The 9 Kitchen Items BA Staffers Are Buying and Keeping for Life
This story is part of the Healthyish Guide to Your 30s, our best advice for how to cook, shop, date, and generally survive your best (or maybe worst?) decade yet
In my twenties, I shuffled through seven apartments in as many years, each time forcibly shedding all the unwanted objects and junk I could no longer justify packing up and bringing with me to the next place. (You could say I Kondo’d before Kondo’ing was A Thing.) This exercise in forced minimalism trained me to carefully consider any big purchases I made in the future, and as I entered my 30s I realized I had built up a small but carefully-selected edit of “investment pieces”—the high-quality items I buy with the expectation that they’ll last me a lifetime.
Among these are the pear-colored Le Creuset Dutch oven I bought in 2012, when I was broke and had to put it on my credit card; the Vitamix blender that put an end to the chapter of my life filled with chunky smoothies and grainy hummus; and the Japanese clay donabe that makes a simple steamed-fish dinner feel like an occasion. These are items that bring me joy whenever I use them, because they’re constant reminders of the things I’ve been lucky enough to prioritize in my life: cooking, living, and entertaining well. Here, BA staffers share the indispensable cookware, wine glasses, and more that we’re buying for life. —Christina Chaey, Bon Appetit associate editor
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Photo by Chelsie Craig1/8A set of steak knives
Although I am an adult who likes to entertain and also eat steak, I find most steak knives unappealing in their machismo single-purposiveness. But these Opinel “Bon Appetit” (no relation!) table knives, with their delicate-yet-sharp non-serrated blades and painted wood handles, easily straddle casual and formal settings. I own 12 of them and plan to use them for every dinner party I ever have, because it’s game-changing to serve your guests dinner with a knife that actually cuts. — Anna Stockwell, senior food editor
Buy it: Opinel 4-Piece Table Knife Set, $54
Photo by Chelsie Craig2/8Linen napkins
It wasn’t until I got an actual dining table that comfortably seats eight that I started to feel self-conscious about the folded up half-sheet paper towels I’d been setting out as “napkins” for dinner guests for the last decade (do millennials even buy paper napkins anymore?) But senior staff writer Alex Beggs, a longtime proponent of proper cloth napkins, recently convinced me to invest, and I honestly feel like kind of a baller? Like, to be able to offer my guests a square of luxuriously soft, intentionally rumpled stonewashed linen to brush against their lips in between bites? That’s some classy shit—even if we’re eating a bowl of beans instead of a 70 dollar ribeye. — Christina Chaey, associate editor
Buy it: Hawkins New York Simple Linen Napkins, $18
Photo by Chelsie Craig3/8A Dutch oven that doubles as a serving piece
The thing to think about when purchasing a Dutch oven is that you’re going to be looking at it at least as much as you’ll be cooking out of it—these things are heavy, and sometimes life is just easier if they stay in a permanent resting place on the stovetop. My aesthetic preference is for Staub: I like the metal (as opposed to plastic) knob, the matte black interior that will never show discoloration, and, of course, the timeless design that makes me happy even when I’m not tossing pasta or braising chicken or simmering beans in it. — Julia Kramer, deputy editor
Buy it: Staub Round 5-Qt. Cocotte in White, $325
Photo by Chelsie Craig4/8A good tablecloth
When I turned 30, I started taking table-setting very seriously. I wanted each meal to set an inviting tone, and that tone was: Let's drink too much wine and say things we'll regret. This hand-sewn ivory linen tablecloth, which you can custom order based on the size of your table, is as classic as Winnie the Pooh. All of my mismatched napkins and plates match it. And if red wine spills on it, I can bleach it. It offers two distinct looks: Ironed (I'm the Queen of England, let's eat fancy sandwiches!) and wrinkled (I'm rustic, let's eat pork chops!) Either way, you're probably spilling wine in good company. — Alex Beggs, senior staff writer
Buy it: Linen tablecloth, from $39.74
Photo by Chelsie Craig5/8A big wooden cutting board
I never appreciated a truly beautiful, well-made wooden cutting board until I started working at Bon Appétit, where a huge John Boos cutting board sits at each Test Kitchen editor’s station at all times. Boos boards are a serious upgrade from the same three shoddy neon plastic ones I’ve had since I was 22, but this walnut one serves as so much more than a surface on which to cut things. It comes out at every dinner party, where it makes even Trader Joe’s cheese and crackers feel fancy. I also use it to display flowers and a little dish of flaky salt on my dining table. Since this is the last nice cutting board I ever plan on owning, I also stock up on some board cream and mystery oil that I use to rub it down after every use. Is there anything more adult than cutting board that has its own skincare routine??? — Christina Chaey, associate editor
Buy it: John Boos 18-Inch Reversible Round Walnut Wood Cutting Board, $168
Photo by Chelsie Craig6/8Nice wine glasses
A real wine glass—not a tumbler, not a juice cup, not a repurposed White Moustache yogurt container, but a thin-walled vessel with an elegant stem—says: I trust myself, and, perhaps more importantly, I trust my friends. Sure, I felt my heart sink that time I broke one of my pristine Zalto glasses (which cost a not-insignificant $60 each), but you can’t make a flawless omelet without cracking a couple of eggs. — Julia Kramer, deputy editor
Buy it: Zalto White Wine Glass, $60
Photo by Chelsie Craig7/8An indestructible stainless steel skillet
This is the pan I guarantee you will never get bored of, cannot destroy, and will never let you down. How do I know? Because I’ve had one for 10 years and it is unkillable. I used it in a restaurant kitchen and couldn't kill it there either. I have love/hate relationships with all my other cookware—the once-pretty copper pot I can't bring myself to polish, the cast-iron skillet that somehow just feels too heavy to dig out of the back of the cabinet—but this skillet simply can't be improved on, and therefore I’ll never need another one. — Chris Morocco, senior food editor
Buy it: All-Clad Stainless Steel Fry Pan, $130.
Photo by Chelsie Craig8/8A hardcore blender
There was a time when I felt the need to baby my blender, packing it up carefully (liquids on the bottom, solid stuff on top), working in batches, and willing it to whir, hoping it’d do its job before the motor started to smell. Let’s call that time my early twenties, when blending was novelty, not a necessity. I didn't even know what blenders could be until I started using a Vitamix (the gold standard of high-performance blenders) in restaurant kitchens—to blast strawberries into a fuchsia purée for sorbets, to emulsify mayonnaise, to turn blocks of Parm into cheese rubble. Yes, it’s certainly a splurge—but it's built to last forever (and, in case it doesn't, it comes with a seven-year warranty). Blending, once a pain in my butt, is now a pleasurable task that I willingly seek out. And if a machine can take something annoying and transform it into joy, I'll buy it! — Sarah Jampel, contributing editor
Buy it: Vitamix 5200 blender, $435
