Our Favorite Things

Charisse and I talked for a while about what to do this week since we won't be cooking until the weekend. We ended up deciding on doing an introduction and tour of our kitchen along with some of the tools we use on a day to day basis. So here's "about us" and a run down of some of our favorite kitchen tools!  Don't forget to visit The Written Geek for more about the photography side of the blog!

Charisse and I are both native to San Jose, California having grown up less than 10 miles apart. We met online on Match.com in 2006 and even though we had never met, we've been in the same places at the same times over the past 10 years. We even went to rival high schools. Charisse and I had both been interested in cooking and grilling, but it was not until after we moved into a tiny San Francisco studio and were married in 2008 that we really began to take cooking seriously. When we moved back to San Jose in 2009, cooking became an all around passion for both of us. We've reached a point where cooking has become art, and we're ready to share it with the world. Or at least the internet.

When we were brainstorming ideas for this post, we decided to showcase some of our kitchen essentials:

Now first and foremost, good tools does not a good chef make. In my experience cooking is 65% experience 20% ingredients and the rest is a good recipe. When your shopping for tools though, having good tools just makes life a little easier. This shot here is our selection of Shun Classic knives and wooden spoons, the tools that get used in every single meal. Not everyone needs a set knives that cost of $200 per knife, good quality knives can be found in just about any price range. Wooden spoons are cheap and having a large selection of different shapes and sizes will make putting a large meal together easier when your not constantly washing the same spoon over and over or having different ingredients mixing together in ways you don't intend.


A few other important elements in a good kitchen is the stove, oven and a few pots and pans. We've started switching our pans to a collection of cast iron and All-Clad Copper Core. Combined with a gas stove, these are excellent pots for just about any dish. When it comes to cast iron, you could go with the enameled Le Creuset pieces costing upwards of $100.00 or more, or you can go down to the local camping supply store and buy a plain black pan for 15 bucks. Either will work, we use both depending on availability. Maybe we'll do a blog later on just focusing on cast iron cooking. Either way, here's a look at our 8" All-Clad fry pan on the stove.