Four quick, out-of-the-ordinary tips from restaurant chefs

Over at Oprah.com, they recently printed 4 Things Restaurant Chefs Wish They Could Tell You. The selection was interesting because it includes some advice not usually mentioned in similar lists. Specifically, they were:

• Use cheap mushrooms for most recipes, instead of  paying more for porcini or chanterelles.
• Stop using your knife so much: it’s inefficient, and can even be damaging – especially on herbs where you release all the flavor to the air.
• Don’t always start cooking with olive oil – an oil with a higher smoke point (which is usually cheaper) will produce a beautifully browned crust, and will probably avoid absorbing as much oil.
• For specialty tools, visit the drug or hardware stores as much as specialty stores (e.g. for clear plastic containers, painter’s tape, or a Sharpie). After all, the rasp that makes grating lemons and Parmesan so easy originally came from a hardware store.

Check out the article for more explanation; but in the meantime, it’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who occasionally drops into a hardware store to browse for kitchen supplies.