Claire Lower

I consider myself a champion of processed cheese. Velveeta, Kraft Singles, and the like may not belong on a cheese board, but they have their places, usually in a Crockpot of queso dip, in a grilled cheese sandwich, or on a burger. They are engineered to melt and stay gooey and stretchy, something you don’t get with a melted block of aged cheddar. These processed beauties owe their texture to melting salts—namely, sodium citrate. If you’re startled by IUPAC-sounding ingredients, take a breath.…

Customization is cool, at least on TikTok. I’m old enough to remember a time when ordering In-N-Out fries “animal style” was a fast food in-crowd signifier of sorts. But now TikTok has ushered in a new, entirely unhinged “hack the menu” culture. Some of these “hacks” are harmless, if not really hacks—like smashing McDonald’s ice cream cones, cookies, and pies into a melted mess—but others are downright rude. The people who work service industry jobs are simply not paid enough to deal with this…

After years of threatening to do so, I have finally joined the Costco community. I did it mostly for the reasonably priced dog food and Diet Coke, but I would be lying if I said the prospect of $5 rotisserie chickens had nothing to do with my decision. I love that chicken, and always have. I get four meals out of that thing—five if you count the leg I eat the moment I get to my car, and six if you count the stock I make with its carcass. I make the stock in the microwave, and it is delicious.…

Hello, and welcome to The Grown-up Kitchen. While Allie and I usually focus on helping people cook better, smarter, and faster through tips, tricks, and (of course) hacks, we’re getting back to basics here, and giving true culinary beginners the attention they deserve. When I say “basics,” I mean it. You won’t find a single recipe, but you will find advice on picking the pots, pans, knives, spatulas, cooking fats, and seasonings most recipes require. Not every kitchen needs every kitchen tool,…

Salt and (good) pepper can get you pretty far in your cooking, but true grown-up cooks use an arsenal of herbs and spices to flavor their meals. How you stock your spice cabinet will depend on the type of cuisine you want to enjoy—a “basic” Anglo spice cabinet is quite different from an East Asian one—but knowing how to use herbs, whether dry or fresh, will make you a better, more versatile cook. These ratios work for most herbs In most cases, a tablespoon of fresh herbs packs the same amount…

Cooking without fat is doable, but not fun. Not only does fat equal flavor, it promotes browning, helps seasonings cling, and keeps food from sticking to the pan. There is an overwhelming number of cooking fats on the market, but the average kitchen doesn’t need all that many. You need two, maybe three, cooking oils in your kitchen: Something all-purpose, but flavorful, like olive oil; something neutral that can withstand high-temperatures, like vegetable oil, and you’ll probably want some butt…

The Northern Hemisphere is going into soup mode right now, but soup itself has (at least) two modes: brothy, with stuff bopping around in it, and blended, with the ingredients pulverized into creamy oblivion. Both have the power to warm from within, but pureed soups pack tons of flavor into a single spoonful—and you can pack even more in with caramelized onions. Caramelized onions in soup are nothing new—hello, French onion—but this recipe from Food52 was the first time I can recall seeing them…

For whatever reason, I hate-follow a bunch of keto-focused influencer accounts on Instagram. They’ll lure me in with a bunch of meat, then hit me with a bell-pepper-as-bread “sandwich,” a monstrosity I have been familiar with since the Weight Watching days of my very early 20s. They’re also obsessed with microwaveable, crustless “pumpkin pies,” which inevitably contain too many eggs and spoonfuls of sugar-free sweetener. Those desserts taste bad, but this single-serving crustless pumpkin pie tas…

Thanksgiving dinner is not complete without stuffing (or dressing). It’s a humble, somewhat silly dish. You dry out some bread, make it wet again, then dry it out one more time, but the result is undeniably delicious—assuming the broth you used is, itself, delicious. For the best stuffing, you should focus on the stock. While you can jazz up stuffing and dressing with sausage, oysters, and all sorts of alliums, stock is the only ingredient that permeates the entire dish. If your stock is bland,…

There is only one Thanksgiving dish that cannot be made vegan: the turkey. The rest are surprisingly easy to modify, and mashed potatoes are the easiest. Non-vegans are always reticent to sacrifice dairy, but if you choose the right spud for your mash (and grab one of those fancy new margarines), you’ll find you don’t need cream to make creamy mashed potatoes. How to pick the right potato for your vegan mash The “right” spud is a Yukon Gold, or other yellow or gold potato with a similar starc…