Not too much romance here, but essential for any functional kitchen. Buy the heaviest pans possible. Also, you should consider buying a non-stick silicon sheet: they make baking very easy!

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.

When cooking chicken pieces, start with the dark pieces and then add the white chicken. The dark takes longer to cook than the white, so starting the dark first will assist in the white and dark getting done close to the same time