Momofuku

Motherland

Night + Market

Ottolenghi Simple

A Super Upsetting Cookbook About Sandwiches

Win Son Presents: A Taiwanese American Cookbook

The Family Meal

The Food of Sichuan

The Modern Larder

The Woks of Life

The Tucci Cookbook

Turkey and the Wolf

Xi'an Famous Foods

A Good Bake

All Under Heaven

Veg-Table

Start Here

Eric doesn't claim to be a professional chef. He's just talented and loves eating, cooking, and sharing what he knows with the world. Better yet, his charisma so clearly comes through in the writing — which is increasingly rare in cookbooks. There is zero stress in this book and that's a downright miracle.

Hedley & Bennett

It's not a bad apron, but H&B's fabrics and designs have always felt underwhelming to me for the price point. 

$85 is kind of a lot for such a basic product...

The fabric out of the box is stiff and uncomfortable. If you have time to wash it 3-4 times before wearing it the material will soften.

I love that it has two hand pockets, but the stiff fabric, and high price point is a real bummer.


Bryn

Peanut Butter Ice Cream

IKEA

Cookin' Cut Synthetic Rubber Cutting board 

Hinoki Cutting Board

R01 Maple Edge Grain Cutting Board

Cutting Board

Chopping Block

FRK20 Soft Cutting Board

Aptitlig

Finfordela Flexible Chopping Board

Proppmatt Beechwood Cutting Board

Skogsta Acacia Cutting Board

reBoard Recycled Plastic Cutting Board

Edge Grain Cutting Board

Hi-Soft Cutting Board

Bamboo just isn't a great material for cutting boards. An edge-grain unit like this is better than an end-grain one, but you can get better stuff for cheaper (e.g. the Proppmatt — also from IKEA).

Ferran Adrià

I have a fascination with what the staff at restaurants eat for dinner before service — what's known in the biz as "Family Meal". So when I read that The Family Meal is a compilation of the 31 staff favorite meals from the kitchen at El Bulli, you better believe I had to do a review of this book.

By 31 meals, I don’t just mean leftovers with a side of bread. No, these recipes include a custom side, main course and dessert that the staff at this restaurant ate together every night before dinner service started.

The book was written so that no matter the experience, anyone can make a recipe out of this book. To test the theory I approached a group of food that I have very little experience with: fish.

Listen, it’s not that I’ve never cooked fish before, but I grew up in a landlocked state and good fish wasn’t something you could just go out and buy. Where I hailed from, you had to catch your own fish and that restricted your options to sunfish, crappie, walleye, or perch. The default method of cooking them being just a big vat of oil, a lot of heat, and a mysterious spice blend called "lemon pepper".

Upbringing aside, I chose a lot of fish dishes to work with out of this book. Aside from some of the varieties being common in Northern Spain but completely unavailable to me in Northern California — and unlocking a new fear in gutting a fish — I found the writing to be fairly straightforward.

After a week with this book, I can confidently say that if you’re just getting into cooking and want to have a few fine dining recipes at the ready to impress a significant other; I think this would be an excellent book to add to your shelf.

A little more about our rankings

The book is very readable. Each recipe has pictures and a timeline that helps to keep the project moving along. However, while most of the dishes are not complex, they do make bold claims such as browning whole turkey legs and braising veal shanks only taking 10-20 minutes. Either they were working with a magic stove, they used a huge pan, or the meat I purchased for this review was particularly stubborn. In both cases, I doubled the amount of time it took to get a color and texture that I expected. All this to say, if you're new to cooking you might need to spend a little extra time reviewing their photos or googling your way through a task or a preparation to understand what the author is asking you to do vs following the timed guidelines to the letter.

Green Curry Trout

Microplane

Stainless Zester

This grater has a permanent home in our spice drawer and on our knife block. That's right, we have two of them floating around our kitchen. 

They're the easiest way to zest a lemon, finely grate garlic, ginger, and even nutmeg without a bulky handle getting in the way. 

They last longer than those other zesters with handles and have more usable surface area to work with. When this zesty little number does eventually dull it's easier to recycle because it's all made from one material - stainless steel.

Win. win. win.

It's hardly a secret that these are tucked into basically every cook's bag. They're indispensable for grating cheese, garlic, ginger, and nutmeg or zesting citrus.

Only downside is that they're disposable. In our house, we open up about two a year due to dulling.

I've been using this same microplane since culinary school in 2009 and it's still kicking. Of course I have several others now. It requires almost no care and easy to clean if you soak it before a scrub. Simple and straight to the point. I prefer this one over the one with the handle...just because.

All-Clad

NanoBond Titanium Skillet

D3 10" Fry Pan

Premier 10" Space Saving Fry Pan

10-Inch Skillet

Deep Cut

10" Stainless Steel Frying Pan

Fry Pan

Titanium Series Fry Pan

Eater Series Frying Pan

There's really nothing special about this frying pan aside from the name that's stamped on the side. 

The stainless steel used on this pan is basically the same steel across countless other manufacturers and its cheapest competitor has better design, so what's all the fuss about?

After working with this pan for a few months we can confirm that the only meaningful difference is that godawful handle. If you're looking for a quality egg slinger and don't mind paying more for the name, by all means, the world is your skillet.

I openly stan for All Clad, although I never pay full retail, so my personal value score is higher. I think All Clad works particularly great on my induction range; it’s sturdy, but not too heavy, quiet, and heats evenly. These pans consistently perform well in my kitchen so I continue to purchase them. AC now makes a couple different D3 & D5 lines with pouring lips and wider handles that are a vast improvement over this classic version, so if this handle is an immediate nonstarter for you, try a different line.

Handmade Udon Noodles

Yoshihiro

This cutting board has ruined other cutting boards for me. It's super gentle on knives, it doesn't slip around on your counter, it's relatively light, and it's easy to resurface with a little sandpaper if it gets too marked up or stained.

The only gripes I have are that it's an ugly color that stains easily and that handle cutout is pretty useless.

It's worth noting that there are a couple other LDPE (note: Yoshihiro claims it's made of "Soft PVA", but their manufacturer states that it's actually LDPE) models on the market, but as of writing they're significantly more expensive.

Though on the expensive end of cutting boards, I absolutely love this thing. It is a super nice texture that doesn't slide around. It does stain and the handle is way to small for my hands, but I use this everyday and don't like using any other cutting board now.

Truly a joy to use. It's not cheap but so much better than any and all synthetic cutting boards I've ever used.

A side note for those living outside the US where this might be hard to source, these boards seem to be sourced from Japan and they might be easier to order from there through the usual online retailers ("high soft" is the term that worked for me).

Thai Green Curry Paste

Thai Green Curry Paste

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