The Geek Cook

This is hands down the KitchenAid attachment I use most often. It takes all of the frustration and fussiness out of making fresh pasta, and, unlike the manual alternatives out there, it's incredibly easy and efficient to operate on your own. Hello, homemade ravioli!  — Niki

I never realized how incomplete my kitchen was until I added a stand mixer to my appliance lineup. It's obviously great for mixing batters and doughs, but I especially love the range of KitchenAid attachments available for purchase—once you have the base, there's suddenly a whole world of homemade sausages, ice cream, pastas, and fresh juices at your fingertips.  — Niki

A New York Times best-seller! The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science by J. Kenji López-Alt is his eponymous Serious Eats column on this very website, blown up to 900+ pages (and 7+ pounds) of concentrated culinary science. Gorgeous color photos, detailed how-tos, and elaborate explainers cover ingredients, technique, gear, and the secrets of the universe underneath it all. May include puns.  — Serious Eats Staff

Sous-vide cooking—cooking foods in vacuum-sealed pouches in precisely controlled water baths—is no longer relegated to fancy restaurant kitchens. The Anova Precision Cooker is the best home water bath controller on the market, with an easy-to-use interface, Bluetooth support, rock-solid construction, a sleek look, and an affordable price tag to boot.  — Kenji

Coffee geeks will have a lot of fun with this coffee scale. It pairs with a smartphone through Bluetooth, and an accompanying app helps walk you through the brewing processes, like pourover and French press, calculating bean-to-water ratios and brew times. It can handle customization, so with each successive batch, you can really dial in on the variables to make a cup that tastes best to you. It can also be used as a basic kitchen scale with a two-kilogram (about four and a half pounds) maximum weight, so it's versatile beyond its primary purpose.  — Daniel

In the inexpensive-thermometer department, the ThermoPop is the new kid on the block, but he comes in an impressive package. An easy-to-read display rotates at the touch of a button, so you don't have to twist your head to read it. It takes a few seconds longer to read temperatures than its big brother, the Thermapen, but it's every bit as accurate.  — Kenji

Oh, man, do I love my Vitamix. Whether I'm making super-quick smoothies or the creamiest, smoothest purées and soups imaginable, the Vitamix is unparalleled in its power. Best gift I've ever received (thanks, dear!).  — Kenji

Forget those puny kitchen torches designed to make crème brûlée for ants. If you want some serious torching power in the kitchen, for putting the final touch on fancy desserts or for finishing off a sous-vide steak, you want a high-output torch like this one. You'll get a deeper char than you'll ever be able to get from using a skillet alone.  — Kenji

The Cadillac of kitchen thermometers is indispensable when roasting meat, cooking steaks, making candy, deep-frying, or at any other time precise temperature control is needed. With a big display and a blazing-fast measuring time of under two seconds, you won't find a better, easier-to-use thermometer out there.  — Kenji

I've cracked my way through quite a few baking stones. With the Baking Steel—a solid sheet of steel designed to replace a baking stone—that's a thing of the past. Not only will it last forever, but, with superior thermal properties, it produces the best pizza crusts I've ever seen in a home oven.  — Kenji

Homemade ice cream tastes better than almost anything you can buy in a store, and it's a snap to make. This ice cream maker, from Cuisinart, is all the gear you need: an easy-to-use workhorse that makes delicious ice cream every time. The simple construction means that there are few moving parts to break, and the wide mouth at the top makes it easy to add mix-ins and scoop out your ice cream when it's at its fresh, creamy best.  — Serious Eats Staff

Time was, you had to build an actual wood-fired stone oven to get Neapolitan-style pizza in your backyard. With the Serious Eats edition KettlePizza and Baking Steel combo, you can convert your Weber kettle grill into an honest-to-goodness wood-fired pizza oven that'll bake Neapolitan-style pizzas in minutes.  — Kenji

Serious Eats' own J. Kenji López-Alt brings his popular column to life in this six-episode series. With help from food blogger and cook Katie Quinn, Kenji demonstrates techniques, busts myths, and 'splains the science behind perfect burgers, tender roast chicken, exquisite chocolate chip cookies, and much more. Rent or download individual episodes or the whole show!  — Serious Eats Staff

Know someone who's interested in sous-vide cooking? They're gonna want this. And it's handy for way more than just sous-vide cooking. A vacuum sealer makes it really easy to save meats or other foods in the freezer, and it keeps air (read: freezer burn) off it all. The Oliso sealer uses a unique resealable bag system which means far less wasted plastic than a conventional cut-and-seal vacuum sealer.  — Kenji

A good digital scale is an essential tool for bakers or home charcuterie makers. The OXO Food Scale comes with an easy-to-clean removable stainless steel weighing surface, great accuracy and precision, and a pull-out backlit display to make measuring easy, even for large or unwieldy items.  — Kenji