A paleo kitchen of today is well equipped. You may find: Blender. For frozen desserts, sauces, and small quantities of flour from nuts. Wide jars better for chunky things. KitchenAid has 3 and 5 speed Ultra Power Blenders that crush ice at any speed. 48oz glass jar. $85-90 at Zabars(1). Cherry and Olive Pitter. Especially if you dehydrate cherries. The ones for a few dollars are useless. Sur La Table(2) has a handheld one for $12 that looks like it could be useful. Counter top ones are $20-40 and are discussed in a separate FAQ. Chestnut Roasting Pan. You need an open flame to use this one. A chestnut knife to score and open them is safer than a regular knife. Both are available from Sur La Table for $10 each. Chinois. While normally used for straining seeds out of jellies, it should work for straining rendered fat. The old standby for this is cheesecloth. See a picture at Chef's Catalog site(3). Bridge Kichenware has them in three sizes.(4) Coffee Mill. Best for grinding spices. Designate one for this use only. Need not be a fancy grinder. Can also use for a small amount of nut flour. Crock Pot. Useful. Can start before you go to bed or in the morning. However, long cooking times with acidic foods will lead to hydrolysis of proteins. Deep Fat Fryer. A quick way to cook a piece of chicken, though not very paleo or useful in a paleo kitchen without potatoes. Olive, coconut and palm oil are recommended. [more research on oil prices and availability needed] Dehydrator. A must for jerky and pemmican. Can also dry fruit. Inexpensive ones without thermostats are $30. Good ones with up to 30 trays can cost a couple hundred. A top brand is American Harvest which has a SnackMaster and GardenMaster. Another is Excalibur. See Dehydrators section of www.PaleoDiet.com/ and Cabela's(5) catalog. Egg Cooking Gadgets. Numerous exist, such as: containment rings when frying eggs, egg holders when boiling eggs, egg cups for serving and eating soft-boiled eggs, egg slicers, egg piercers, electric egg cookers, egg poachers. Electric Frying Pan. The thermostat allows for long unattended cooking. Good for chicken dishes and breakfast. Flour Mill/Grinder. You'd want a burr grinder type to handle the nut flours. Much fresher if you grind your own. See http://waltonfeed.com/grinder.html for overview. Food Mill. Useful for making applesauce, tomato juice/sauce, straining squash and pumpkin, etc, and various fruits and vegetables for juices. The Squeezo has been recommended. About $40. At the high end there is Rösle from Germany. $195 and more with optional milling disks. See it at Sur La Table's web site (search on food mill). Many others exist. Food Processor. It doesn't make fine nut flour, but good for all usual vegetable preparation. It can make paleo mayonnaise, but a hand blender is less to clean. Food Strainer. It is a sauce maker for creamy applesauce, smooth tomato sauce, and with accessories: berries, pumpkins/squash, and grapes. Like a food mill but is cylindrical with an auger. Skin and seeds are discharged separately, without waste. Top of the line is the Squeezo at . Something very similar, but cheaper can be found at the bottom of Back to Basics' page at . Food Steamer. While a rice cooker can steam vegetables, one made for vegetables will be able to handle asparagus, so such is preferred over rice cookers. Freezer. We paleo eaters need good freezer space. A separate one is handy, but do not buy frost-free as they increase freezer burn. We freeze fruit (strawberries, blueberries, peaches, and raspberries), nut flours, and meat bought through the mail or on sale. French Mandoline. Stainless steel. It slices, dices or juliennes. Can do waffle cuts. Think carrots, radishes, cucumbers, zucchini, onions, tomatoes, and lemons/limes for garnishes. They are dangerous -- suggest cutproof gloves. Can slice perfectly at any thickness, including paper thin. It is large and a bit cumbersome, but unbeatable for large jobs and precision cutting. If cooking for two the smaller simpler Benriner (Japanese slicer, see V-slicer) is better. The best/best-known in the US mandoline is manufactured by Bron. Zabars has the Bron for $110 at: http://www.zabars.com/utens.htm (also picture). Costco carries the Mouli mandoline in their mail order catalog for $109. Garlic Slicer. Like a small mandoline. Can also grate when the sliding mechanism is reversed. Works with garlic, mushrooms, olives and ginger. $6-15. Tend to be flimsy. See picture at http://mastermall.com/garlic/ftx74.htm Grill, Indoor. The tabletop George Forman Grill is very popular. In three sizes. Get a bigger size, not the small one. Now available everywhere. $60-100. Grill, Outdoor. Can be charcoal or gas. If charcoal get solid pure charcoal and not briquettes (which use things like wheat starch to hold the briquette together). Hand Blender. Also called immersion blender. Large commercial ones existed long before consumer models. No commercial mayonnaise is paleo, so home making is required. One of these is the least to clean. They are great not only for mayo and dressings, but good for making almond milk, fruit shakes, thickening soups and sauces right in the pan by pureeing vegetables. Can grind nuts to make nut flour and nutbutters. Good for Steak Tartare and grinding the meat for Pemmican. Also can grind together raisins and nuts to make fruitnutballs. Braun has about four models. For a picture search on blender at the Chef's Catalog site. Kitchen Shears. Having grown up with an abundance of shears I am always surprised when I find someone that uses a knife to cut everything in the kitchen. Handy for many tasks. Specialized shears for cutting poultry also exist. Meat Grinder. It doesn't sound very paleo to grind up your meat. But if you hunt or are buying your meat by the side, you may want hamburger, or even just to grind up leftovers for hash. The hand ones that clamp to the counter are fine. Electric can run $70-90. Meat Slicer. To make jerky and pemmican you can ask the butcher to slice it, but bargains these days are at places with little service. Estate and garage sales are good places to look. New ones start at around $80. The Chef's Choice models ($150+) look pretty, but don't cut well or last very long. Small