Outfit a Kitchen

Cookies. It's hard to imagine a kitchen without cookie sheets, or their close relative the jelly roll pan (cookie sheets have no sides, while jelly roll pans have low sides that help keep frozen French fries from falling off). Get several, so you can have a couple in the oven while loading fresh ones with spoonfuls of dough (you don't want to use warm trays from the previous batch — the shortening melts).

For crispy cookies, use single-thickness aluminum sheets. For soft, golden-brown cookies, upgrade to insulated cookie sheets with an air pocket trapped between two layers of metal. If you bake shortbread, stock a few stoneware sheets as well.

Pastries. A baker does not live by cookies alone. Here's a shopping list for other sweets:

• Cake pans in a few sizes for sheet cakes and layer cakes. For tiered layer cakes, buy 5-inch, 7-inch and 9-inch round cake pans.
• Muffin pans for muffins and cupcakes. Also handy for paper clips, thumb tacks and hair clips.
• Pie pans for, obviousy, pies. They also work for quiches.
• Springform pans so you can extricate cheesecakes with minimal damage; get a few sizes.
• Tart pans — which have removable bottoms — for flat-crusted little yummies such as tarts and galettes.
• Ramekins for custards, flans and crème brulee.

Bread. Even if you don't bake your own daily yeasted bread, basic bread pans are handy for banana bread and meat loaf. If you love baking bread, go beyond the basic loaf pan with pans for breadsticks and baguettes.

The ultimate? Form pans in different shapes; each slice has the shape of the form, so your tea sandwiches can be bunny-shaped for Easter and heart-shaped for Valentine's Day.

What do you get for your money? High-end kitchen bakeware heats evenly for uniform baked goods. And they release more evenly, so half the cake doesn't stay behind in the pan.

Even chefs who've invested in a block of knives find themselves using two or three favorites most of the time. Beyond the favorites you use all the time for chopping, consider getting a knife that can cut warm bread and a few for cutting different firmness of cheese.

Whichever knives you get, always wash them by hand; the dishwasher dulls them.

What do you get for your money? With knives, it's all about weight and balance. A good knife becomes an extension of your hand.

No two cooks agree on what small kitchen appliances are essential and which are fluffery, but here's my list:

Need. Coffeemaker, toaster, stovetop tea pot, handheld mixer, mini chopper, blender and kitchen scale.

Nice to have. The best bread maker you can afford, toaster oven, food processor, knife sharpener, stand-alone mixer, hand-held blender, cookie press, knife sharpener, panini pan and pasta maker

Hard-core foodie. Electric tea maker, torch for crème brulee and espresso machine.

Some kitchen gadgets do the job even if you buy the budget brands, while others do better the more you spend on them.

Go cheap. Ice cream scoop, garlic press, wooden spoons, skewers (get bamboo and steel), basic vegetable peeler, measuring spoons and cups, gravy separator, colander, manual can opener and oven mitts

Spend a little more. Whisk, silicone spatula, offset spatula, wine bottle vacuum sealer, pepper mill, salt mill, waiter's corkscrew, cutting boards

Invest in top of the line. Frosting knife, foil cutter for opening wine bottles, champaign bottle stopper, offset vegetable peeler, microplanes (for shredding cheese, lemon zest, herbs spices — careful, they're sharp) flat-ended mortar and pestle (to mash herbs or press pastry into tart pans), citrus press, cheese cloths