The importance of high quality knives can't be stressed enough! Buy the best you can and expect to spend some serious money. It is better to buy a couple of excellent knives and slowly add to your collection rather than buying an entire set of low quality knives. Start with a chef knife and paring knife. You will also want to buy a sharpening steel.

Convection ovens allow you to bake more foods (cookies, muffins, etc.) at once with even browning, but without the need to shift and rotate pans. A convection oven is the same as a conventional oven except a fan is installed in the back interior of the oven. The fan is used to blow and force the heat to circulate in the oven and around the food, thus eliminating the need to rotate and shift pans. In reality, though, even with the most expensive convection ovens, you will still need to rotate your foods, because there will always exist still hot spots in the cavity, because the cavity is small. Don't compare home convection ovens with most commercial convection ovens used by bakers and small food manufacturers, because their commercial ovens are much larger than home ovens and commercial ovens don't have any hot spots and therefore, there's no need to shift and rotate pans.

The optimum location for the cook top is along an exterior wall, rather than on an island or peninsula. With a stove on an outside wall, it's easy to install an effective hood and ventilation system, essential to expel grease, smoke and combustion gases. The stove or cook top needs a 21- to 30-inch overhead clearance so cooks can readily see and access rear burners and the ventilation system can do its work efficiently.