At this very moment, seasonal bakers around the world are bookmarking cookie recipes, tracking down special ingredients, and panicking when they realize they forgot to leave the butter out to soften. Welcome to cookie swap season.

Every single year since 1912, the United States Postal Service has been doing their part to give kids all across the country the best Christmas ever. In 2017, Operation Santa went digital, testing out an online system in New York City—and it was so wildly successful that this season, they’ve expanded the program to…

Make-ahead entrées are a godsend during holiday entertaining season, but for some reason, it’s not the default technique for special-occasion meals. It really should be: not only is a day-old hearty braise easier on the host, but it actually tastes better than it does fresh from the oven.

When you’re staring down the barrel of days-old Thanksgiving leftovers, it’s almost impossible to summon up the creativity to do something, anything, besides shovel them into your mouth in front of an open fridge. There’s no shame in the fridge-shovel game, but breathing new life into the last dregs of your feast is…

Choreographing a lavish meal is a high-pressure project to say the least, and when you’re juggling a dozen-odd dishes, every square inch of stove and oven space is precious real estate. A microwave oven can streamline even the most ambitious prep schedule, as long as you make good choices—some foods just aren’t meant…

After a long day of eating mountains of gravy-drenched carbs, a little brightness is a welcome sight indeed. Sadly, Thanksgiving dessert is usually anything but light and refreshing; it’s another carb parade, with whipped cream standing in for gravy.

Most turkey prep is designed to compensate for its lack of fat, and therefore, flavor. Dry brining is the best way to season your bird from the inside out, but for the juiciest, most delicious meat, you’ve gotta add some fat—and there’s no better fat than butter.

Great news for people who hate doing dishes: if you have a dishwasher, washing your dishes by hand is a colossal waste of water, energy, time, and money, and you can prove it with math.

Baked custards are everywhere on the Thanksgiving dessert table. Apart from apple pie, just about every other holiday classic calls for baking a sugar-and-egg slurry until perfectly set. It seems simple enough, but custard pies are notoriously tricky—especially when canned pumpkin gets involved.

Cooking a perfect Thanksgiving turkey is a pretty tall order, and every cook has their own tricks for crispy skin and juicy meat. However you wrangle your bird this year, there’s one universal turkey truth that’ll save you time and effort: Trussing is a scam.

Buying a vegan holiday roast is very much like playing Seitan Roulette. A classic Tofurky log is inoffensive at best, but the various competitors that pop up in Whole Foods this time of year ping-pong between “legitimately tasty” and “old boots with a whiff of sage.” If you’re sick of the usual faux-meat options, I…

Blind baking pie crusts should be so simple: line crimped, chilled pastry with parchment or foil, fill with dried beans to weigh it down, and bake until crisp. This works out okay most of the time, but for truly crisp crusts with no puffy spots, reach for the sugar.

Thanksgiving menus aren’t exactly cradles of innovation. Some people refuse to mess with tradition, and tweaking the classics can be a real gamble—especially when it comes to pie. But if you’re sick of the same old pumpkin and pecan, slip in a little miso paste and watch as hardline traditionalists and radical pie…

Happy weekend, everyone, and welcome back to 3-Ingredient Happy Hour, the weekly drink column featuring super simple yet delicious libations. Claire is busily filming exciting Thanksgiving video content, so this week is a guest post—written by me, A.A. Newton—dedicated to a true classic: the Negroni.

In my book, no food is truly ugly. The difference between gorgeous, magazine-spread ready food photography and Martha Stewart’s forays into the genre is a food stylist and professional lighting. Still, even I have to admit that some dishes are natural lookers.

I develop recipes for a living, which means my stovetop is basically always a disaster. Cleaning sucks, and even though I know it creates more work in the long run, I’ll find any excuse to avoid wiping oil spatters off my stove.

If I could only own one electric kitchen gadget, it would be an immersion blender. Mine sees near-constant use, making short work of everything from mayonnaise to lemon curd; it’s never met a lump it couldn’t smooth out. Still, I’d never have guessed that this trusty machine would solve my cacio e pepe woes for good.

Canada just became the second country in the world to legalize recreational cannabis on a federal level. Implementing a national cannabis system in a huge country with distinct provincial governments is, at best, an intricate, fraught, high-stakes project—and the resulting rollout has been about as complicated as…

Large portions of the southeastern United States are preparing for Hurricane Michael, which will make landfall tomorrow morning. The storm has been steadily gaining momentum as it nears the Florida Gulf Coast, and is predicted to reach category 3 strength by the time it hits.

Thanksgiving Planning Season is officially upon is, and when you’re coordinating a huge meal, every little bit of advance prep counts. I wouldn’t start brining that turkey just yet, but it’s never too early to stock your freezer with pie dough.