BipolarLawyerCook

Here are the items I use most in my kitchen:

• 4 inch paring knife
• 8 inch chef’s knife, Forschner, stamped (available at restaurant supply stores)
• asian-style vegetable cleaver (bought in a Chinatown restaurant supply store)
• a V-Slicer mandoline
• tongs with nonstick tops
• silicon rubber spatula
• ladle
• wooden spoons
• Oxo Good Grips vegetable peeler
• Microplane fine zester/grater
• Silverstone nonstick 8 and 12 inch skillets (available at restaurant supply stores)
• Le Creuset 4.5 quart dutch oven
• Martha Stewart KMart 12 inch stainless steel saute pan
• Martha Stewart KMart nonstick 2 quart saucepan
• 9 x 11 pyrex baking dish
• rimmed cookie sheets (also called jelly roll pans) with Silpat liners
• Pyrex nesting mixing bowls
• Cuisinart 6 cup food processor
• Braun immersion blender
• KitchenAid silicone 12-cup muffin pan
• Fluted ceramic tart dish

Mark Bittman also wrote a nice piece about essential cooking equipment, here.

Amanda Hesser discourses on her love of the Microplane zester, the Silpat mat, and the Oxo peeler here. She also discusses mandolines here– she doesn’t like my slicer because it doesn’t do waffle cuts and has a limited number of blades, but I’ve owned mine since 2000 and it’s never let me down. I don’t make waffle fries, anyway. (N.B., this article is older, and Oxo has started selling a mandoline that has gotten good reviews.