There are some kitchen staples so important that I nearly forgot to mention them, I’m talking crystals bro. Crystals are integral.

SALT: Oh man. There is so much to say about salt, it’s like a really big deal. Nobody doesn’t use salt. Nearly every human settlement on earth exists because there was salt there. Wars were fought for and with salt. Salt was money. Salt was holy. Salt was life. If your kitchen doesn’t contain salt, we are so done. Not all salt is the same, we mostly use sodium chloride these days, but different salts used to be quite common. Sea salt and rock salt are also different, these differences in flavor color and structure are due to trace mineral contaminants. Our desire for irregular colorful salt is in stark opposition to the antiquated desire for perfectly white perfectly uniform salt. Despite the wide variety of salts available, they’re all pretty interchangeable. Choose a kind you like and buy it, simple as that. Fun fact: nearly any place name that ends in “wich” (Greenwich, Ipswich, Norwich) was originally a salt making operation.

SUGAR: You need sugar in your kitchen. Not stevia, not splenda, not agave syrup, not xylitol. Sugar. Crystallized sugar is necessary, I don’t care if it came from a cane, a maple, a palm, or a beet, but it needs to be crystals. You cannot make a passable apple pie or whipped cream without crystallized sugar. The dehydrating nature of those big carbon crystals is essential to the chemistry of a lot of dishes. Buy sugar, preferably a few kinds, it won’t go bad unless you get it really wet. Don’t get it really wet.

We’re done with staples. We are done. Now I’m going to make sure that you’re familiar with the basic tools of the kitchen. Pro-tip: Never buy a knife set.