Hi, this is Andrei and I write a weekly newsletter about food and cooking. The Second Life’s primary purpose is to help you become a better home cook through my personal experience, learnings, and experiments.
Hey,
To start this newsletter off, I put together a guide with the top 10 principles for a better home cooking experience. This does not optimize costs, but rather time and results.
I later realized it might be too lengthy and broke it down into two parts (also helpful with content production, to be honest).
Rethink your kitchen organization
Put aside all mental and cultural baggage here as there is no need to organize your kitchen the same way our mothers or parents did. The primary goal of kitchen logistics is to help you save time in the process of creating food. The tools, equipment, and objects that you use most often should be most easily accessible - my personal tip would be to set up your cutting board (as big a cutting board you can fit in your kitchen, see principle #3) somewhere between the sink and the stove. Another tip would be to repurpose a baking sheet to store your most popular ingredients that can be stored at room temperature - for me those would be oils, salt, pepper, chilli flakes, honey, vinegar or acetto (see picture below).
Try and apply the same thought process when it comes to your drawers and cabinets. Observe your cooking process throughout the week, make a list of the most commonly used objects and adjust your kitchen setup accordingly.
Get your hands on a dishwasher
This one is a no-brainer but it baffled me to learn how many properties in modern metropoles such as London or NY don’t have this basic amenity. Buy it, install it, move if you have to, but if cooking is an important part of your life then a dishwasher should be too, primarily due to time-saving benefits.
Stock up your pantry with cooking essentials
There is nothing more frustrating than coming back from a shopping session only to realize that your pantry is under-stocked and doesn’t have that staple ingredient. Think oil, salt, tomato sauce, mustard, cumin seeds (niche), etc. Here is a great list from Not Another Cooking Show that you can use to stock up your pantry and create the building blocks of your kitchen pyramid - adjust the list based on your own dietary preferences.
Develop a weekly grocery shopping routine
For most dishes, you will use a mix of ingredients from your pantry and fresh or frozen ones. The last two are not mutually exclusive and I strongly believe that a well-stocked freezer is another great asset for any cook.
However, when it comes to fresh ingredients, planning is the foundation - one should ideally develop a weekly routine as most fresh ingredients don’t have a shelf life that expands beyond 7 days - by fresh ingredients think of animal products and vegetables.
A final consideration is about experimenting with new products or dishes, which can be a great experience but a very time-consuming one. If you want to balance efficiency with great cooking, you should take calculated risks with adding new dishes or ingredients to your culinary arsenal - thinking back to when it took me half a day to cook an artichoke carpaccio.
Invest in the right tools and equipment
Now onto more exciting stuff. As mentioned in the intro, this guide does not optimize costs, although following these principles can and should provide long-term financial benefits (not a financial adviser though). I am a firm believer that sometimes buying is better than compromise. Some great examples include:
A big wooden chopping board - buy as big a chopping board as you can afford (kitchen space) and enjoy the difference. I cannot emphasize this enough but you will learn the difference if switching from a tiny plastic board from Ikea. It is also safer as it provides more real estate to exercise your knife skills.
A versatile pan - choose from a selection of cast iron, carbon steel, or stainless steel depending on dietary preferences. Between cast iron and carbon steel, I would recommend the latter as it has similar benefits but is usually lighter (not my DeBuyer though). A stainless steel pan would be better suited for sauces or pasta dishes, but I can’t speak for it as I do not own one.
A chef knife - there is not a lot to be said here but similar to the pans, you should prioritize a good knife instead of several average ones. For any respectable home cook, a chef knife comes together with a honing blade and a wet stone, there’s no two ways about it. Please see this great guide on how to sharpen your knife using your wet stone from Kenji Lopez Alt.
Thongs - great on your girlfriend as well as for steaks, asparagus, pasta, and everything in between.
Storage accessories e.g. containers, bowls, or Ziplocs- useful for mise en place (principle #7), marinating or storing leftovers. Your choice between plastic, card box, and glass containers - don’t cancel me before this newsletter takes off, but plastic might work best here.
This is all for now, but I would love to hear back from you on anything cooking/food-related that you would like me to write about or any additional comments or feedback.
See you next week with Part II from this series!
Andrei