The Prep List: Chapter Three
*Adopts Gandalf voice* "Tools of a Cook"
Having started giving online cooking classes this summer (best thing I’ve done in ages BTW, please get involved if you want to learn something new), I’ve realised the importance of never assuming knowledge.
Same for when writing recipes, of course.
That mindset has influenced this next chapter of my serialised cookbook The Prep List. I’m taking a close look at something really foundational but impossibly important: the tools I rely on to make things happen in the kitchen.
As with all chapters of The Prep List, this is for paid subscribers. If you enjoy my work and want to support my writing it, please upgrade today.
My special birthday 25% discount is still running until the end of the weekend.
Thanks for being here,
Wil
Years before I started life as a restaurant cook, I spent my working days asking sportspeople silly questions for social media videos.
I worked for a rather fancy “sports charity” at the time, even getting to travel to amazing places like Rio de Janeiro, cities across Sri Lanka, and even, if you can believe it, Stratford in East London.
The glamour of that last one, at an old boxing gym with Tony Hawk, I’ll never forget.
Back then, I was a lowly member of the media team. Social media wasn’t quite the beast it is today, so I’d often rely on the agency photographers (Getty and the like) to help me get access to the best spots. Over time, I got friendly with them.
One exchange I always remember was with a towering Irish golf photographer. I’d just bought my first SLR camera and, over a post-shoot Guinness, I asked him about his gear, lenses, brands, that sort of thing.
He stared at me and said:
“Fucking hell, kid, could you ask me anything more boring? I can’t think of anything less interesting.”
He went on to explain, convincingly, that the artistry is in the image, the moment you capture, not the gear you use to get it.
I’ve thought of that moment many times since, maybe because I have my own equivalent of his camera these days.
Things like knives.
Knives can be beautiful artifacts. Pieces of art, even. Handmade in Japanese workshops, with layered steel that looks like waves crashing toward the shore. But like the photographer’s camera, they’re never, to me at least, objects of admiration for long. They’re tools, punished, worn down, knocked about, and worth only what they can stand up to.
I’ve never had a conversation with another cook about the nature of our knives. The only thing that matters is what we’ve done with them.
It’s in that spirit that I’m sharing with you the essential tools and equipment that make my cooking possible. Inspired by my restaurant experience, but relevant to home cooks anywhere.
No countertop breadmakers, no Himalayan salt block cooking plates, no lemon juicers that look like retro spaceships. Not even a Thermomix (cool as that last one is).
Without running to a list of 1000s of items (which I could probably do) below you’ll find the gear I find most important day in, day out, to make the food I love. There’ll be some obvious choices and maybe some less obvious ones. But if you’ve ever been left thinking what is really necessary for your kitchen, what you’re missing, what gift you might get an aspiring cook, hopefully there’s something below to help you out.
(PS: I’ve included links to many items (where helpful) as examples, mostly EU-based shops I’ve bought from. Nothing sponsored, just there to help clarify what I mean by each item. I know many of you are US-based, so hopefully these links/examples help guide you in the right direction.)