Rest & Recommendations

Take a peek at our Thanksgiving table and find my recs for all your essential kitchen items!

We had a gorgeous holiday at home, complete with the first snowfall. The wintertime is a balm to my soul, a moment to slow down enjoy the warmth of our home. The unexpected snowfall completed the beautiful tableau and made our little town a snowy haven.

Transitioning out of the book tour and back into normal life has been a real shock, so having these moments away from work and school to be all together as a family has been a gift. It’s our tradition to decorate our tree prior to Thanksgiving so it can be part of the ambience, and it’s been the perfect backdrop to our game playing and nightly tea time.

Thanksgiving was packed with friends and food! We began our preparations the day before, creating prep lists and completing grocery runs to be all prepared for the big day. We ordered our turkey from a local farm, so we picked that up at the farmer’s market along with plenty of local vegetables to make up the sides for dinner.

First step in our prep was to get the 18lb bird brining overnight. With that in the fridge, we made up our pie doughs and finished our prep lists. The day of, dinner was scheduled at 6pm so we got started with our cooking around noon to have everything done in time. And what a delicious dinner it was!

Here’s a peek at our menu for the evening:

• brined & roasted herb butter turkey

• mashed potatoes & shallot gravy

• cranberry sauce

• sourdough stuffing

• buttermilk dinner rolls

• miso green beans

• arugula pear salad w/ toasted pecans & blue cheese

• Japanese sweet potatoes w/ roasted garlic tahini butter

• roasted delicata squash

• roasted beets w/ labneh & grapefruit vinaigrette

Last week you all had such a positive response to my food brand recommendations that I wanted to keep the trend going! So many of you have had questions about my favorite tools and kitchen items. With the biggest shopping time of year upon us, everyone’s deluged with ads and gift guides. Here are some of my essential kitchen items, many of which you’ll see mentioned in my cookbook, for a go-to list you can reference all year long!

Investing in tools that are high-quality and aesthetically beautiful has always been worth it for me in the long-run. Spending a few additional dollars when possible to ensure you are utilizing top quality when it matters will greatly lengthen the use of the product as well as give you much better results and far fewer kitchen headaches.

Choosing gorgeous items allows them to double as decoration for your kitchen! My countertop is decorated with a basket of my favorite wooden kitchen tools, wooden cutting boards along the walls, my salt and pepper mill by the stove, and a display of my go-to cookbooks. This allows for both style and substance! Below you’ll find many items from Williams Sonoma’s Olivewood line of tools—this is just one example of gorgeous tools from a brand I trust.

Baking Scale: The key to perfect dough lies in accurate measurements. Regrettably, cup measurements can be wildly inconsistent. Even from kitchen to kitchen, the definition of a cup of flour or liquid will change. With the ratios of wet and dry ingredients so essential to beautiful baked goods, failing to use a scale for some of these recipes will make for an entirely different experience. When I create recipes, I meticulously test each one using gram measurements, and I strongly recommend that you follow the weight measurements when making dough recipes. While choosing a scale, make sure it is sensitive enough for precise measurements, especially to the gram.

Baking Steel: If you’re a fan of homemade pizza, lahmacun, pita, or schiacciata (all found in my cookbook!) a baking steel will revolutionize your baking game. After numerous disappointing experiences with pizza stones, my husband gifted me this baking steel—it’s an investment I strongly recommend. This will dramatically change the crusts of your goods and will have you baking restaurant-quality foods in no time.

Pizza Peel: This tool simplifies transferring pizzas and flatbreads to and from the oven. You will find it necessary for most items that you place onto your hot baking steel and it will save you from many annoying situations and painful burns. Trust me, I know.

Bench Scraper: Essential for making dough, this tool will help keep your workspace clean and your dough handling efficient. Nothing will be more effective at portioning dough or scraping dough off your counters than a stainless steel bench scraper.

Rolling Pin: Every kitchen should have a wooden rolling pin for various tasks. In Turkiye, a longer, dowel-style rolling pin, called an oklava, is traditionally used to prepare larger doughs. Since it’s not common everywhere, I’ve designed my Turkish recipes in this book to be successful without it. I love this large rolling pin as a versatile option.

Sifter: Ensuring your flour is perfectly sifted will make for easier incorporation into recipes without overmixing to get rid of pesky flour balls. This is a tool that will take the beginning baker’s products up a notch in an instant.

Rubber/Silicone Spatulas: Silicone spatulas, despite being a recent addition to my kitchen, have become one of my favorite tools for mixing and reducing waste. While many are dishwasher-safe, if the spatula has a wooden handle, I recommend hand-washing these tools to make them last. There are times in the recipes when I am specific about what tool to use, as techniques such as folding ingredients together are much more effective with these items.

Offset Spatula: An offset spatula is a small metal tool that’s blade sits at an angle to the handle, allowing for easy smoothing. This will really come in handy for anytime you have to spread a filling or paste evenly across your doughs.

