rice and pasta

Luna Koshihikari is the it rice for Northern California/Bay Area restaurants and foodies. You can read about it in Eater and can buy it from Berkeley Bowl, Umami Mart, and several other specialty grocery stores. It actually is really good, fluffy, neutral and I'd recommend buying it.

Otherwise, the Tamaki haiga is the one to get. I use the gaba, quick, or white rice regular setting on the Zojirushi but the gaba setting is the right one to make it perfect. It just takes forever.

Other rice: Anson Mill's Carolina Gold Rice is good but it's crazy expensive. Carnaroli for risotto, bomba for paella, and Kodafarms (going out of business soon) has good sweet sticky rice, rice flour, and Kokuho rose. I've made but I don't really fool around too much with jasmine, basmati, or long grain rice. I don't like brown rice.

For pasta go with Rustichella D'Abruzzo for spaghetti, bucatini, mezze maniche, farfalloni, and orecchiette. There's a couple bulk sales a year at Market Hall for this pasta and I grab some when it happens. Otherwise, fresh, home made pasta is easy enough.

Related for rice: Also get shichimi togarashi, Queen's gochujang, and Huy Fong chili garlic sauce.

Related for pasta: Rao's marinara and vodka sauce are really good. Bianco DiNapoli canned tomatoes are good and this tomato paste from Mutti.

my cookware recommendations

pots and pans – Mafter Bourgeat

Go with Mafter Bourgeat and get one of their black steel pans (the 11 7/8" one) and get the remainder from their stainless steel collection: the 9-1/2" and 11" fry pans, the 1-3/4 quart and 4 quart sauce pans, the 7-1/2 quart stock pot, and optionally the 4 quart saute pan. Altogether, these should run you about $500-$600.

There's a small detail with these Mafter pots and pans that's not in most cookware. The handles are attached in a way where the rivets don't go through so the interior is clean.

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