So here's a mercifully brief anecdote which will serve to introduce my typically jaundiced stance about kitchen equipment:
About a dozen years ago, I got roped into helping chaperone my younger son's fifth grade class on a field trip (anyway, that's what we used to call them) to Ellis Island. All of the other adults, save one, were women. The one was a world-class tennis player (yes, him, but I'll never say the words) whose son was a close friend of mine. We got to chatting, mostly about the Knicks, when a teddibly elegant matron, Mrs. Lacquer, approached, and, grabbing my interlocutor, proceeded to grill him about tennis rackets.
"Oh, ____, my son neeeeeeds a new racket so badly, and I have no ideaaaaa what to buy him. He'll be going off to camp in a few weeks, and if he doesn't have the right racket he'll be miiiiiiiiserable. Now, there's the Prince, and that's what his father has, and there's the new Head, and the Wilson, and . . ."
The Champ listened stonily, his renowned bile almost visibly mounting by the second. Finally he raised his hands and said, "Stop. I don't know what your son needs. I've never seen him play."
Unfortunately, this was received as an offer to come watch Junior stumble around the court, and Mrs. L. was absolutely glowing. But the Champ took a deep breath and said, "All I know is that until I was sixteen I played with a racket my father bought me a few years earlier at Korvette's (a now-defunct discount store) and I did ok with that."
This was analogous to Babe Ruth saying he got a couple of hits. Even Mrs. Lacquer got the message, and, with a tiny moue, ankled off toward the bow of the ferry.
The Champ shook his head slowly, and looked at me. "Those rackets she's yapping about go for about $400. You ever see a kid, or anyone, who couldn't learn to do something because he was being held back by his gear? Me neither."
Back to the kitchen: to be sure, I wouldn't expect anyone to cook well with a cheap enamelled sauce pan, or a cheap, hollow-ground knife made from terrible steel. On the other hand, I did a lot of my best cooking using an ancient 10" Dexter-Russell chef's knife. The point had long since been broken off, and I'd rounded it off with my sharpening stone, and the blade was discolored at the end where I had accidently left it in a flame. The white rubber handle was deformed on the side where some moron had put a red-hot saute pan on it. But it could cut, and, more important, I was comfortable with it.
What I intend to do in these "Equipment" postings is to recommend some reasonably-priced stuff that works well enough that your food will never suffer from using it, unless . . . is that you reading this, Jean-Georges?
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About a dozen years ago, I got roped into helping chaperone my younger son's fifth grade class on a field trip (anyway, that's what we used to call them) to Ellis Island. All of the other adults, save one, were women. The one was a world-class tennis player (yes, him, but I'll never say the words) whose son was a close friend of mine. We got to chatting, mostly about the Knicks, when a teddibly elegant matron, Mrs. Lacquer, approached, and, grabbing my interlocutor, proceeded to grill him about tennis rackets.
"Oh, ____, my son neeeeeeds a new racket so badly, and I have no ideaaaaa what to buy him. He'll be going off to camp in a few weeks, and if he doesn't have the right racket he'll be miiiiiiiiserable. Now, there's the Prince, and that's what his father has, and there's the new Head, and the Wilson, and . . ."
The Champ listened stonily, his renowned bile almost visibly mounting by the second. Finally he raised his hands and said, "Stop. I don't know what your son needs. I've never seen him play."
Unfortunately, this was received as an offer to come watch Junior stumble around the court, and Mrs. L. was absolutely glowing. But the Champ took a deep breath and said, "All I know is that until I was sixteen I played with a racket my father bought me a few years earlier at Korvette's (a now-defunct discount store) and I did ok with that."
This was analogous to Babe Ruth saying he got a couple of hits. Even Mrs. Lacquer got the message, and, with a tiny moue, ankled off toward the bow of the ferry.
The Champ shook his head slowly, and looked at me. "Those rackets she's yapping about go for about $400. You ever see a kid, or anyone, who couldn't learn to do something because he was being held back by his gear? Me neither."
Back to the kitchen: to be sure, I wouldn't expect anyone to cook well with a cheap enamelled sauce pan, or a cheap, hollow-ground knife made from terrible steel. On the other hand, I did a lot of my best cooking using an ancient 10" Dexter-Russell chef's knife. The point had long since been broken off, and I'd rounded it off with my sharpening stone, and the blade was discolored at the end where I had accidently left it in a flame. The white rubber handle was deformed on the side where some moron had put a red-hot saute pan on it. But it could cut, and, more important, I was comfortable with it.
What I intend to do in these "Equipment" postings is to recommend some reasonably-priced stuff that works well enough that your food will never suffer from using it, unless . . . is that you reading this, Jean-Georges?