commercial style are $350-400. Meat Thermometer. An instant one is okay to check how the meat is doing. For those busy with other things Polder makes an electronic one for $25-35 that has a probe and an alarm that goes off when it hits the set temperature. Especially useful when smoking meat. Owners of them like the convenience. See: http://www.comforthouse.com/comfort/cookther.html Mezzaluna Chopper. Also known as a rocking mincer or half-moon mincing knife. This is the traditional way to chop and dice herbs. Also works with garlic and onions. At the Chef's Catalog site there is a set with a wooden herb bowl for $40 (search on herb). Mortar and Pestle. Best for herbs. Muffin Baking Pans. For nut flour muffins and pemmican cakes when a high fat content. You have a choice of full size and mini (2 1/8" diameter). The mini ones take more effort to clean. Non-stick ones make the most sense, but the surface may wear out with use. Nut Chopper. The one at Chef's Catalog for $10 is a cylinder with two compartments and in the middle it seems to have a crank. Can chop large amounts and is dishwasher safe. Some handblender models have a chopper option. It may work well for nuts. Nutmeg Grinder. Resembles a pepper grinder, except the cavity is designed specifically to hold a whole nutmeg. $13-20. See http://www.silk.net/sirene/cooks.htm for one. Mandoline style graters also exist. Parsley Mincer. A handy little tool. Moulis now come in partial plastic and all stainless steel versions. $11 and up. Can get jammed and are difficult to clean. Sur La Table has a Herb Shredder from Italy for $16 and there is one for $20 at Chef's Catalog site (herb mincer). Peeler. Useful for slicing hard root vegetables, e.g. carrots, for salads. A wide slot gets better slices. Get a carbon steel blade. It is sharper than a stainless one. Some like the OXO GoodGrips for ease of holding and it does have a wide slot, but has a stainless blade. Pepper Grinder. French-made Perfex sets the standard, but really any will do. Rotisserie. A motor driven spit broils meat, fish and poultry to perfection, sealing in juices and draining fats. Some are combined with a convection oven for faster roasting. Takes up a lot of counter space, though there are a couple of vertical ones for $100 that takes up less. Hard to clean, take a long time, hard to tell when done, and people that have them rarely use them. Maybe get one in an outdoor grill instead. Salad Spinners, both large and small. In addition to salad, the small one is useful for drying off rinsed berries. Recommended are Zyliss with a cord and Triumph with a knob. Not recommended is Hoan. Sausage Stuffer. Generally attachments are used with the meat grinder. But dedicated stuffers are available. Scale. Well, not really needed for paleo, but they are convenient to have around for weighing mail. Be sure it has a tare capability. Smoker. While not all paleos smoke their meat, some do. Can be charcoal, gas, or electric. Good ones are $80-150. Cheap ones will burn out with use. Non-stainless can rust out near the sea shore. If you are going to make your own sausage, then you really need an electric or gas model that you can set the temperature, and one of the square metal insulated styles like the Little Chief will hold that temperature more evenly. You can get round, tower shaped electric, gas, or charcoal smokers that use a water pan to help speed cooking and can also help flavor the meat if you add flavorings to the water. For smoking ribs and pork or beef roasts, and even the occasional turkey, recommended is a charcoal smoker with a water pan. Smoke at a fairly low temperature for anywhere from 6-10 hours depending on how thick the meat is. You will get more flavor in the meat using charcoal, then placing foil packets of water soaked wood sawdust or chips on the coals. In the electric or gas smokers, the sawdust is put into a metal pan over the burner, and smoulders away giving the smoke flavor, but not the flavor you get when some of the fat and juices from the meat hit the hot charcoal. The Cabela's Fall catalog has a good selection of smokers. The Sausage Maker in Buffalo, NY has a catalog with lots of smoke equipment and literature. 716-824-6510. See much on smoking equipment at: http://members.tripod.com/~DanGill/Resources.HTML Toaster-oven. A slice toaster has no use for us now that grain-based breads aren't eaten, but you can use a toaster-oven as a small oven or broiler. V-Slicer. This is a plastic mandoline. Also dangerous. It can julienne, slice, shred, chop and dice fruit and vegetables. Use for onions, carrots and celery for salads. The thickness of the Benriner, a quality Japanese mandoline, is continuously adjustable but the maximum is only about 2mm. The Boerner V-slicer does an adequate job, but not as nicely as the Benriner. The V-slicer will do a thicker slice, but it's not continuously adjustable. Look for a Benriner at a Japanese grocer. They come in small and large sizes. $20-40. Search for V-slicer at the Chef's Catalog site. Vacuum Sealer. This device vacuum seals your food. Things keep much longer. The Tilia FoodSaver gets excellent reviews in the newsgroups. There are two models, around $200 and $300. The latter has a heavier duty motor and some more settings. Can be found in Costco, at Cabela's, and from the Infomercial 800-523-9911 number. (1) Zabar's is a popular NYC store. They have a tiny fraction of what they sell on the web at: http://www.zabars.com/ (2) Sur La Table, in addition to serving items, has a selection of unusual high-end kitchen equipment. Go to http://www.surlatable.com/ to search for products. (3) Chef's Catalog at http://www.chefscatalog.com/ has a search button. Use that to find a picture of an item. Prices are on the high side. (4) Bridge Kitchenware also has a search facility. Go to http://www.bridgekitchenware.com/ and select the button for Shop Online! (5) Cabela's is a mail order outfitter specializing in hunting, fishing, and outdoor gear. Their catalogs have lots of neat things for a paleo minded person. Their spring annual catalog is more fishing oriented. Catalog now online at http://www.cabelas.com/ Lehman's sells some unusual items, and none require electricity. See: http://www.lehmans.com/