Annaliese Griffin

José Andrés, the chef, author, and activist, was nominated this week for a Nobel Peace Prize for feeding the victims of natural disasters around the world. His work is significant because he hasn’t just brought food to disaster-stricken communities, but has left the food systems in many places stronger than they were before catastrophe struck. Andrés uses food as a starting point to strengthen vulnerable communities.

If you’ve been looking through Black Friday sales and wondering whether your countertop needs an air fryer the answer is: maybe. These buzzy mini-convection ovens are actually incredibly useful for certain types of cooks.

“Not all cuisines share the same affinity for acid,” says Samin Nosrat on her show Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. “I realized this in college when I went to my very first Thanksgiving dinner. I loved the turkey and stuffing, but there was hardly anything acidic to cut through the richness of all the food. So I kept spooning cranberry sauce over everything.”

There’s something that feels so civilized about making yourself a cocktail to enjoy at home.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, because it’s an invitation to spend a couple of days cooking, eating, and relaxing with my favorite people. To be honest though, there are a lot of dishes I’d rather cook and eat than a turkey.

Gravy is magic. It’s an alchemy created by combining three great things: the deep flavors produced by the Maillard reaction, the richness of animal fat, and the velvet texture that comes from a roux. But for such a simple pleasure, it’s not easy to make well. Indeed, alongside pie crust, it’s one of the more technical elements of making Thanksgiving.

Opening your refrigerator the day after Thanksgiving can be an utter joy or an abject misery.

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Among Serious Wine Drinkers in the US, Beaujolais Nouveau gets a bad rap. Yes, it’s young and fruity. No, it’s not a wine to sip next to a roaring fire, while searching your soul. It’s not meant to be.

In the world of squirrel researchers, Stephanie Preston, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, is a bit of a legend. “She’s the one that actually discovered the head flick and it was first to document it,” says Mikel Delgado, a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California-Davis.

The internet has not always been kind to Axl Rose. Right now, though, he’s winning Twitter.

If you live in the northern hemisphere, you probably don’t need to be reminded: Winter is nigh.

As a parent, and an eater, I am not about hiding vegetables in brownies.

Preheat the oven and whip up your favorite biscuits. On Friday (Nov. 9) a new season of The Great British Baking Show arrives on Netflix in all its merengue-topped, ganache-finished glory. Actually, make it a double batch—last weekend the streaming service added The Great British Baking Show—The Beginnings, a season that aired in the UK in 2012, with the original presenters, Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins, and of course judge Mary Berry.

Most of today’s buzzy kitchen gadgets are best for project cooking or feeding a crowd. Instant Pots turn out vats of butter chicken; stand mixers are great for whipping up a couple dozen cookies; sous vide wands will set you up with a rack of steaks to finish on the barbecue.

I bought too much Halloween candy this year. After wondering whether I could repurpose it in some way, I finally settled on the perfect leftover Halloween candy hack: I threw it all away.

The mealy fruit approximation that the Red Delicious apple has become is not solely the product of industry, working diligently to push flavor out and breed profitability in to our food. Human instinct bears some responsibility for the apple’s blandness as well.

Donald Trump has weirdly OK taste in music.

If listening to other people chew, or even thinking about mouth noises that aren’t words grosses you out, you should probably stop reading right now.

Just hours after a mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, the Pharrell Williams song “Happy” was played at a Donald Trump political rally in Indiana. The songwriter says he did not authorize use of the song and a cease-and-desist letter sent by the musician’s lawyer, Howard King, outlined the specific horror the musician felt given the context.

Humans and chocolate have serious history.

In the pantheon of flavor, sour is probably the most perpetually underutilized building block to deliciousness, at least in Western kitchens. It’s often what makes the difference been an OK meal and a great one: Good cooks speak of “lightening up” a rich savory dish with a squeeze of lemon or spritz of vinegar, and tartness is often the missing element in overly sweet desserts.

Not every winner wants a chicken dinner: A growing number of diners are eschewing meat for environmental, health, and moral reasons, at least some of the time. While the number of vegetarians has remained relatively stable in the US over the past two decades, sales of vegan products have soared.

It’s shocking, really, that nobody has given the red squirrel a reality show. These fierce, food-hoarding rodents are all about high drama. They pick on tiny chipmunks; chase much larger gray squirrels; and dive-bomb one another to protect their seed stashes. They’re also ridiculously cute.