Home Cooking.(The Good Life; KITCHENS)

Byline: Tara Weingarten

When it comes to cooking, good equipment can make even the feeblest of talents great. I learned this six years ago when I bought a fancy gas range with burners spewing heat like some kind of wild Hawaiian volcano. Wanting to replicate an incredible scallop dish I ate at a restaurant, I poured a spot of oil into a saute pan and lit the flame. Shazam. There was the perfect scallop: caramelized on the outside, toothsome yet tender on the inside. But it wasn't me; it was the appliance. I knew this because my scallops, sauteed so many times before on my old range, usually attained the consistency of a rubber eraser.

That culinary turning point led me to pursue the answers to other cooking mysteries. Are all knives created equal? Does the pot really matter? Which gadgets are truly indispensable? With so many shiny new products out there, I wanted to find out which were worth the price tag.

Among my most alarming findings: my 6-year-old gas range might soon be reduced to a quaint relic, courtesy of new lightning-quick induction cooktops. Using a magnetic field to heat cookware through a ceramic surface, induction burners can boil an inch of water in less than a minute. They're almost twice as efficient as gas, allowing kitchens to stay cooler. Viking has introduced the first all-induction range, available only in the 30-inch size with four burners. The stainless-steel model retails for $6,250, but 23 custom colors, including apple red, can be ordered for $250 extra (vikingrange.com).