Influences and Tools you would never do without

[silvergryphon]

Welcome Mario! Thank you for allowing us to throw out questions to you...and for answering them for us.

My first question is:

I can tell how passionate you are about what you do in the kitchen from watching your programs. If cooking and being a chef had not been a career choice, what other direction would you have taken in your life and why?

My second question is:

With all the equipment you work with and have at your disposal every day, what 5 items would you absolutely have to have in your kitchen and your reasons?

Again...thank you so much.

Deb

aka - silvergryphon

[Mario Batali]

had i not become a chef i would have further tried to understand organic chemistry and pursued oceanography, and in its inevitable lacking i would have studied other aquatic life as a pool boy in malibu really

five tools

pasta rolling machine making and eating noodles are the key to living a life that understands our potential for gretness

1 good sharp knife is all i really need often to open a perfect box of figs, never to cut those figs

a good slicing machine, without which prosciutto and pancetta would have to be eaten cut thickly... not that bad, but not as good as perfectly paper thin

a counter or cuting board of considerable size to make pasta on in the traditional well method, or to roll it out in the matarello method... just to have space in the kitchen for my 2 boys to work side by side with me

a large enamel coated pot to cook everything in from the ragu to the noodles to the brasing it can do it all as a one pot band

mb