Personal History

"Having a clean home, and especially a clean kitchen, wasn’t about being the perfect mother, wife, or even hostess. It was about maintaining peace and order for when the outside world brought in chaos."

"Our total grocery spend was 50.2 percent higher than in 2019."

I wouldn’t change my greasy childhood for anything — not even a vacation to Disney World every year.

I’ll have more time to cook (and eat!) a special meal than I’ve had in a decade, even if I’m only officially cooking for two.

"The look on her face when her grandson tells her where the skillet came from and how it was restored will fill your cup right up to overflowing."

Sweet potato pie is a classic Thanksgiving dish, and for one writer it helped reshape a complicated relationship with the South.

It’s the sort of cooking tip that is sometimes frowned upon amid today’s predominant fresh-is-best philosophy.

"Now at the end of each day, my moody preteen is nowhere to be found. Instead, a 12-year old boy towers over me, wielding a clean drying towel and a grin."

Number one? Question *everything.*

"The job I did, day in and out, was too much for any one person to handle, even with 'help.'"

"While the whirring of numbers in my brain can be exhausting, it's also the familiar hum that accompanies me every time I step into the kitchen."

It's just a little shift in mentality.

Like queerness, love lies at the core of these potatoes.

"When a panic attack strikes, I’m constantly seeking shelter; sometimes I’ll pace my house, looking for a place where the air isn’t so thin."

Before my diagnosis, I had never experienced what can happen when the energetic power of a collection of lovely people, a vibrant community, focuses its love.

At the end of last year, as the Thanksgiving holiday was getting closer, I felt myself drifting away. Everything was cloudy and bleak. I couldn’t focus at work. I didn’t feel much like reading any of the books that sat waiting for me in a tall pile on my coffee table, or binge-watching any of the shows I’d been meaning to see. I couldn’t muster up enough energy to get dressed for the gym or a yoga class (yet alone get out of bed before 10 a.m.

When I first heard about grocery delivery services, I laughed. I wondered How fancy do you need to be to get your groceries delivered? Talk about lifestyles of the rich and famous! I did my grocery shopping on the weekends or after work. I thought everybody did. That was before my life changed. I gave up my car and moved further away from the store. I also started a new career as a freelance writer. It was a large pay cut and I needed to count every single penny.

I was a teenager when the 100-calorie snack pack trend took off around 2006. I was working as a cashier at Wegmans, and I watched as more and more customers (mostly women) loaded the 100-calorie boxes into their carts and onto my conveyer belts. The boxes were filled with small, colorful packets with familiar brand-name snacks like Oreos, Wheat Thins, and Doritos.

There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just gonna say it: I’m no longer going to take my parents out to my favorite restaurants. We will still go out to eat when they come to visit (or better yet, maybe I’ll just cook for us at home!), but I’m going to stop putting so much effort into picking out the cutest, most Insta-worthy places with seasonal appetizers and entrées with the ingredient sources listed on the menu. Here’s why.

Almost every single recipe that New York Times columnist and Dining In cookbook author Alison Roman touches turns to viral Instagram gold. Remember these? The cookies that broke the internet? Her recipe for salted butter chocolate chunk shortbread cookies will forever go down in history as “The Cookies.” Seriously, if you search #TheCookies on Instagram, almost all of the 4,000 results reference her recipe (and considering the number of cookies out there, that’s no small feat).

A lot of my childhood memories revolve around going to the grocery store with my dad. And not just any grocery store — we always went to Rodman’s Discount Store. Established in 1955, and family-run (first by founder, Leonard Rodman, and then by his sons, Roy and Yale), Rodman’s has long been a Washington, D.C. landmark — and a uniquely peculiar retail spot.

I have to admit that I was very skeptical when I heard about Compartés’ super-trendy avocado toast chocolate bar. Salty and sweet? Great. Savory and sweet? Delicious. Avocado toast lodged in a chocolate bar? Nothing about this combination was making my mouth water. I was intrigued, but more in the way of I assume this will be terrible, so let me prove it. You see, I have a knee-jerk dislike for food trends. I can’t with charcoal.

They say it’s what’s on the inside that counts, but sometimes the packaging is just too beautiful to throw away. That’s what I was thinking when I was washing dishes in an Airbnb in Provence, France, a few years ago. A collection of glass yogurt pots sat by the sink, waiting to be rinsed and recycled, but I had already decided they’d be flying home with me instead.

