By Melanie A. Albert, intuitive cooking expert, author, and speaker. Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition Group, LLC
Today we were shooting some video segments and one of the segments was about Getting your Kitchen Ready for Success. For success in the kitchen, our kitchen tools, refrigerator , and pantry must be ready to cook. In my view, the number one most important kitchen tool is a Chef’s knife. While I also use a 4” paring knife, serrated tomato knife, and a large 8” Chef knife, my everyday knife is a 6” heavy steel German-made knife. It fits nicely in my hand, feels balanced, and is always sharp.
Learn more about knives and some of the other basic tools to successfully cook whole foods in this excerpt from A New View of Healthy Eating.
Knife. A knife that is “right for you” is the number-one most valuable kitchen tool. The key aspects of a knife are: fits comfortably in your hand, feels balanced, and is sharp. For me, a basic Chef’s knife, 6-inch or 8-inch, can be used for virtually all cutting in the kitchen. Before you purchase a knife, visit a kitchen store and experiment by holding and cutting with different knives to determine which works best for you.
Some people prefer stainless steel, relatively heavy German knives. Others prefer lighter, thin Japanese knives, while still others prefer lightweight, colored ceramic knives. The most important thing is to find a knife that feels comfortable in your hand and to know that the investment is worth it, as each of us tends to use our favorite knife every day, for years and even decades.
“When traveling for a week or more, I take my favorite Chef knife with me, as it is so much nicer to cook with ‘my’ knife that fits ‘just right’ in my hand; it cuts food smoothly.”
Bamboo Cutting Board. Cutting boards are essential in the kitchen to make cutting easier with a flat surface, protect your kitchen counters, and keep knives sharp. My favorite cutting boards are made of bamboo, as they are clean, sustainable, and naturally anti-bacterial and anti-microbial. Cutting boards last decades, so finding the right cutting board to invest in is important. A key to purchasing a cutting board is to be sure that it is large enough that your entire knife (blade and handle) stays within the board when you chop.
Wooden Spoons. A few wooden spoons are staples in the kitchen and are used to move food around in a sauté pan or to stir food in a pot. Personally, I prefer bamboo with a flat edge. Bamboo, a grass, grows at a fast rate, so it is eco-friendly and biodegradable. It’s strong and durable, and will not scratch cookware.
I’ll continue to share the key tools to get your kitchen ready for success. Come on over to our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/NewViewHealthyEating and share photos of your favorite kitchen tools.