The LA Times’ food writ­ers list what kitchen items really are nec­es­sary, and which you can safely skip.

Essen­tials:

  • Pes­tle and mortar.
  • A qual­ity cork screw.
  • Instant-read ther­mome­ter.
  • Qual­ity dried pasta.
  • Heavy-duty roast­ing pan.
  • Dutch oven.
  • Whole vanilla beans (not extract).
  • Micro-plane.
  • Larousse Gas­tronomique.

Unnec­es­sary utensils:

  • Mini food processors.
  • Most non-stick pans.
  • An expan­sive selec­tion of knives.
  • Crème brûlée torches.
  • Expen­sive red wine vine­gar (keep and use din­ner party dregs).
  • Fon­due sets.
  • A toaster.

via Life­hacker

Update: Life­hacker points to a num­ber of addi­tional ‘kitchen essen­tial’ lists, adding the fol­low­ing to the above list of must-haves:

  • Required knives: chef’s knife, par­ing knife, inex­pen­sive ser­rated bread knife.
  • Qual­ity coffee.
  • Sil­i­con oven mitts (no risk of burns when reach­ing into hot liquids).
  • A plas­tic or wooden chop­ping board (the dif­fer­ence is purely aes­thetic, although plas­tic can be put in a dishwasher).
  • Coffee/spice grinder.
  • The semi-obvious items: a U-shaped veg­etable peeler, colan­der, can opener, slot­ted spoon, heat-resistance rub­ber spat­ula, wooden spoon and a whisk.

And these unnecessaries:

  • Bread machine (a lit­tle prac­tice and you can bake your own per­fectly well with­out a machine).
  • Microwave.
  • Stand mixer (whisk or cheap hand mixer will suffice).
  • Wok.

Food proces­sors and immer­sive blenders are classed as nice-to-haves.