The year: 1994. The scene: my elementary school lunchroom. The surroundings: kids with Lunchables. Cracker-and-cheese Lunchables, taco Lunchables, waffle Lunchables, and the Lunchables to end all Lunchables — the pizza Lunchables. For a scrawny 8-year-old girl, there’s a surprising amount of envy flowing through my body. That’s because my super-frugal parents don’t buy me Lunchables.

We might be living in a golden age of wellness, self-care, and body positivity, but it wasn’t that long ago that diet-related trends were the driving force behind food marketing. Anybody remember America’s obsession with 100-calorie snack packs? In 2004, Kraft launched a new line of 100-calorie packs of snacks like Oreo Thin Crisps and Wheat Thin Minis to appeal to consumers who were trying to lose weight.

When we came across this hack, in which soft tortillas are transformed into hard-shell tacos using nothing but a toaster, we were slightly skeptical. How on earth could just a few minutes of toasting make a floppy flour tortilla the same consistency as a Crunchwrap Supreme? The only way to prove the skeptics wrong was to test this trick out myself on my own turf, in my own toaster, on my own terms.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my relationship with plastic. Perhaps you have too, Because the problem with our plastic-filled world is a topic that has become impossible to ignore. First, there was that awful, horrible video about the turtle with a plastic straw in 2015 (watch at your own risk). This year there was the June 2018 National Geographic cover unveiled in May, with an arresting photo of a plastic shopping bag partially submerged in the ocean, giving the illusion of an iceberg.

When we asked Alison Roman, the mastermind behind Instagram’s favorite chocolate chip cookie, for her favorite cookie recipe, she dropped a pretty big truth bomb: “I don’t really like cookies that much.” Once we regrouped from a brief initial shock, Roman did admit that there is at least one other cookie recipe out there that she swears by: Dorie Greenspan’s Korova sable cookie. “I think it’s one of the best recipes out there. It’s just classic.

It finally happened — I am obsessed with my Instant Pot. In the past four days I’ve made six dishes in it, and I can’t stop. I’m about to pressure cook everything in the house that isn’t nailed down. I admit that I was a late adopter to the Instant Pot. I got one a few months ago and made rice and lentil soup. Honestly, it just wasn’t super exciting (dear reader, is lentil soup ever that exciting?).

It started with a tweet. Kate Hill, who ran Kitchen at Camont in Gascony, was taking applicants for a culinary writing residency at her 300-year-old farmhouse retreat in rural southwest France. She wanted someone to come stay in a little blue room, join in Camp Confit, and write their heart out. Sitting in my dim, windowless office where I worked on websites all day, something clicked in my mind. I had to do this. The only problem was that I was a vegetarian.

For the majority of my life, I’ve been able to avoid using cast iron products while cooking. Growing up, my mother refused to use them. “You have to constantly season it,” she said in a way that made the common cleaning process sound like an arduous, sinister ordeal. As an adult who cooks regularly, I fully understand where my mother’s sentiments came from.

I worked as a cashier at my hometown grocery store for years — on weekends when I was in high school, and during the summer when I was home from college. Over the years, I bagged my fair share of groceries, and was always impressed when a customer brought a particularly interesting reusable shopping bag. (First of all: Good job saving the planet! And second, love that you clearly put some thought into it!

I had a crush for several months before ever making a move. I’d scroll through the feeds of my favorite food bloggers, daydreaming of what the future could hold: stove-to-oven creations like eggplant Parm and mac and cheese, hearty breakfasts, cozy dinners, stories and recipes to share with the next generation. Then one day, my dreams came true. My crush entered my life, and at last I held a shiny and new (and shockingly heavy) 12-inch Lodge cast iron skillet in my hands.

I’ve always loved to cook, but for a long time I felt restrained by the rigidity of baking. To me, cooking allowed for more creativity and improvisation (and I could add extra garlic or hot sauce to almost everything without serious consequence).

“I want pleasure, I want flavor, and I want ease,” Nigella Lawson says in her mesmerizing, relaxing voice at the beginning of her TV show Nigella: At My Table. “Life can be complicated. Cooking doesn’t have to be.” That combination of indulgence and ease is the fantasy at the heart of Nigella’s show. Her world is a quiet sanctuary that seems like it exists outside of time.

