The only oils I use these days are groundnut oil for really hot frying, everyday extra virgin olive oil such as Napolina for general cookery and a top-quality extra virgin olive oil for salad dressing and sprinkling on a finished pasta dish or pizza (a bottle lasts for ages). For certain dishes it has to be butter, for example in risottos, and for frying eggs it's butter for me every time. There are some shortcuts I simply don't take. I don't use tomato or garlic purée. The only dried herb I will ever use is oregano. If a recipe calls for lemon juice, it comes out of a real lemon, never a bottle, and cheap watery balsamic vinegar has no place in my house. An expensive bottle of that lovely, thick balsamic lasts for ages, and it's great for mixing with olive oil as a salad dressing or to dip your bread into (which they never do in Italy) or sprinkling on a bowl of strawberries, though round here it has to compete with good old Cornish clotted cream.