‎(As a disclaimer, I am a cook by trade, but I do live a little like a monk.)
One stock pot, 1 pasta pot, 3 whisks, 2 sheet pans, 1 excellent chef’s knife that my mother gave me when I was 21, one bread knife, 1 large stainless saute pan and 1 small one. 3 sieves, (1 for baking) and a cheese grater. Plus baking bowls, cake pans, measuring gear, 1 metal spatula and 3 heat resistant rubber ones, 1 wooden spoon, and I think that’s it. For electric: a food processor, and an immersion blender. Oh, and a few cutting boards. I can fit it all in a bag to take to a job if needed. (One of my clients used to have no equipment whatsoever.)
I thought that was it. But then I remembered:
I have a milk jug for heating milk and a moka pot for making coffee and I am going out to buy a one cup sauce pan because I adore them. I have no kettle (because I burned it.) I am going to get one of those and I would give my front living room wall for a le creuset dutch oven. I have always been insanely jealous of my sister, who was out one Saturday hunting for tag sales and happened on a woman who sold her entire le creuset collection to my sister for $10. (The collection had been a gift from her mother in law and they had just had a “situation.”) I also have a traditional American rolling pin and an one from India. I need a paring knife like I need my thumbs, and I don’t have one. Well, I do, but it’s useless and it would be easier if I just tried peeling or slicing with my thumb. And I do have a peeler that I got from a guy in an outdoor market when I was teaching in France that promised me the thing would last my lifetime and into the next. It somehow got pushed under the kettle I burned, but the blade still works beautifully. I also forgot about my aprons and tea towels and for some reason I am really attached to all of that. Maybe because a lot of the tea towels were gifts and I get to think of people I love every time I go to dry my hands or lift something from the oven. I have a salad spinner and a ball that you fill with cream and sugar and roll around on the floor to make ice cream. I have a coffee grinder (from my first marriage) that I just relocated in the basement. I do have a toaster, but I hate to look at it, which is probably why I forgot to mention it. I also have a terrible habit of throwing stuff away. In my last sweep, I threw away all of our receipts from last year. I told my husband I can’t find them. April 15 is looming around the corner like a dog out to get me.
Nothing in me wants to go to the store and buy more. Especially when looming in the cabinets of a best friend or sister, brother, mother or neighbor whom I haven’t met yet, might have EXACTLY what I’m looking for.
I feel a swap coming on. I have no pickled zucchini, but I could make cake.