Twenty years ago, I started this website because I wanted a place to share recipes I was excited about, as it’s practically coded into my DNA to be an unfettered yap about the things I love. [ This is me. ] The larger context was that upon reaching so-called adulthood, I’d found that while I knew how to cook, there were still so many things I hadn’t figured out, such as: how to turn a can of tomat

If you’re one of those people who gets irritated by the specter of pumpkin spice — or, gasp, Halloween decor — on an 85-degree week in September; if you understand that there are what will feel like infinite months left to spend shivering and longing for stew, and there’s no reason to beckon them any sooner; if you find yourself gritting out “but there’s another week of summer!” at your screen whe

A friend asked me last week how long it takes to get a recipe right. I told him the only answer I know: As long as it takes. I’d like to be someone who could “adjust my expectations,” make peace with “close enough,” or have the slightest amount of chill when it’s clear that whatever I’m trying to do isn’t something I can pull off, but we’re wired how we’re wired. Read more »

It is an error that needs correcting that in the near-20 years of plugging recipes into this url, only a few truly star cucumbers — and highly unrepresentative too, given that we are probably eating some format of cucumbers at half the nights of the week with dinner, and snacking on them throughout all of the other days. Crunchy, cold, hydrating, inexpensive, and taking well to any region of ingre

Do you ever look around at the ingredients available to you, the energy you have to give to the cooking process — or, as I recently explained to a medium-sized child shortly before I got uninvited from future family events, the amount of fudge you have left to give from your, uh, bucket of fudge — and decided to boil spaghetti, toss it with garlicky olive oil, and call it dinner? Read more »

I realize as far as recipes go, suggesting one needs one for lemonade is questionable. What’s next, a set of detailed instructions for salted water, simple syrup, or buttered noodles? ( Whoops! ) But it turns out I have opinions on everything and there’s no time like the n th heat wave of the summer to share what I consider the correct, best formula for lemonade and it is — who could have ever see

In something I never expected to have to clarify, this is a hot dog recipe but it is not a recipe for hot dogs. I know that I have a history of making foods from scratch that most sane people do not feel the need to — cream cheese , fig newtons , bagels , vanilla extract , and [coming soon] almond extract too — but I do still leave “ grinding meat with spices, salt, and curing agents into a smooth

In 2007, when this website was still in its infancy, I shared a recipe for a layered strawberry chiffon shortcake . I’d never made a chiffon cake before, but I brought it to a friend’s rooftop birthday BBQ, correctly assuming that no one would be unhappy with a towering, featherweight cake sandwiched with whipped cream and fresh strawberries, however inexpertly made. Read more »

One of my most exasperating traits — or, perhaps one that makes me ideally suited for this space I invented, coincidentally, to suit my collection of traits — is that I have a terrific amount of random ingredient preparation ideas in the overflowing file cabinet of my brain that will spill into conversations the second I hear the triggering keyword. Read more »

I’m not sure if this is a sign of hitting a certain age — like a sudden interest in bird feeders (check, and please tell me about yours), or beekeeping (well, in the TikTok sense, not sorry ), and animated conversations on the best pillows (I hate mine) — but I’ve found over the last year that I have very strong opinions on chicken salad and the correct way to make it, which, naturally, is my way.