Chef and food writer David Lebovitz is, at once, a devotee of top-shelf French cocoa powder and a fan of snacking on Junior Mints and peanut M&M’s while editing a manuscript. “You’re sitting in front of your computer freaking out over words and trying to figure out the right word to use, and they’re really easy to snack on, and you don’t get messy,” he told me over the phone.
Over the last three decades, Lebovitz has made a career deftly writing his way through the highs and lows of the culinary world. He’s often credited with being one of the first food bloggers in the ’90s, and he spent more than a decade working at Chez Panisse, a Northern California restaurant often credited with helping lead the farm-to-table movement.
Now, 20 years and nine books later, Lebovitz is particular about what he cooks with in his kitchen. His Substack is full of musings on restocking his apartment kitchen from the ground up (the French take everything with them when they move, even appliances) and which type of measuring cups are the most accurate. He scours markets for vintage Le Creuset and antique pâté pans. Like his recipes for Mexican chocolate ice cream and anise-orange profiteroles, his gear draws inspiration from all over the world.
Lebovitz is so committed to some of his culinary stalwarts that he has even gone so far as to physically move aspects of his American kitchen to his Parisian apartment. “I brought over all my All-Clad piece by piece,” Lebovitz says. “Also baking half sheets. They don’t have them in France. So I had to bring those over.”
Lebovitz, who’s releasing a new edition of his book Ready for Dessert this fall, demystifies the science and technique behind good cooking, and his recipes feel paradoxically complex yet eminently accessible even to the untrained. Here’s the finely tuned arsenal of kitchen tools he relies on to bring those creations to life.