I’ve heard claims that eliminating dairy can boost energy levels, help with digestion, and assist with weight management — all good things! So, naturally, I’ve been curious. While I didn’t have any particular health concerns, I’m always happy to try something out that will make me feel better. I consider myself a moderate dairy consumer. My mornings tend to be dairy-heavy (my usual is a cup of Greek yogurt and two homemade lattes made with whole milk).

I am not a morning person. At all. Most people know this about me — including my sister, who has felt my pre-caffeinated wrath on many occasions. As a result, she generously gifted me a cold brew coffee device this past Christmas. The gift has truly been life-changing. Or at least morning-changing! The gift? The BRUMI bottle, which I religiously use two different ways. Buy: Full Circle BRUMI Portable Coffee Brewer, $25 Before I go to bed, I set up my bottle to make cold brew.

More than 10 years ago, I gave my lifestyle a massive overhaul in attempts to be healthier. The biggest change? I decided to eat a diet full of vegetables, and without refined sugar or processed foods. Despite my lack of cooking skills, I quickly learned one key lesson: I just needed the right appliance in order to fall in love with all sorts of veggies. I had no idea how to cook.

You don’t have to be a frequent reader (although we wish you would be!) to know that we write about Costco a lot. Between the $1.50 hot dogs at the food court, the great private-label brand, and the super-discounted bulk pricing, we have a lot to say (and love!) about the warehouse store. The truth is, though, Costco isn’t for everyone. The biggest complaint we hear is that shoppers just can’t store or use up the mass quantities of food before it goes bad.

On the spectrum of picky eaters, I was the pickiest of picky pickers as a child. You’re talking to someone who used to refuse to eat the ends of hot dogs, hated the skins on apples, and basically survived entirely on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

I’ve spent the vast majority of my adult life living — and eating — alone. When I first moved into my own place, I dreamt of becoming a person who ate all her meals at the kitchen table. I dreamt of replacing screen time with a book during mealtime, meditating on each and every bite. And I’ve tried my best to evolve into this healthier idea of a person. But it just wasn’t meant for me.

For a few summers I worked as a camp counselor at sleep-away camp, which means in addition to pushing the limits of shower-less days, I also ate what the camp cook prepared — except on the weekends. On the weekends you had to fend for yourself while making the most of the ingredients they kept stocked in the kitchen.

Holidays are defined by their foods. When someone says they’re roasting a turkey, you’ll think instantly of Thanksgiving. Similarly, candy follows Halloween, and chocolate goes with Valentine’s Day. For those of us who were born into the traditions of Jewish holidays, knowing when we eat fried potato latkes and when we eat apples with honey and when we eat matzo comes just as naturally.

I can’t remember taking the trash out as a kid — not even once. Our kitchen trash bin just seemed to mysteriously empty itself out into the World Where Trash Goes every day. In reality, it was my dad and my brother taking out the trash, replete with kimchi juice and putrid Lunchables, to our larger waste containers in the side yard every night. I never even thought about it.

When’s the last time a recipe stopped you in your tracks? It’s been a long time for me. That might be in part because it’s the medium I work in most often and I’m finding myself a little fatigued, or maybe it’s because sometimes recipes — even though they help you get dinner on the table — feel starved of a story. A perplexing conundrum, given their very intention is to feed us — and often in ways beyond just the meal they provide.

Welcome to a column from The Financial Diet, one of our very favorite sites, dedicated to money and everything it touches. One of the best ways to take charge of your financial life is through food and cooking. After I graduated college and moved to New York City, buying most of my food out became my norm. I wasn’t getting myself into astronomical debt, but I certainly wasn’t budgeting. After paying off my credit card bill each month, I essentially had nothing left over.

I have a go-to recipe I affectionately call “third date scallops.” It’s a spin on my friend Neil’s well-heralded recipe for “third date shrimp.” The premise behind the recipe is this: Once you get to the third date with a new potential mate, one of you might offer to cook dinner. You don’t want a meal that’s too heavy or too involved, but you still need to impress. Seafood is good for this.

