Most cookbooks spend so much time telling you how many ridiculous tools and accessories you need ("Every chef should have two high-end potato peelers, one for your average potatoes, and another for the potatoes you just don't trust") that they barely leave any room for the actual cooking. That's like picking up a book on casual cycling that starts with "Want to see if you like cycling? Fantastic! Before we get started, go buy a custom-fitted carbon fiber road bike, then pick out your uniform and competition clip-in shoes, go to Lance Armstrong's house, leave a bag of (expensive) flaming soup on his doorstep ..." You'd close the book, precisely as I did with cookbooks my entire life. It had to be simpler. I mean, calculus is simpler.

So, while working on my book (The 4-Hour Chef, currently available wherever you keep your Internet), I sought out the people who do the most with the least: chefs like Jehangir Mehta of Graffiti in New York City, which has a broom-closet-size kitchen; food-truck operators; and caterers, who need to build a new kitchen at each gig. What are the lightweight and low-cost tools that serve as their Swiss Army knives? Even if you're starting from zero (perhaps especially so), here is the ultimate list of insider tools ...

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