Cooking Guides
buying guide
Jar Size, Honestly: How Fast You Actually Cook Through a Spice
Bulk is cheaper per gram and worthless per gram you never use. Here's how to...
Read more
garlic
Garlic Powder vs Garlic Salt: The 3:1 Conversion, and Who Controls the Salt
One jar is a seasoning. The other is mostly salt with seasoning in it. The...
Read more
baking
Ground Ginger vs Fresh vs Crystallized: The Ratio Both Ways, and When Dried Wins
They share a name and almost nothing else. Here's how to trade one for another...
Read more
baking
Out of Cinnamon: Allspice, Nutmeg, Cardamom and Pumpkin Pie Spice, With Ratios
Four jars that can cover for cinnamon, the amounts that actually work, and the dishes...
Read more
dry rubs
Garlic Powder vs Fresh Garlic: The Ratio, and the Dishes Where It Doesn't Work
An eighth of a teaspoon per clove is the number. Knowing when that number is...
Read more
acidity
Acid Without Water: Sumac for Lemon Juice and Zest, and What the Ratio Costs You
A tablespoon of lemon juice is mostly water. Here's where that water wrecks the dish,...
Read more
conversions
Out of Thyme: What to Use Instead, and the Exact Ratio for Each
Marjoram is the closest. Oregano works if you back off. And the mixes all drag...
Read more
curry powder
Turmeric vs Curry Powder: One Root, One Blend, and When Swapping Breaks the Dish
They're both yellow. That is roughly where the similarity ends.
Read more
roasting
Seasoning Roasted Vegetables: What Goes In Before the Oven, and What Waits
Most sheet-pan seasoning fails for one of two reasons: something burned that should have gone...
Read more
beginner cooking
The First Ten Spices, Ranked by How Often You'll Actually Open Them
A small rack used constantly tastes better than a large one used occasionally. Here's the...
Read more
acidity
Sumac: The Dry Acid to Reach For Where Lemon Would Go
Tart, fruity, faintly tannic, and — critically — dry. Here is how much to use...
Read more
cooking fats
Blooming Spices in Fat: The Temperature Window, and Why It Beats Stirring Them Into Liquid
Hot fat pulls flavour out of ground spices that water never reaches. Here is the...
Read more