Five years ago I dodged a huge bullet. I had just moved to a new apartment in a new country and my cursor was hovering over a sofa on the IKEA website as I wondered, “Could we be ‘white couch’ people”? I was writing for Apartment Therapy and every day my eyes danced over images of clean, white sofas against clean, white walls punctuated by pops of color from bright pillows and bold, graphic art. Everything was so fresh and bright and clean.

Just when meal planning was the biggest pain on my plate, I made it exponentially more tedious. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t begrudge my happy, healthy doggos a bit, but when we started preparing food for the combined hundred-plus pounds of pups in our house, answering the eternal “What do we make for dinner tonight?” question became double the trouble.

Several years ago, we spent time with friends in their Italian country house. (Yes, this was easily the best summer ever.) My friends are generous and lovely people, so there was always a full house, and we did a lot of cooking, which required a lot of food. The house was isolated, and my family learned to be even more mindful of food waste and extra trash. The grocery store was quite a drive and excess trash resulted in fines for our gracious hosts.

It’s hard to imagine a feeling worse than watching someone you love suffer and not be able to help. When our cuddle-pup Truffle, a then-12-year-old fluffball Pomeranian, began slowing down early last year, my husband and I were worried, but attributed it to his age. Then he just stopped moving, period. My heart cracked in two the day I left him in the kitchen and came back 30 minutes later to find him in the same spot, sitting stock still.

The night I made the pork shoulder pasta was the night I lost the ability to brag about my iron stomach.

It’s 7 p.m. and I’m heading home after a particularly long day at the office. It was more stressful than usual; I skipped lunch to meet a deadline, my coworkers had a million questions for me, and my head is throbbing from a lack of energy. The thought of ordering takeout makes me feel nauseous — I don’t want to wait 40 minutes for a $20 salad, or a greasy carton of noodles.

The year was 2013. Hanukkah was upon us and people everywhere were losing their minds over the fact that the Festival of Lights would coincide with Thanksgiving for the first time since the 1800s. They called it Thanksgivukkah, and the Internet was abuzz with dishes that incorporated scrumptious traditions from both holidays: challah bread stuffing, cranberry applesauce, Manischewitz-brined turkey.

Every Wednesday morning at 6:15, my son and I pile into the Subaru for the slog north in Seattle traffic to his weekly vision therapy appointment. It’s fun for no one, but it’s something we have to do. Which is why around 6:23 on Wednesdays, when we’ve stopped sweating from the rush out the door, we reliably pull into our local Starbucks drive-thru and I order him a sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich and a boxed chocolate milk.

Last year I wrote about my mom’s favorite resource for finding simple, easy-to-follow recipes: The Fannie Farmer Cookbook. After going through her well-worn copy for the umpteenth time, I started thinking about how perfect so many of the recipes are for easy, weeknight baking. Whether you need a quick dessert for unexpected guests, or just want to satisfy 7 p.

A couple of years ago, I was obsessed with Downton Abbey, because a couple of years ago, we were all obsessed with Downton Abbey. Every Sunday night, I would watch reverently as Lady Mary was impeccably dressed by Anna Bates and Cora Crawley politely ate savory meals served on silver platters. Meanwhile, I’d be sitting cross-legged on my couch, wearing a worn-out Fleetwood Mac T-shirt and shoving Bagel Bites in my mouth like they’d just been banned by the government.

Up until very recently, I didn’t really know how to cook. It wasn’t because no one in my household cooked when I was growing up — my mother and grandmothers made various Turkish dishes year-round, some of which were incredibly complicated. It also wasn’t for lack of appreciation of good food (I’m thrilled to try any new restaurant in my neighborhood as soon as it opens). It was because I never really had to figure out how to cook for myself.

While you were popping Champagne corks on New Year’s Eve, I was popping cans — cans of Pillsbury Crescents, that is. There are few sounds so aurally satisfying as hearing that gentle explosion when the cardboard canister is cracked against the edge of a countertop, seams bursting to expose khaki-colored dough. And for me, there’s no better time to enjoy a crescent roll than on New Year’s Eve. I grew up on the poor end of the working class.

I’ve been thinking about my life a few years ago, when the worries were fewer and the tofu was plentiful. After eating at a slew of wonderful vegetable-centric restaurants in New York City recently, a wave a nostalgia for the vegetarian years of my life has risen to the surface. I’m thinking about the cookbooks that inspired me but also the recipes and meals I still make even though I now eat meat. Some food and flavors stick with you.