Quick Takes With: Ella Quittner

You’ve probably seen Ella’s buzzy new book, Obsessed with the Best, on prominent display in bookstores and around the cooler corners of the Internet. But did you know she first started writing for Remodelista? (It’s true.)

We’re happy to have that small claim to her fame, especially now that Ella’s cookbook is flying off shelves. The book is the result of her meticulous quest to find the best of the best (“why am I like this?”, she asks on the cover), putting 100 recipes to 24 rigorous head-to-head tests. Elsewhere, she’s contributed to T Magazine, New York Magazine, The New Yorker, and many others…and hosts a darn good dinner party. Oh, and her Instagram is an absolute delight.

Today she writes in from NYC with her go-to cooking tools and what she’s bringing to dinner—all the best of the best.

Photography by Graydon Herriott.

You’re invited to dinner. What’s your go-to gift?

Joyce Chen scissors and a bouquet of bodega flowers

What’s on your bedside table?

Eight novels, of which I’ve read a total of like 100 pages; a mug of coffee

What’s your desert island design/art/architecture-related book?

Betty Crocker’s New Picture Cookbook (1961)

What’s a film or TV show whose aesthetic has stuck with you?

The Lobster

What has been your best house upgrade?

Getting a dog. My entire adult life, I’ve thought that maybe the perfect lamp, or the most beautiful rug, or the silver-plated vintage candelabras I’ve collected would make me finally feel at home wherever I lived, but it turned out to be a Shih Tzu named Mouse, who leaves his toys and bones all over those rugs, and whom I could spend hours laying next to on the black parquet floors I never liked.

Your design pet peeve?

Books organized by jacket color

My go-to kitchen utensil is…

Offset spatula, bench scraper, food processor, Kitchenaid stand mixer

What item from your closet do you have on repeat?

Various oversized blazers, a Kallmeyer striped long-sleeved tee-shirt, linen drawstring pants

Favorite design shop to visit?

Nickey Kehoe on 10th Street

What is the last thing you purchased for your house?

Lightbulbs

Something you’re coveting?

Wallpaper!

I don’t leave the house without…

My glasses.