[Ramlatus]

I’m just beginning to explore the culinary world. I grew up learning how to cook from my mother, but it didn’t become a major interest until recently. Now I have bits and pieces of knowledge that my mother taught me (mostly southern cooking), but know little about other types of cooking.

What I’m currently looking for is what I would need to have a fully functional home kitchen. What kind of pots and pans, knives, devices, gadgets and the like. I do have a strong bias against Teflon coated pans though.

NOTE: I want to learn and expand my culinary skills, knowledge, and experiences.

[cakerookie]

Best advice.Get the best your wallet will allow you to get. There is a wide range of pots and pans, knife sets etc.... Teflon pans are fine but I would consider a set of stainless steel pans. Your setup will depend on what types of cooking interest you and what you are going to prepare on a daily basis. I do a lot of baking and I am partial to the sweet side myself so my home kitchen has a lot of the baking essentials.Is there an area of cooking that interest you more than others? If so get a few books on your area of interest those will help you has well. Agian, I am partial to French cusine so a lot of my culinary library consist of books on this subject. Oh, and by the way you are in the right place, you will have a better idea once the rest of the community gets in on this thread, good luck...

[foodpump]

Spend your money slowly and wisely. Stay away from boutique shops and hit the restaurant supply shops, they'll eagerly take your money...

Stay away from any aluminum pots. They oxidize (turn black), will turn your shelves and anything else they rest on black, will turn any cream based liquid dark, warp easily, if handles are riveted, the rivets will fail and leak. Oh, did I mention that they warp, quickly and badly? Yeah, I think I did.

Get a few basic knives, and then sit and wait. Most big stores have 50% off sales on good stuff every now and then, and that's when you snap them up.

[castironchef]

Go out and spend for first few dollars on Alton Brown's book entitled Gear for Your Kitchen. (Better yet, click through from this website to Amazon and help support Nicko!)

That book will help guide you and demystify much of the kitchen lore you'll encounter at the retail "kitchen store." Alton's philosophy of avoiding "unitaskers" and obtaining quality and versatility at a reasonable expense is just what you should be doing.

Good luck and, most of all, have fun as you build up your "batterie de cuisine."

[MikeLM]

I'm sure you're building a library, too. Start with "Joy of Cooking" and then Beard's "American Cookery."

Both are exhaustive and have really excellent indexes.

After that, they sky's the limit; you can go overboard, and lots of us do.

Just walked in and measured my cookbook shelves. Nineteen feet.

Is that silly, or what?

Just imagine what percentage of all those recipes I've actually cooked!

Like... .000000x

Right now, I'm reading Harold McGee's "On Food... straight through from cover to cover. And, God help me, enjoying every minute.

Mike