Dedicated viewers of Alton Brown’s acclaimed Food Network show Good Eats know of his penchant for using unusual equipment. He has smoked a salmon in a cardboard box, roasted prime rib in a flowerpot, and used a C-clamp as a nutcracker. Brown isn’t interested in novelty, he’s just devoted to using the best—and simplest—tool for the job.

Alton Brown’s Gear For Your Kitchen offers honest, practical advice on what’s needed and what isn’t, what works and what doesn’t. For instance: You only need three knives, but they are a lifetime investment. And don’t bother with that famous countertop grill—it doesn’t get hot enough to properly sear. In his signature science-guy style, Brown begins with advice on kitchen layout and organization, then gets to the lowdown on these cooking elements: Big Things with Plugs; Pots and Pans; Sharp Things; The Tool Box; Small Things with Plugs; Storage and Containment; and Safety and Sanitation.

Gear For Your Kitchen is essential for all of Brown’s fans as well as anyone who wants a good guide to great kitchen gear. With more than 125,000 hardcover copies in print, this indispensable—and highly entertaining—book is now offered in a paperback edition that every home cook can afford.

Alton Brown is the writer, director, and host of the Food Network show Good Eats, which won a 2007 Peabody Award, and is the resident food historian, scientist, and color commentator of the network’s Iron Chef America series. In 2004, his book I’m Just Here For the Food won the James Beard Award for Best Cookbook in the Reference category. A regular contributor to Bon Appétit and Men’s Journalmagazines, Brown lives in the southern United States with his wife and daughter.