The most important but simple, old-school kitchen gadgets that I use at home and at Little Owl are my own hands, a food mill, and a fine-mesh sieve. Clean hands are always your best tool. Use best practices and clean and dry your hands thoroughly between touching each ingredient, and you shouldn’t have any issues. When called for, use tongs. They are also great for lifting long pastas right out of the pot and into the pan to finish and emulsify with sauce.
A food mill separates skins and seeds and is an indispensable tool for achieving a smooth texture for tomato gravy. A fine-mesh sieve comes in handy for sifting flour and creating purées or straining stocks. I even use one to create a light-as-air texture for my Chicken Liver Mousse (page 140). They come in different sizes for tasks large and small.
To get the most fragrant and powerful flavor, use a spice grinder to grind your own spices from whole seeds whenever possible. Just don’t use your coffee grinder for grinding spices and vice versa. Keep them separate.
Moving on to more modern conveniences that are the mainstay of my commercial and home kitchens: A KitchenAid mixer with a hook attachment is perfect for working dough. And while I rely on the old workhorse Robot Coupe food processor, which chops and grinds like nobody’s business, KitchenAid is the better-known brand for the home cook, and I recommend that or Cuisinart. Keep in mind, I don’t like grating fresh cheese in a food processor. Any friction that is generated by the blade simply destroys the cheese. It deserves more. So, whenever possible, gently grate fresh cheeses with a box grater. Or double down on the use of a Microplane grater for zesting lemons or grating fresh horseradish and use it to grate hard cheeses as well.
For kitchen knives, I recommend that you keep it simple. With these four knives, you can accomplish any kitchen task: a chef’s knife (8 to 10 in [20 to 25 cm] blade), a serrated knife, a paring knife, and a boning knife for cutting around skin and bones on fish and meat, and especially for deboning a whole chicken to make the Little Owl Crispy Chicken (page 146). Yes! I’ll take you through the steps to chicken heaven. And speaking of sharp objects, a kitchen mandoline is wonderful for slicing fruits and vegetables for pickling or shaving into a salad.
When preparing to cook, keep several sizes of mixing bowls at the ready. They can be glass, aluminum, or plastic. Look for bowls that can also double as airtight containers with lids. Ladles are essential for spooning soups and sauces, and I recommend you have a variety of sizes, with 4 oz [118 ml], 6 oz [177 ml], and 8 oz [236 ml] being the most practical for home use. And a slotted spoon is important for lifting meats out of gravy, as well as Cinnamon Sugar Beignets (page 36) out of hot oil. And if you have only one spatula in your kitchen, by far the most versatile is a fish spatula. It’s great for lifting fish fillets out of a pan or broiler, and its fluted head makes it excellent for flipping pancakes or burgers, too.
The pasta section of Big Love Cooking is ample and features my Ricotta Cavatelli (page 117), so now is your time to pick up a hand-crank cavatelli cutter. Priced under $30, this easy-to-use tool will make you the cavatelli-making queen (or king) in your neighborhood, like I am in mine. “Homemades” (page 221), my grandmother’s homemade tagliatelle, are easy to make with a pasta maker and you can purchase a basic, hand-crank one for around $40.
For Sunday supper (or most meals any day of the week), you’ll want a bevy of kitchen towels and wooden spoons. Also, for rolling out dough, I recommend a heavy, wooden dowel roller without handles. It should do the work of flattening the dough for you, and the handleless kind will feel more like an extension of your hands as you roll. Never put wooden spoons or a wooden rolling pin in the dishwasher, as it will destroy them. The same goes for any wooden cutting boards. You will want to reserve one large wooden cutting board for pasta making. If you don’t have one, you can use a clean, dry surface, like your kitchen table. And you’ll need smaller boards for chopping.
For draining pasta, use a stainless steel colander. You can also use it to wash and rinse vegetables.
I do not have a pastry chef at Little Owl, preferring instead to make my own homemade desserts. My mission is simple: I want preparing and eating dessert to make you happy. Baking is kitchen science. And while I am not a molecular gastronomist, following exact measurements ensures the success of a recipe. And with that success comes the confidence to try new things in the kitchen. Dry measuring cups do not reflect true volume measurements, and as such do not correspond to liquid measures. A standard set of dry measuring cups should include 1/4 cup [60 ml], 1/3 cup [80 ml], 1/2 cup [125 ml], and 1 cup [250 ml] scoops. In addition to dry measuring cups, I recommend the use of a digital scale for measuring dry ingredients like flour and sugar by weight. And make sure you are at eye level with the markers on a simple Pyrex glass or plastic measuring cup when measuring liquid ingredients to ensure an accurate measurement. And on the topic of accurate measurements, an instant-read thermometer is a great tool for checking the doneness of meats. Some of these things are best done by sight and touch, but if you are wary of your food being at a certain temperature, use one.
Offset spatulas are great for evening out cake batter and spreading frosting, and a pastry bag comes in handy for spreading pastry cream (or make your own by filling a large zip-top baggie and snipping off a corner). Among all the available kitchen whisks on the market, look for a simple all-purpose French whisk for everything from beating eggs to whipping cream. Parchment paper, plastic wrap, and large zip-top baggies for storage also top my list as prep items and they should be in a drawer close by.
Cooling racks aren’t just for fresh-from-the-oven cakes; they are also for cooling meats. Stainless steel rimmed baking sheets are just as great for baking cookies as they are for roasting vegetables or toasting nuts.
In terms of serving food, think family style. Beautiful, funky plates and dishes make everyone feel good. I love to serve wine in “Uncle Frankie” glasses (little juice glasses that I pick up at Fishs Eddy in Manhattan), named after my Uncle Frankie, who drank his wine this way. If there is one thing I love to do at home, it’s to plate food on beautiful platters and pass it around. Or just park it in the center of the table with complementary items on the side. Think abbondanza—plentiful portions that can be parlayed into leftovers or spun into other meals.