What you actually need (and what ends up at the DI)
Let's get this out of the way first. You do not need to buy anything for this class. Literally nothing. If you've got a pot, a pan, and a knife, you're already better equipped than half the kitchens I've cooked in.
I say that because every time I teach this course, somebody shows up worried they need a pasta machine or a fancy Dutch oven or one of those garlic presses shaped like a chicken. You don't. I'm mildly suspicious of kitchen gadgets in general. Half of them get used twice, sit in a drawer for two years, and end up in a bag headed for the DI. I've probably donated four garlic presses in my life. I do not use a garlic press.
The actual list
Here's what you need, for real:
- One good pan. Doesn't have to be nonstick, doesn't have to be expensive. A regular skillet, the kind that came with a set from Costco or got handed down from somebody's mom. If it heats evenly-ish and you can toss things in it without them sticking to the point of tragedy, you're set.
- A pot big enough for pasta. Bigger than you think. Pasta needs room to move around or it turns into a clump. If your only pot is small, it still works, just don't crowd it.
- A knife you keep sharp. This matters more than people think. A dull knife is more dangerous than a sharp one, because you end up pushing hard and it slips. You don't need a whole knife block. One decent chef's knife does 90% of what we do in this class.
- A wooden spoon or a spatula. Something to stir with that isn't metal scraping your pan.
- Tongs, if you've got them. Not required. I just like tongs. They make you feel like you know what you're doing even when you don't.
That's it. That's the list. Everything else is nice to have and none of it is required.
Cook the stove you have
Our first apartment, back in Ogden, had a stove where one burner ran about twice as hot as the other three. I didn't know that for months. I just thought I was bad at cooking, because the same recipe would come out burnt on one side of the pan and pale on the other. Eventually I figured out the trick was to cook everything on that one hot burner and just move the pan around, working the food toward the cooler edges when it needed to slow down.
That taught me something I still tell people: you cook the stove you have, not the one in the YouTube video. Your burners might run hot or weak. Your pan might not be the one the recipe author owns. Doesn't matter. You adjust as you go, you taste as you go, and you stop treating a recipe like a set of instructions from the government. It's more like a suggestion with strong opinions.
The one thing I'll actually recommend you buy eventually
If you want to spend money on one thing, down the road, spend it on a decent knife. Not a whole set. One knife you like the feel of, that you keep an edge on. That's the equipment upgrade that actually changes your cooking, not a $60 garlic gadget.
And a quick real safety note here: a knife that's dull is the one that hurts you, because you end up sawing and forcing it, and it skips off whatever you're cutting. Takes two minutes to run it across a sharpening steel before you start. Worth it.
Where the beans come in
Quick aside, because it comes up in almost every class. Heather teaches spin, and some mornings she's teaching back to back and needs food that actually holds her over, not just carbs that burn off in twenty minutes. So a while back I started tossing a can of white beans into whatever pasta I was making, or bulking it up with extra chicken, just to give it some staying power. Didn't change the flavor much, just made the plate do more work.
I bring this up because if you're feeding somebody who lifts, runs, teaches five classes a day, whatever, this is an easy fix. You don't need a protein powder or a meal plan. A fifteen-cent can of beans dumped into a regular pasta dish will get somebody through their next workout just fine.
That's my whole opinion on equipment and gear, really: buy less, cook more, and let the food do the impressing instead of the tools. A cheap pan with real food in it beats a beautiful pan sitting empty in a cupboard.
Before next time
Go look at what you've actually got in your kitchen right now. One pan, one pot, one knife. That's your kit for this whole class. If you're missing one of those three, let me know before next session and we'll figure something out, no big deal.
~devin