A February Letter from the Editor-in-Chief

Dear readers, hello! Hello, hello, hello. It has been a long time since we spoke directly and a lot has changed at Kitchn. So starting now — right now! — I am going to write you a note every month about what’s happening at Kitchn, what’s cooking in my own kitchen, and see how we can do even more for you in your daily struggle and joy of eating well.

Kitchn from day one has always been about that mix of joy and struggle; cooking is a necessary delight, often creative and fun, but it can also feel like a chore, especially when you have others to provide for. How do you figure out your own system for nourishing yourself and your family with all the resources available to us — shopping, cooking, meal kits, takeout, and restaurants — one that suits your own personal matrix of health, budget, and time?

I am right with you in this, as I am a home cook like you, living in a mid-sized city (Columbus, Ohio) and figuring out how to balance food, life, kids, and work.

Over the past ten years my own cooking life has changed quite a lot. I started out as a food-curious twenty-something single with all the time in the world to learn Malaysian curries from scratch, attempt dosa and lemon pickle, cook weekly out of restaurant cookbooks like Zuni, host over-ambitious dinner parties, and improve my tiny rental kitchen.

Then this delightful hobby turned into a full-fledged job, when I came on board as an editor at Kitchn over ten years ago, to the point that I have now developed at least a thousand recipes here on the site, and across three cookbooks. Cooking was life; my grocery check-out clerk knew me by name.

But then after a long battle with infertility and a giant home-renovation project I am now in a very different phase of life: one that begins and ends with my three-year-old and one-year-old daughters. Cooking and recipe development are no longer hobbies or even an everyday part of my job; food in my household right now revolves around rejoicing that my toddler ate something more than a peanut butter sandwich, and coaxing the baby to maybe leave food on the table and not on the floor.

It’s a blast, and the most fun I’ve ever had, but food is now more about nourishing these two little pasta-slingers than it is about satisfying my own creative itch. I use grocery delivery and curbside pickup, and the farmers market is where my husband goes on the weekend with the toddler so I can sleep in on Saturday. (May he be forever blessed!) I still love cooking; on the rare weekend I get to do something ambitious, like Julia’s coq au vin which I made on Saturday, I relish it like never before. But life has taken precedence over food.

I know that many of you our readers are somewhere in the midst of this. We’re committed to helping you find food inspiration and ideas that delight you but also make sense for the life you’re living. We’re so committed to that, in fact, it’s our new tagline, which you will see splashed out throughout the site soon:

Food you love for the life you live.

We serve a really diverse and broad crowd (did you know that every month there are over 20 million of you, dear Kitchn readers?) and it is an amazing privilege for us to dream and work for you. We work super hard every month to figure out what our readers want more of (Instant Pot, hello!) and what might delight you.

There’s so much to talk about but let me keep it short and sweet since I’ve written a lot already. (I’m a blogger at heart; what can I say?!)

This month we have our usual feast of home kitchen-tested recipes and good ideas for you (we publish more new recipes every week than we ever have in Kitchn’s history) and we also have a big feature I’m so excited about: Around the World in 30 Soups. We’ve partnered with a diverse group of cookbook authors and cooks to take you on a trip around the world in your soup bowl. These recipes are publishing every day, and look for a fun interactive map with all the soups a little later this month. Cold weather demands soup; why not learn a new one? We also will give you all you need to have the most luxurious Valentine’s Day at home with a classic steakhouse dinner and sweet desserts.

We also will be turning back to you our readers more and more to ask you to share your own good ideas and questions and grocery finds. Because we’re here for you and for your own genius ideas and wins in the food you love and the life you live.

Happy February, and read on for a few more housekeeping details and notes on what’s happening on Kitchn right now.

In case you haven’t noticed the tell-tale signs, Kitchn is deep in a year-long renovation of our back-end tools and front-end design. Like any renovation, things get a little messy in the middle, but we’re listening to all the emails you send our way and please know that we have incredible new tools and experiences for you in the near future, including what we expect to be a better recipe experience overall for your phone.

Also…

• Recipe and post saving: Our saved post functionality is on hiatus briefly but should be back within the month. Anything you saved is still there!
• Recipe print formatting: This is also on hiatus as we work out the kinks of new design but we expect to restore it (or something even better) within the quarter.
• Comment system: We switched to a new comment system in the past few months and it has some new bells and whistles that are pretty great. Look for more from us this month on our community and comments in general
• New post layout and front page: We are growing into a new back-end tool system of how we lay out pages and especially our front page. Assume all that you see right now is a little bit temporary. We are still moving the furniture around!

As always with these letters, feel free to shout out in comments if you have questions, deep desires for things to see on Kitchn, or just want to say hi. Hearing from you is pretty much the best thing about my job.

Warmly,

Faith Durand

Editor-in-Chief, Kitchn

Also read a letter from our founder today on a bigger picture look at what’s happening at Kitchn and Apartment Therapy this year:

Letter from the Founder, Maxwell Ryan