be better at cooking

The Supreme Pantry is an ongoing project with the goal of teaching home-cooks how to be better home-cooks.  The main goal is to teach people how to build a robust home pantry, so that cooking at home is cheaper, easier, and more fulfilling.  I am also developing recipes, shopping guides, and kitchen equipment guides.  

Be Better at Cooking, Adam Walker

First off, I’m Adam and I run things around here.

I’m a professional chef with almost 20 years of experience, and let me tell you… if they had the right training, most people could put out some great food at home without a ton of effort.  So I created The Supreme Pantry, for 2 main reasons:  

First, I truly believe that there’s a sizable financial aspect to eating well at home. Eating at home is always cheaper than going to a restaurant, but if you aren’t eating fantastic food, it feels like you’re just eating for sustenance. It makes going out to eat that much more appealing: not only do you not have to cook, the food at the restaurant is BETTER.

That brings me to my second point.  I think, as a whole, restaurant food in most of the USA should be better than it is, and I want to help make it better. Don’t get me wrong, there are certain places where everything is great but man, we chefs should be doing better.  In general, I believe that if people are eating better food in their day-to-day life, they are going to expect great food when they go out.

So How does The Supreme Pantry Work?

Simple.  On this site, you’ll be able to:

  • Find out what kitchen equipment to purchase, without breaking the bank.
  • Learn to be better at shopping, saving you money while buying the good stuff.
  • Build a robust home pantry, so that it’s easier to cook at home.
  • Use flexible recipes, integrated with your pantry items, to make awesome meals and not break a sweat.

I am continually working on this project, adding recipes, pantry lists, equipment guides, and cooking tips on a regular basis. It’s a work in progress, and if you would like to receive updates whenever new content is released, sign up to the mailing list below.

How to use this site

See the Pantry Lists

Look through the pantry lists to see what food items your should always have on hand.  This is an organic, evolving project, and I will be periodically adding to the pantry lists.

All Pantries

Find some recipes

Find recipes to prepare at home, using many of the ingredients on the pantry lists.  New recipes are created regularly and always rest upon a well built pantry.

All Recipes

Why should you use The Supreme Pantry?

You know how to shop at grocery stores, but are you a pro?

Probably not. Grocery stores employ all sorts of tactics to separate you from your money. Some are benign, and some are downright sneaky. I believe that the first ingredient in being better at home cooking is learning what to look out for at grocery stores, and I am developing shopping guides for just that.

What sort of tools do you really need in a kitchen?

Does everyone need a dutch oven?  A fish spatula?  How about a whole knife block set? (spoiler alert, don’t buy knife block sets.)  I am creating guides on how to outfit a kitchen properly, outlining what’s absolutely needed, what’s great to have, and what to aim at when you want to impress your foodie friends.  Complete with specific product recommendations and suggestions about where to source them.  Having the right tools in a kitchen is absolutely transformative, and can make difficult kitchen tasks a breeze.

Don't you hate finding a recipe, then having to go to the store for most of the ingredients?

I certainly do.  That’s why I am writing a variety of pantry lists.  Pick a pantry (or more than one!) and keep a stock of all the ingredients on the list.  That way, when it comes time to cook, you might only need one or two items from the store.  Even better, grab that lamb that’s on sale from the store, and when you get home you’ll have a variety of ways to prepare it.

How can you tell when to substitute ingredients in a recipe?

Taking a look at a recipe and making changes on the fly to match what you have on hand is something that’s (relatively) easy for professional chefs.  Home cooks should not be expected to do that, but recipe writers are notorious for paving a recipe’s ingredient list with all sorts of items, then remaining silent on what’s integral to the recipe and what can be changed.  With the FLEXIBLE recipes that I am  writing, substitution options will be baked right in, and ingredients that shouldn’t be changed will be noted.

You're a smart person, and all this information is available online. So what's the big deal with The Supreme Pantry?

There are countless recipe websites, even more kitchen equipment recommendations, and plenty of lengthy blog posts about home pantries and shopping advice.  I think that’s part of the problem; there’s too much information out there, and nobody is curating it.  For every great lasagna recipe, there are 30 bad ones.  And with all of these pieces of information coming from different sources, they aren’t designed to work together.

Why should you trust The Supreme Pantry for cooking advice and information?

The Supreme Pantry is being built from the ground up by me, Adam, a professional chef with 20 years of cooking experience.  This familiarity with food is not just limited to restaurants; I also have extensive expertise in food product research and development, recipe writing, and boutique catering.  I’m going to create this website around how I cook at home, and I’m pretty darn good at it.