Razor or Lame: A sharp razor, preferably with a handle or holder, will be very important for scoring your bread loaves. They are not too expensive but will make cutting through the dough easier and more precise without hurting your breads.

Proofing Basket: Proofing bread dough in an object like this is vital for shaping the loaves properly. If you like baking your own bread, you likely already have one. Be sure to have a clean kitchen towel on hand or a basket liner.

Pastry Brush: Silicone or birch pastry brushes are indispensable in a baker’s kitchen. Just about every baking recipe includes an egg wash, a technique it is very difficult to replicate without a pastry brush and your doughs just will not have the same shine without it.

Dough Whisk: A dough whisk is a special tool for mixing together doughs by hand that you do not want to overmix. Generally, they have a long wooden handle and a twisted, metal circle top that allows you to combine ingredients in both doughs and batters.

Whisk: A medium-size steel whisk is the perfect tool for blending ingredients smoothly. Whether for dry or wet ingredients, whisking is an essential technique for making sure that they are fully incorporated.

Silpats: Silicone mats are my go-to for delicate recipes like macarons, pavlova, and choux. If you don’t have silicone mats, you can achieve a similar effect by using 2 to 3 layers of parchment paper.

Biscuit Cutters: While round objects like upside down glasses can serve as dough cutters, they can press down the edges of your bake and impede rising in the oven. Real sharp-edged cookie cutters in various sizes can make baking more efficient and fun. We may think of cookie cutters as decorative objects for children, but a good set of smooth-edged and scallop-edged round cutters will be a frequently used tool for your kitchen.

Egg Beater: This tool isn’t quite an essential, but if you don’t have a stand mixer it can certainly come in handy—especially if you like to take the extra time to do things by hand. It’s a very accessible price point and will make things like beating eggs and whipping cream infinitely easier.

Cast-Iron Skillet: For dishes that need both stovetop and oven cooking, a large cast-iron skillet (about 12 inches) is perfect. It will allow for crusts and charring on certain ingredients that you will have a difficult time accomplishing any other way. It’s also oven safe and particularly useful for baking focaccia and rolls.

Griddle & Grill Pan: These ribbed and flat cast iron pans come especially in handle for preparing items like sandwiches, pancakes, or items where you want great grill marks without the hassle of handling an outside grill.

Pots, Saucepans, and Skillets: Guys. I just invested in a new set of stainless steel copper core pans from All-Clad and I am obsessed. I was so nervous about using stainless steel but we’ve been trying to move away from nonstick as a family. It was so worth it! The food didn’t stick, the cook was absolutely beautiful. I highly recommend. This non-stick set is one we used for years! I still absolutely recommend it and it’s a much more affordable price point.

An assortment of pots and pans, including nonstick skillets, saucepans, and cast-iron skillets, provide versatility to your cooking experience. I recommend having at least a small (1-quart) and medium (2-quart) saucepan, as well as a medium (3- to 4-quart) and large (7-quart) pot. I also recommend a small (8-inch) and medium (10-inch) nonstick skillet.

Fine Mesh Sieve: This is one of the most frequently used tools in my kitchen. It is useful for many tasks, and having a set of three different sizes is beneficial to fit over small bowls or allow for straining many things at once.

Wooden Spoons: A variety of these tools in the kitchen will be your go-to for just about every recipe, and I often specifically reference them as ideal when mixing certain items.

Box Grater: From dough and cake recipes to daily cooking, a good grater is indispensable. I often use a box grater with various sizes of holes to allow for grating butter, carrots, etc. Some even have microplaning and mandoline options, though I generally prefer handheld for those items to have more control.

Microplane: I also suggest investing in stainless steel Microplanes of various sizes for zesting and grating cheese or garlic.

Mandoline: This is an incredibly convenient for thinly and evenly slicing vegetables, especially for sandwiches and potato chips.

Strainer Spoon: This tool is particularly practical when frying, making for easy flipping and removal of items without affecting the cooking process at all.

Food Chopper: You’ll see a hand chopper similar to this in many of my videos. An affordable alternative to a food processor in some cases, this chopper will allow you to chop vegetables for sauces, salsas, marinades, and more.

Citrus Reamer: Fresh citrus is the difference between “good” and “great” in so many recipes! I promise, switching to juicing your lemons and limes by hand rather than purchasing bottles of juice will make a world of difference in the flavor of your dishes. There are so many good options for citrus reamers, this is just one example of a vintage-y looking piece.

Cutting Board: A good cutting board is the definition of essential. I have a stack of wooden boards I keep in my kitchen that are both aesthetically pleasing and super functional. I’m consistently slicing vegetables for meals, chopping snacks for my son, and more. Plus, a beautiful option such as this board doubles as a perfect serving tray!

Salt & Pepper Mills: There is nothing quite like freshly cracked pepper to finish off your dish. Having salt and pepper mills are great for that final bit of seasoning or an addition to the table to allow people to control their own salt levels.

