Hey.
So I am no kitchen wizard, in fact, sometimes I just go in there, stand in the middle of
the room and eat Nutella straight from the jar.
But I didn't realize when I moved out on my own that I would probably need to acquire
some kitchen stuff, because I would be largely responsible for the preparation of my own
food.
So I thought today we'd take a little tour through my kitchen and I would highlight some
of the stuff that I, as a person who doesn't cook that much, but does enjoy food immensely,
have found useful to have around.
If you're a person who cooks and wants to help out beginning kitchen-havers like myself,
please leave for us in the comment section below today, what do you have?
What do you think is most important to have?
We would love to hear from you.
Let's start with thermometers, which might sound like a kind of random thing to start
out with, but as a student of science, I have found that if your equipment doesn't work,
none of your experiments are gonna work.
This oven claims that it can preheat to 350 degrees Fahrenheit in six minutes, and that,
like the cake, is a lie!
You know how I know that?
Because I would let the oven preheat for six minutes it would say, "350 degrees has been
achieved."
I would put my food in there and then in the prescribed amount of time that that food was
supposed to be cooked, it would not be cooked.
So I got an oven thermometer.
So now, I don't listen to what the oven says, I wait until the thermometer says 350 degrees
or whatever temperature I'm trying to get the oven up to, and then I put my food in.
I also have a fridge thermometer to make sure that my fridge is keeping things fresher than
The Prince of Bel Air, ideally you're going to want to keep your fridge temperature somewhere
between 35 and 38 degrees Fahrenheit.
Lastly I would have a food thermometer which you can put into things you've cooked like
roasts, or, meats, mainly I just use it to check the temperature of frozen meals that
I have microwaved but still, it is an important thing to have.
Big pot for boiling stuff, this double pot thing for streaming stuff, baking sheets to
cook your pizza bagel bites on, big bowl to mix stuff, colander for rinsing things and
pouring out the pasta water, cutting board for chopping stuff up, I almost forgot the
most important thing which is microwave.
I will never quit you, microwave.
This is how I eat so much stuff.
In terms of utensils, these have been particularly useful to me: spatula, spoon, like a big spoon,
pasta thingy thang, can opener, and knives.
I think it's important to know that you've reached this point in your life where before
everyone is like, "don't touch knives", and then suddenly you're like, I need to obtain
some knives!
I have a big one, and I also have a bread knife, and I have assorted other sized knives.
Other useful things?
Measuring cups, for both liquids and solids, drying rack, a kettle, tin foil, saran wrap,
Benedict Cumberbatch to gaze at you soulfully while you're preparing dinner.
I don't want to get too far into the reaches of my pantry, because what a person keeps
in their pantry is personal.
I think it's good to have a baseline of stuff around, that you use pretty frequently, or,
some stuff in here that you could cook very easily if you don't feel like doing anything.
And that's all we've got for you today, thank you for touring my kitchen with me, and if
you know what's what in the kitchen, again, let us know what's going on in the comments
section below, what are some items that you think are particularly important?
In the meantime, if I had a devastatingly beautiful catch phrase, this is when I would
say it, and, it might bring a tear to your eye, and I would just nod, like this, knowingly.
I would just nod it out.
Emma: I never had an electric stove before, so I have an electric stove here, I didn't
know that you can like take, like pop the thing up and clean out the stuff underneath?
Mike: Oh yeah!
Emma: And so all this stuff, the first couple months I lived here, all this stuff would
fall in there and then every time I would use it, it would just like, smoke, and burn,
and I was like, this is, like, terrible!
How do people do this?
And then a friend came over and showed me, like, you can just pop it up and clean it.
Mike: When I was in college, I lived in this really small studio apartment, and I had brought
back this pizza to my apartment, that was one of those frozen pizzas that you just put
in the oven?
Emma: Yeah.
Mike: And I though, oh, I was so stupid, why did I get this?
Cuz I don't have an oven, and I called my mom and I said, "can I like, slice this up
and put it in the microwave?"
And she said, "just put it in your oven."
And I said, "I don't have an oven."
And she said, "yes you do!"
I'd lived in this apartment for a year and a half, and I didn't know that it had an oven.
I had like a chair against it, and I didn't know I had an oven.
Emma: Oh my god!
It's the thing under the stovetop, um, yeah, just, neah, did you ever use the top?
Mike: Probably not.
Probably not.
Emma: Oh my gosh.