The Best Things to Keep Laying Haphazardly About the Kitchen

Recently, I ventured to a friends apartment. A few minutes after arrival, which included the mandatory hugging and squealing and best-friend pleasantries, her stomach growled. Mine, being the compassionate creature it is, echoed her stomach's feelings. Unfortunately for our stomachs, our wallets were also empty, which reduced us to spooning peanut-butter out of a crusty jar with plastic knives. It was, in the end, one of the best dinner's I've had. However, the situation did make me wish for at least a quarter of what resides in  Mother Superior's seemingly endless kitchen.

That's where this list comes in. Some of the best things even the saddest, more lifeless kitchens deserve, because not everyone likes huddling around a jar of peanut-butter, clutching plastic utensils like mindless cave people.

1. Extra Virgin Olive Oil. You can't go wrong with this stuff. It has enough flavor to stand alone as a light salad dressing, and is versatile enough to help sauté or toast or do whatever it is you do with EVOO. 
2. Vinegar. Balsamic is nice because, like EVOO, it can help dress things up. And any vinegar is great for when you have the hiccups.
3. Stand Mixer. No one likes whipping cream or creaming butter by hand. It hurts and it takes forever. Now, while stand mixers can be a tad expensive, they're wonderful to have around. Cakes, ice creams, anything that needs a good beating can be thrown in that sucker and bam, no more hand cramps from whisking like a mad man.
4. Bamboo Utensils. No matter what you're cooking, you can use bamboo. It doesn't scratch a surface like metal tongs or spatulas or spoons, it's lightweight, and it doesn't take on the flavor of what you're cooking like a wooden utensil. 
5. Sheet Pans. It doesn't really matter what you're making; pizza, bread, fries, chicken, anything that needs to be baked can be slapped on a sheet pan. Without sheet pans, there would be no life.