7 Kitchen Tools I Love and Use Constantly

These tools boost kitchen efficiency

I don’t want to try to persuade you to buy stuff you don’t need but cooking does require at least some tools and most of what I’ve listed here make my time in the kitchen more efficient and certainly more enjoyable.

1. Wide-mouth jars of all sizes

I can never have too many wide-mouth jars. I covet jam jars the way some people covet shoes. When my daughter MK worked for restaurants and caterers, she used to bring home the best free jars.

Wide-mouth jars are easy to fill, empty and wash. I use mine to:

• Store food (if you see it, you’re more likely to eat it)

• Pack lunches

• Freeze food (go here for more details)

• Buy bulk food and supplies

• Eat from

• Drink from

• Ferment all the things

If you are just getting started with reducing your waste, start to hoard jars now. Go here for information on removing labels and smells from jars.

2. Wide-mouth funnel

If you have a similar jar addiction or you ferment or can fresh produce, you’ll find a wide-mouth funnel indispensable for filling jars neatly and quickly. I’ve had my stainless steel wide-mouth funnel for about 20 years and I use it a few times a week. A standard, narrow funnel also comes in handy if you make kombucha, ginger beer or other fermented drinks.

3. Portable induction cooktop

Marketing by fossil fuel companies has convinced many people that in order to cook well, they must cook with gas. It’s just not true. Although usually quite modest (I am Canadian), I think I can rightly claim to know a bit about food (I’ve written an award-winning cookbook). And I love my induction cooktop.

As they burn planet-heating methane, gas stoves fill homes with pollutants similar to what a car’s tailpipe emits: carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and formaldehyde. These pollutants have been associated with a host of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. In this study, a gas stove and oven running for an hour raised nitrogen oxide levels so high that they would be deemed illegal outdoors. And the smaller the home, the quicker the pollution reaches these unhealthy levels.

When we need a new oven, we’ll swap out our gas for induction. For now, I have a portable induction cooker that I use several times a day, every single day. Mine is very similar to this model.

If you find yourself in similar induction limbo—your gas stove has miles left on it but at the same time, you’d like to switch to clean induction—a portable induction cooktop might be a good alternative. And you can cook outside on a very hot day without heating your kitchen up.

Dyeing reusable produce bags with avocado pit dye on the induction cooker

4. Pressure cooker

I used to worry that I would blow up my kitchen and myself if I used a pressure cooker. Having used one for several years now, I will work in the kitchen next to my hissing pressure cooker rather than cower in another room far from the action.

My stainless steel pressure cooker is nothing fancy. It’s not an Instant Pot or even electric but it works so well. It cost $15 at the thrift shop several years ago. (This is the model I have. I wouldn’t mind if it were the next size up.) I use it to cook dry beans, whole sugar pie pumpkins, whole beets, grains... Pressure cookers cook food lightning fast and thus consume much less energy. A pressure-cooker on induction saves even more energy. And you can eat sooner!

5. Grain mill

Don’t worry! To live more sustainably, you don’t have to go full-on Little Red Hen and plant the seed to grow the crop to harvest the grain to grind the flour to bake the bread. You can just buy the flour—or buy the bread!

But, if you get serious about baking sourdough bread (or baking in general), I highly recommend you get your hands on a grain mill. Freshly ground flour contains all the nutrients in the whole kernel—and tastes delicious. (My starter goes wild for it.)

With my hand-cranked grain mill, I grind up small amounts of flour—a few hundred grams at a time. If you have young kids, they will love grinding up grains for you. My daughter MK bought a model very similar to this one in 2011. I also have an (expensive) electric grain mill that a generous neighbor gave me after she stopped eating carbs.

I already buy wheat berries and farro to eat whole. I may as well grind some up too for flour. This way, I buy one item but have two different products on hand.

6. Kitchen scale

Again, if you’re a serious baker, you may want to consider buying a scale since weighing yields accurate results—a pound always weighs a pound. If you measure by volume, the amount of flour in your recipe will always vary. Also, measuring on a scale takes less time. Just dump flour into a bowl on the scale in a few seconds, rather than having to measure it out cup by cup by cup. Also, you won’t lose track of all those cups. “Was that seven cups or eight?”

7. Apron

This may not seem like exactly life-changing advice but wear an apron while you cook. You’ll protect your clothes from grease and splatters, extend the life of your clothes and you’ll do less laundry. Donning an apron saves time and money.

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Upcoming events

• April 15th: Sunnyvale Library, author talk. Go here for more information on the library’s Earth Day event.

• April 16th, 11 am to 2pm: Rainbow Grocery, San Francisco. I’ll be at Rainbow Grocery signing books and sewing cloth produce bags to give away.

• April 22nd: San Mateo Library induction cooking demo. I’ll be on hand at 10:30am cooking a zero-waste dish. Go here for more info.

• April 22nd: Menlo-Atherton Love Earth Festival, induction cooking demo. Go here to find out more about this free event and to register.

• April 27th: Mammoth Lakes Library, author talk. Go here to register for this free event.

• May 13th: Belvedere Tiburon Library, author talk. More info coming soon.

• May 27th, 9am PT: Free online sourdough starter workshop. Register here.