The tools and books I actually use.
Honest first-person recommendations — knives, thermometers, cookware, and the books that shape my own thinking. No partnerships I haven't tested in my own kitchen.
Browse by kit
Each kit answers a different cooking question. Start with the one closest to a dish you've been trying to nail.
French Sauce Tools
What you need to make a clean béchamel, hold a hollandaise, and reduce a pan sauce without breaking it.
Japanese Home Cooking Tools
Dashi strainer, cooking chopsticks, fine grater — the pieces that actually change how Japanese home food turns out.
Stock & Broth Foundations
Six tools that anchor broth craft across cuisines — a tri-ply pan, a strainer, a thermometer, a scale, and the kombu-katsuobushi pair. The same six make French fond, Japanese dashi, Italian brodo, and Chinese 高湯.
Fermentation Starter Kit
Jars, scales, thermometers, and pH strips — the gear that lets a beginner ferment safely from day one.
World Cooking Tools
Five small tools — santoku, cast-iron, tongs, Microplane, scale — that let one home kitchen handle Italian, Mexican, Indian, Korean, and Southeast Asian cooking.
World Pantry — Specialty Ingredients
Sixteen ingredients that recur across 500 recipes — pimentón, kombu, gochujang, Chinkiang vinegar, fish sauce, tahini. Each one is irreplaceable: substituting it changes the dish, not the seasoning.
Kitchen Science Tools
Thermometer, scale, timer — the three instruments that turn guesswork into repeatable results.
Recommendations are being assembled.
Each item on this page is something I cook with or read often.
Coming soon — knives, thermometers, fermentation kit, and a small shelf of books.