While nothing good has come out of spending the better half of 2020 inside our homes, I have noticed one small, lovely thing: A few of my friends have learned how to cook. In early March, staring down the barrel of many takeout-free weeks, everyoneâeven the least kitchen-savvy people I knowâwere forced to roll up their sleeves, stock their pantriesshrimp
To my surprise and delight, however, it seems the tides have turned for good. My friends are still cooking regularly, and not to be cheesy, but I am dang proud. I wish it had happened under better circumstances, but the fact that they are not just willing but possibly even a little excited to get in the kitchen makes my heart glow. To be clear, liking or not liking to cook has no moral value attached to it, and youâre allowed to fall anywhere along that spectrum that feels right. But imagine being an NBA fanatic and then suddenly even the sports haters in your group chat are into basketball!!! It feels great, and I need them to know it. I am considering buying them all gifts.
If you also want to express pride for the people in your life who have finally figured out what a broiler doesâor, no judgment, if you yourself are this personâthese are the things I think every starter home cook needs. Hopefully weâll never be forced to make all our meals at home again, but with this set of tools in your arsenal you very well may choose to do so.
A good knife
Something I say to all of my friends who claim they canât cook is that a good knife will change their lives. I had a total awakening when I traded in my cheap college-apartment knives for the real-deal chefâs knifeI wasnât the problem when trying to dice an onion all along, my dull blades were! Your new-to-cooking friends will be shocked at how easy ingredient prep can be if they have the right tools. Be the person to bring them that feeling.
An actual cutting board
For those who only use a cutting board to slice limes for gin and tonicsmise en place
A big pan
I made dinner at a friend-who-learned-to-cook-in-quaratineâs house before all this began, and all she had to sauté vegetables in was a teeny-weeny pan, the kind youâd use to scramble one egg or sear a solitary chicken breast. I, a person who loves cooking under basically any circumstances, reacted very calmly, shouting, âIf I have to cook a single chopped head of broccoli in batches, I SWEAR TO GOD!!!â Her kitchen-avoidance habits suddenly made a lot of sense.Â
You donât need an enormousstainless-steelnonstick
A Microplane
 A Microplane, perhaps the most actually giftable item on this list, is a necessity in every kitchen. Its obvious use is for grating garlicgingermince. But the tool also turns blocks of Parmesan into thin, delicate wisps and citrus peels into zest so fine it can be grated straight into the batter for a baked good or over the top of roasted vegetables. In short, a good rasp grater will make you feel like a pro and simplify a few otherwise tedious prep steps, so itâs absolutely worth the $15 investment.
A meat-doneness magnet (and a temperature pen)
The most common concern among hesitant home cooks is whether or not their dinner is actually done. This handy magnet displays the basics in FDA food safety temperaturesâplus some special barbecue add-onsâin any of eight color choices, so youâll never have to FaceTime your friend who works for a food website to show her a chicken thigh
A budget-friendly Dutch oven
Does a dutch oven feel like a big-ticket purchaseâtoo big, for example, for people who only recently met their sheet pansis the gold standard in the Dutch oven world, but as someone whoâs tested a lot of the heavy-duty cookware for our annual product review
