Americans are finally taking their food seriously, but too many kitchens remain woefully under equipped or poorly stocked. Here are 10 gift ideas for every budget and all levels of culinary expertise.

If you or someone you love drinks seltzer on a regular basis, there is no reason not to own a Sodastream. With the push of a button you can carbonate tap water in the privacy of your own home—no more lugging bottles from the store, and no more recycling. You can make your own soda, you can even revive flat soda or beer—heck, you can probably make fizzy milk if you want. Prices start at $79.95.

Did we as a people go a little overboard with the bacon worship? Yeah, bacon vodka was probably a bridge too far, but the fact remains that bacon is delicious, and you'd be hard pressed to find any better than Benton's Smoked Country Bacon. You can find it most some of America's best restaurants, or you can have it shipped right to your door.

What is it that makes bacon so delicious? Salt and smoke. Now you can finish your best dishes with smoked salt. The Meadow Smoked Salt Set includes six different flavors and retails for $44. Remember, everything needs salt except for coffee and salt.

Everybody loves paella, nobody makes it—why? You can buy everything you need in one handy paella kit, including rice, a pan, saffron and a cookbook. And once you get comfortable making it in the oven, try making it on the grill. Gwyenth Paltrow gave a shout out to the La Tienda Deluxe Paella Kit Wiwith Paella Cookbook ($158) on her PBS show, "Spain...On the Road Again," though you can find one to suit all price ranges.

Too many people are wrestling with spatulas made with a lousy angle or a too-thick blade. A proper fish spatula is perfect for, well, fish, as well as just about anything else. Williams-Sonoma makes a good one for just $15.

Want to make bacon, eggs and home fries in one pan? Fire up four grilled cheese sandwiches at once? A cast iron reversible grill/griddle sits atop two stove burners and gives you a gloriously wide open cooking surface that's easy to clean. Lodge makes some of the best affordable cast iron cookware, with griddles in three sizes.

Deb Perelman started out as a humble blogger at SmittenKitchen.com, chronicling her culinary exploits from the confines of her Manhattan apartment, eventually being named Saveur's “Best Cooking Blog of 2011” award. Now comes The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, featuring 105 recipes and more than 300 photos by Perelman herself.

For years turkey fryers have been firebombs waiting to happen, but the relentless march of technology has made turkey frying so safe you can now do it indoors. Boiling just about anything in fat makes it better, and insanely moist turkey can be just an hour away. The Masterbuilt Butterball Professional Series Indoor Electric Turkey Fryer was featured in Consumer Reports as one of the best prodcuts of 2010, and comes in two sizes starting at about $100.

If the gourmand in your life dismisses the turkey fryer as too pedestrian, there's a lot of great things that can be done with a sous vide machine. They're a little expensive, starting at around $300, and take up quite bit of room, but they've become an essential piece of equipment in cutting-edge restaurants around the world.

And there are few sources for sous vide guidance better than "Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking," a passion project from Nathan Myhrvold, a physicist and former CTO at Microsoft. Weighing in at 52 pounds, the book has 2,438 pages detailing 1,522 recipes and featuring some of the most stunning food photography ever. A lot of people were put off by the price when it came out last year, but you can now pick up a used copy for about $500.

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