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 ...

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.

8 Lint-Free Surgical Huck Towels

Amazon.com

$8.50 for 12

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Forget about oven mitts and pot holders. You know who uses those? Your grandma, who is a very nice lady and a fine cook, but she probably never read this article when she was learning to cook (exceptions: grandma time travelers). Why use the frilly trinkets of an average cook when you can use what the pros use? The pros use folded towels for just about everything, and using them will teach you more than your grandma ever did.

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"You're a chef, dammit. Folded towels are the only family you need now."

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How do you tell the veterans from the noobs? The former have a neatly stacked pile of cooking towels, crisply folded at the edges and tucked into their aprons. The latter have sloppy messes pushed through string. In a world of high-speed repetitive action, the little things are the big things. Suffice it to say, if you grab something hot with a single layer of a damp towel, your hands will be seared like strip steak. (Not to worry: It's easy to avoid.)

You won't find the little blue towels that the pros use in any kitchen or restaurant supply store, but you can easily find them online by searching for "lint-free surgical towels." Order a dozen from Amazon to start. If you want something close, but -- in my opinion -- inferior, the long, narrow IKEA towels with red stripes will suffice. If you do go to IKEA, get those meatballs in their food court, but only after you've purchased the towels. You're gonna need them to wipe all the shit off your face. Goddamn, Scandinavians know their meatballs. Italians, what happened? Amirite? Italians?