Unless I say otherwise, in my house and in these recipes, these are the ingredients I use:
The milk is whole (or at least not skim). The butter is unsalted. The yogurt and sour cream are full fat. The salt is Diamond Crystal kosher unless I’m using flaky sea salt for a little crunch on top, and then it’s Maldon. The mayonnaise is Hellmann’s, or Best Foods, as it’s called out west. (You can fight me on this, but I am right!)
For everyday olive oil, I get Tiger brand, an inexpensive Tuscan oil that comes in a three-liter tin, or the good stuff from California Olive Ranch, milled near my home. For salads, I keep a fruity olive oil on hand; taste a few different brands and find your favorite. Once a year, I buy a bottle of olio nuovo; this fiery, freshly pressed green oil is spicy! I drizzle it on chopped raw fennel, on beans, and into soup. And I usually have a nut oil, like walnut, around for salad dressings.
Treat yourself to a big chunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano if you’re able. Having it in my cheese drawer is like a security blanket. You can find good-quality Parm in big blocks at Costco; two pounds might seem like a lot, but it keeps well and goes fast.
For feta, use the kind made with sheep’s milk if you can find it. Sheep’s milk has more fat than cow’s or goat’s milk, so the feta made from it is richer and creamier. If you can get it packed in brine, great. Avoid buying those cartons of pre-crumbled feta (or blue cheese). Not only are they more expensive, but the cheese is often drier. Besides, crumbling cheese is not exactly an advanced skill—you can do this.
My favorite dried pasta is Rustichella d’Abruzzo, an Italian brand that is extruded through bronze dies, which gives the pasta a rough texture that helps sauce cling to it. It’s more expensive than most grocery-store brands (and might require a trip to a specialty market), but it’s worth it.
In my kitchen I have both oil- and salt-packed anchovies. The oil-packed anchovies are already filleted, so they’re easy to use straight from the tin. Salt-packed anchovies are the whole fish (minus the heads) packed into coarse salt. Before you use them you have to soak them in water for about thirty minutes, then fillet them with your fingers. Why go through the hassle? Generally, salt-packed anchovies are meatier than the oil-packed fillets, with a more pronounced flavor. I like them both, and they can be used interchangeably in all the recipes in the book. Anchovy paste in a tube is also a great invention, and there’s no waste. A quarter teaspoon of the paste is equal to about one anchovy fillet.
Capers are available packed in either brine or salt. The benefit of the brined ones is that they’re ready to use—just drain and toss them in. The salted capers must be soaked in water to cover for about thirty minutes. I often opt for the convenience of brined, but that convenience comes at a small cost, which is that the vinegar in the brine changes the flavor of the capers somewhat; salted capers, by contrast, have a less piquant (though still very big) flavor. Again, they can be used interchangeably in these recipes.
I use chocolate and cocoa from Guittard, which is produced near my San Francisco home by some really nice folks who let me watch chocolate chips being made. Valrhona chocolate and cocoa are also great.
I have never been a churchgoer, but every Sunday I do go to the farmers’ market, where I get the majority of the fruits, vegetables, and nuts we eat. It makes me feel good—you might even say spiritually enriched—to buy food directly from the people who make it, and it turns something that could be a chore (food shopping) into a social outing. I’ve gotten my kids into it now, too, luring them with the promise of samples and pastries.
I pay attention to how my meat and fish are raised and I have come to terms with paying more for the good stuff. That means we eat less of it or that I use lesser cuts, ground meat, or whole chickens, bones and all. We also eat a lot of beans.
I usually try to plan about three meals at a time. A week’s worth feels like too many (both to plan for and shop for), and I can’t always predict at the start of the week what I’ll feel like eating at the end. Often, I’ll make a big batch of something (meatballs, beans, chile-braised beef, tart dough, salad dressing) and save or freeze a portion of it for a second meal. I’m not talking long storage—I’m frequently ready to revisit it (gratefully) the following week. It helps to always keep basics—potatoes, onions, carrots, dried or canned beans, eggs and cheese, canned tomatoes—on hand. You’ll see that a lot of the recipes in this book call for ingredients you probably already have in the kitchen. And if they’re not in your kitchen, they’re readily available at a regular grocery store.