Seconding (or whatevering) all the votes for peppermint and rooibus teas. I actually make rooibus chai with whole cardamom, cinnamon, and ginger; it's different than black tea, but still pretty good. If you want caffeine, black tea with milk is tasty.
I'm not a gadgety cook, though I do really, really like having a rice cooker--it saves a lot of hassle. Apart from that, nice sharp knives and whatever counts as staples for your diet--for us, that's brown rice, an assortment of beans and lentils, my most-used spices (cumin, oregano, dried chiles, chili powder, chaat masala, black mustard seed), and olive oil--that's probably half the ingredients of half our meals right there.
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Date: 2010-04-01 01:32 pm (UTC)I'm not a gadgety cook, though I do really, really like having a rice cooker--it saves a lot of hassle. Apart from that, nice sharp knives and whatever counts as staples for your diet--for us, that's brown rice, an assortment of beans and lentils, my most-used spices (cumin, oregano, dried chiles, chili powder, chaat masala, black mustard seed), and olive oil--that's probably half the ingredients of half our meals right there.