What's Your Fancy: Sohla El-Waylly Shares Her Cooking Essentials

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“When I first started cooking, I couldn’t read a recipe,” says Sohla El-Waylly, the multitalented culinary star whose cookbook, Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook, is out now. “I would skip ingredients or steps entirely, so I would rewrite recipes entirely before I could cook them. With this book, I’m hoping that if I can read these recipes, hopefully other people can, too.”

The book, which is organized like a culinary school and moves from easier to more difficult recipes, and features recipes ranging from main courses to sides and, of course, desserts—all of which El-Waylly tested extensively. “Getting stuck in recipes is the key to development,” she says. “Every recipe is different, and you don’t know what’ll take a long time until you start working. The charred lemon risotto is a really simple recipe, and that’s what made it hard to develop. After having that 15 times in a row, I just wanted to forget about it for a while. There are other things, like the saffron flan, that I could eat forever and not get sick of.”

Here, El-Waylly shares the items she can't cook without, and the ones that help her balance life—new baby and all—in and outside of the kitchen.

Cast Iron Skillet

"I’ve had this skillet from the second I started cooking. It’s great for almost everything. Taking care of a cast iron scares a lot of folks, but it’s actually really easy. Cast iron is cheap and will last forever."

Mystery Oil

"The great thing about a wooden cutting board is that it’ll last forever if you give it a bit of love. I’ve tried generic mineral oils, and they don’t absorb as well, this one might cost more but it works well and goes a long way. Moisturizing is important for your skin and your cutting board."

Cooking Oil

"I found out about this from my husband. He’s working on an oyster bar, and they were trying to find a neutral oil that’s good for you. This oil is totally neutral, produced in a sustainable way, and has more good fats than olive oil. The first time we pan fried something in it, we were blown away by the crust we got. It’s just amazing."

Donabe Kamadosan

"We have ours prominent on a shelf because it’s so pretty. Originally I got this for stews but have started cooking rice in it, and I’m convinced it’s the secret to perfect rice. It ends up just right every time."

Baby Sleeper

"First of all, they’re cute. There are a lot of designs that are technically Halloween costumes, but we use them all the time because my daughter is a baby and doesn’t mind. They’re also so easy."

Steam Sterilizer and Dryer

"We’ve got a New York kitchen and a lot of cooking equipment already. This fits in a corner of our counter, works really quickly, and you can fit a lot of bottles in there."

Cribsheet

"This book is amazing. As a parent, you wake up in the middle of the night and panic about random stuff. But here, you have all the facts in one book—everything is evidence based, so you can look at it and filter through high-quality studies to make an educated decision. Every parent should have this book."

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