guarantee that if you don’t already have one, putting a saltcellar on your counter will make you a better cook Any wide-mouthed covered container with an easy-open lid will do, but a dedicated saltcellar does it with style Mine is a wooden job with a flip-top lid to prevent dust, water, or oil from getting in And pepper? If you’ve been using preground pepper, do yourself a favor and buy an inexpensive jar of pepper with a built-in mill Then taste the fresh-ground stuff side by side with the preground Which would you rather be putting on your food? If that doesn’t convince you to go out and buy yourself a pepper mill, I can only assume that you are dead from the tongue up You’ll want to invest in a mill that has a solid metal grinding mechanism Cheap ones are usually made of plastic and will stop grinding after a year or less of regular use Although $35 to $60 might seem like a big chunk of change, a real pepper mill will improve practically every savory food item you cook Peugeot is the Rolls-Royce of pepper mills Perfectly crafted, luxuriously styled, and awesomely efficient, these mills look good and grind like a dream They also run upward of $55 More affordable and equally good if totally utilitarian is the Unicorn Magnum Pepper Mill ($36.90) It has a tough nickel-plated grinding mechanism, an easy-to-load design, and a quick grind-size adjustment screw Prep Bowls of All Sizes Here’s a mantra for aspiring chefs: An orderly kitchen is a good kitchen Isn’t it annoying trying to chop carrots on your cutting board when that little pile of parsley in the corner is getting in your way? Or what about frantically trying to scoop up the chopped ginger to get it into that stir-fry-in-progress before your bok choy wilts? I use several prep bowls with a small capacity (we’re talking 1-cup or less) pretty much every time I cook to keep chopped aromatics, measured spices, grated cheese, whatever, off my board, within easy reach, and organized This is what fancy cooks call their mise en place In the cabinet directly above my cutting board, I have a couple dozen 25-cent ceramic condiment and cereal bowls from IKEA for this very purpose (If you want to go fancy, you can get sets of Pyrex clear glass prep bowls.) Large mixing bowls are equally valuable While the allglass ones look nice up on the shelf, they’re a total pain in the butt to work with I remember many days at Cook’s Illustrated magazine when we’d have to search through stacks and stacks of glass bowls while working on a photo shoot to find the one or two that weren’t chipped on their edges Where do these glass chips end up? On the floor? In the food? In my own kitchen, I’d rather not find out Plastic bowls seem like a reasonable solution until you realize that plastic absorbs both stains and odors from oily and other foods Pour a batch of olive-oil-and-butter-based marinara sauce (here) into a white plastic bowl, and you’ll find that you’re now the proud owner of an orange plastic bowl Instead, I use inexpensive stainless steel bowls that I picked up from a restaurant supply store (if you don’t have a good one near you, try the ABC Valueline brand from ... working on a photo shoot to find the one or two that weren’t chipped on their edges Where do these glass chips end up? On the floor? In the food? In my own kitchen, I’d rather not find out Plastic bowls seem like a reasonable solution until you realize that... valuable While the allglass ones look nice up on the shelf, they’re a total pain in the butt to work with I remember many days at Cook’s Illustrated magazine when we’d have to search through stacks... stains and odors from oily and other foods Pour a batch of olive-oil-and-butter-based marinara sauce (here) into a white plastic bowl, and you’ll find that you’re now the proud owner of an orange plastic bowl