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Put Your Ingredients on Display.

Blogger and author of Secrets of the Best Chefs Adam Roberts picked up on a few things while doing research for his book, and eye candy was one of them.

"When I went to various chefs' homes for my cookbook, I noticed that many of them had baskets and bowls full of gorgeous farmers' market ingredients out on their counters. I didn't think much of it until I started to realize there must be something to this; so, when I finished my research, I bought a basket and started going to the farmers' market every Monday, hauling back… ingredients … and displaying them in my kitchen. What happens is these ingredients act as cooking triggers: you come home from a long day and instead of ordering a pizza, you see your tomatoes or your apples and you get inspired. So that's why… I've put ingredients on display on Monday, [to] keep myself inspired throughout the week."

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Grocery Shop Like a Chinese Menu.

This one had us saying "what?," but when Sara Moulton explained, we thought it had the makings of a good cook.

"On a day when you have a little time, like a Saturday or Sunday, go to the grocery store and stock up [like] a Chinese menu. [Buy] five items for column A, the protein, five for column B, the vegetable column, and finally five for column C, the starch column. It doesn't even matter if you have a recipe in mind for these items. Just getting them in the house is the goal. Then, on Monday night, you can look in the fridge/cupboard and say, hmmm, which thing from each column do I want to make tonight?"

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