If you plan on doing any serious amout of cooking, it is important to have the right tools for the job. Many tools are inexpensive and can be found in most stores. If you can find a restaurant supply store in your area, by all means take advantage! I buy all of my thing from the one in my city. The advantages are that there is everything you could ever immagine to stock your kitchen. The tools are inexpensive because they don't have that "name" on them and have excellent restaurant quality durability so you can keep them for a very long time. You will feel so much better knowing if you need a certain tool, you can open the drawer and it be there. There is nothing worse than using the wrong tool for the job. Quality is important for some things such as knives. These are a cooks right hand. Buy quality heavy nives that are comfortable in you hand. If the knife doesn't feel right to you, than it can be a problem. If that $45 knife feels better that the $200 knife, then buy that one. You din't have to spend $500 on a set of professional knives, but please for your own sake, don't buy the "forty knives for $40" if it sounds to good to be true, it propably is. Please share your favorite tools and must have gadgets.