Noodles don’t need a lot of stove time to taste good, which is why they’re a no-fail summer standby. As much as I love cold peanut noodles, sometimes I crave a bowl of silky-sauced pasta laden with vegetables and cheese—without spending an hour simmering that sauce.
Well-seasoned water is the foundation of every delicious pasta dish. These days, you’d be hard-pressed to find a pasta recipe that doesn’t instruct you to salt the cooking water, but beyond vaguely invoking the sea, few of them bother to tell you how much salt is enough.
When was the last time autocorrect made your life easier? Reach back in your memory and try to conjure up a time that autocorrect really nailed it. I know we only notice technology when it’s not working, but if you can’t think of one, it’s time to accept that autocorrect is bad.
There are few things better than a summer dinner party and few things worse than cooking for one. Sweating over a red-hot grill in August heat as your guests get steadily drunker and hungrier makes for a truly unpleasant hosting experience.
The almighty recommendation algorithm works in mysterious ways, and not always for the best. If your Netflix homepage has become an echo chamber, a little change in perspective could help you find your new favorite movie.
What I’m about to say may upset you, and if that’s the case, I sincerely apologize. I think beef is just okay.
Few skin conditions torpedo self-esteem the way acne does. As it turns out, a face full of painful lesions—not to mention unsolicited, tone-deaf advice from family and strangers alike—has a way of driving people into hiding. Throw in a whole internet’s worth of unverified anecdotes about banishing acne for good and…
Spending your money on ripe sour cherries is a serious commitment. For me, the promise of cherry pie doesn’t outweigh the pressure to pit and/or freeze several pounds of very expensive fruit before it turns to soup, which happens seemingly overnight—but apparently, the promise of a marinated beet salad sure does.
If you’ve used birth control pills for any length of time, you may have been told to take it at the exact same time every day to ensure effectiveness. Maintaining a consistent pill schedule at home is as easy as setting an alarm on your phone—but what happens when you travel across several time zones?
Anyone who’s ever put their wallet through the washing machine has wondered what to do with a ruined wad of cash. Your local bank can replace a few torn bills, but if your emergency cash has been petrified, burned to a crisp, partially digested, or otherwise severely damaged, you’ll need to call in the professionals.
Summertime is, to me, synonymous with spicy peanut noodles, which I’ve been making every summer since I was allowed to cook pasta by myself. I love them so much that they almost make suffering through vicious, swampy heat and humidity feel worthwhile. Almost.
It’s that magical time of year again, folks: school’s out, the ice cream truck’s back, and temperatures are once again climbing to levels most accurately described as “dangerous” and “oppressive.” What a time to be alive.
If you’ve ever suffered gastrointestinal distress after a summer barbecue, it might not have been the potato salad—it might have been someone’s terrible food safety practices. Specifically, they probably didn’t wash their hands.
Wasteful packaging is an inescapable part of drawing breath in a capitalist society but, for a variety of reasons, most people can’t alter their food choices based solely on the materials that contain it. This is why I reuse food packaging whenever I can: sure, it cuts down on waste, but I also get to stock up on…
Stocking up on staples is a great way to stretch a budget and minimize waste, so a good chest freezer is a boon to the budget-minded home cook. Sadly, common misconceptions about their energy usage and footprint size discourage the folks who would benefit the most from a chest freezer—apartment-dwellers with decrepit,…
We’ve all stared down a sad, empty fridge at too-late-for-a-grocery-run-o’clock on a weeknight, willing some higher power to magically replenish the shelves while our eyes are closed.
No matter how many flawless custards or mirror glazes you’ve made in your life, some culinary techniques just seem to invite disaster, especially those that hinge on precise temperature control. If you need to evenly heat a delicate substance to a precise temperature, the microwave might seem like a horrible…
Rhubarb rarely gets a starring role in desserts, with most recipes relying on strawberries to temper its raw, unpleasant sourness. This classic pairing, while tasty, makes very little sense to me. Rhubarb shines when gently cooked, but a hot oven destroys everything that’s special about a ripe strawberry—so why do we…
It’s almost Memorial Day weekend, and you know what that means: somebody is going to bring a bowl of terrible coleslaw to your home, and you’re going to have to pretend you like it.
If you’re chasing a perfect sear, mushrooms are a huge pain to deal with. Whether or not you rinse them, slicing and chopping alone releases enough of their natural moisture that even previously bone-dry mushrooms can turn soggy before they hit the pan—and that simply won’t do.