Cookbook Stand: My kitchen has never been more full of cookbooks. From receiving so many beautiful books from my friends to doing my own cookbook research, I have such a beautiful array of works. A cookbook stand is very important for holding up the recipe while I’m working, or even just displaying my cookbook in its place of honor!

Bread Box: Now, I truthfully don’t use a breadbox in my kitchen. I opt to slice and freeze my bread in ziploc bags pretty immediately after they fully cool for optimal freshness whenever we need a slice. However, many people swear by them and if your family goes through loaves in a jiff, this is a gorgeous countertop options to match all of your wooden spoons and show off your bread!

KitchenAid Pasta Roller: I’m willing to say that an electric pasta roller might be your new favorite kitchen tool. I used to use my hand-crank roller but recently invested in a KitchenAid attachment—it is incredible and I use it for many recipes that aren’t even pasta. This will make your life much easier for any recipe that requires thin doughs or lots of rolling, everything from borek to empanadas to dumplings to wonton wrappers. If you have a KitchenAid stand mixer, I highly recommend buying this. I even included the KitchenAid settings for each relevant recipe in the cookbook.

Pasta Cutters: When it comes to cutting pasta, I recommend having a couple of options—a thicker option for shapes like fettuccine, as well as a spaghetti style thinness. KitchenAid has motorized attachment options, but you can also use items like this chitarra to cut the pasta manually (though truthfully, it isn’t the easiest).

Gnocchi Board: If you want those perfect ridges on your gnocchi, a board such as this is essential and affordable!

Pasta Stand: A practical product for drying strands of homemade pasta. If you don’t have one, a clean chair can substitute, but this can make things quite a bit easier and more sanitary, especially if you have kids or pets running around!

Pizza Cutter: If you’re committed to delicious homemade Neopolitan-style pizzas like our family, this pizza cutter will get a lot of use! A fun and beautiful item to have in the kitchen for slicing pizzas whole, though a pastry cutter works just as well (though maybe a little less perfectly straight).

Wheel Pastry/Pasta Cutter: If you enjoy making pizza and pasta, this tool is a good addition to your kitchen. It will make for even portions and cuts for ravioli and manti, which may come in especially handy for the even cooking of pieces of pasta.

Tortilla Press: This will make your job much easier if you make corn tortillas often, as they press the dough easily and consistently for perfect results every time.

Tortilla Warmer: This is also useful for keeping tortillas and lavash-style dough from drying out after cooking. I usually line a basket with a kitchen towel for this purpose, but having a warmer is a more practical option. This one is a little small for my favorite size of large tortillas, but there are a ton of beautiful options available.

Stand Mixer: If you are a baker and are going to invest in any appliance for your kitchen, make it this one. It will save you substantial time and effort when it comes to mixing and kneading and make good dough so approachable. I know I’m known for by-hand baking, but a stand mixer with dough, paddle, and whisk attachments is a must-have in my kitchen for daily use. For breads, I primarily use a stand mixer for my brioche dough, as thorough kneading is key for a good brioche. However, I recommend against using a 6-quart stand mixer bowl for multipurpose use, especially if you have a small family like mine. For small quantities of dough or cream cake recipes, it may hinder proper mixing due to limited bowl contact. If undecided, I suggest starting with a 4- or 5-quart stand mixer from the classic series. There are just a few recipes where I recommend not using these tools—be wary of overmixing in certain types of doughs, especially scones and biscuits.

Instant Pot: While this is a less essential and fancier kitchen gadget, I find it very useful for cooking broths and meats while I’m doing other things in the kitchen. It can be so nice to have something that you can press a button and walk away from and be confident it will cook perfectly every time. They dramatically cut down on cooking time from a traditional pressure cooker and now have so many different settings for different types of cooking!

Food Processor: Although it’s not essential, a food processor can greatly simplify certain tasks in the kitchen. There are moments when a high-quality blender will suffice, but a food processor will allow you to have greater control over the size of the ingredients during the process. Recipes using the food processor can also sometimes be replicated by thorough dicing and mixing. You can also use a fine grater for mincing.

Pizza Oven: As a family, we are firmly committed to delicious pizza. Buying this Gozney pizza oven was an investment in one of our family’s favorites foods and allows us to have restaurant quality pizza at home whenever we want (or at least, a couple of days after prepping the dough!). It’s always an exciting event and a moment we can spend together, with my son excitedly awaiting fresh pizza as I roll and dress the dough and my husband mans the oven outside.

And of course, my number one essential kitchen recommendation—the Turkuaz Kitchen cookbook! This book holds all my years of experience and each of my secrets for perfect dough.

Amazon & Target both currently have the book on sale 30% off!

Or need a signed copy? Check out our independent bookselling partner, Malaprop’s in Asheville—and they offer international shipping! This makes an amazing unique gift for the baker in your life. Be sure to order quick, they have limited quantities!!