All articles filed in How-To

I decided to host Chinese New Year party, featuring a lo hei. Lo hei is a uniquely Singaporean tradition centered around a assembling a salad. It starts with a presentation of around a dozen ingredients, each symbolizing health, happiness, and wealth. Once all the ingredients are mixed in together, everyone grabs a pair of chopsticks and tosses the salad. You’re told that the higher you toss, the luckier you’ll be.

One of the very best things I got out of working at the Test Kitchen was learning the basics of how to cook. This has profoundly changed my life – I cook most nights I don’t travel, I’m able to walk into a grocery store and invent based on what’s fresh, and I love, love, love cooking for friends and family.

I travel a ton, so this sort of daily consistency is really important in my life. It helps keep me connected to local Boston news even when I’m far away. And my NPR One morning starts the same way every day, no matter what timezone I’m in.

What I love about cooking is that it’s often so much about who shared the recipe with you, and where you first enjoyed it. I wanted to pay it forward and share a few favorite recipes with you, so here goes…

A few weeks ago I was at my friend Kay’s house, where she and her husband taught me how to play Pandemic. Since then, I’ve been playing it pretty obsessively.

At home tonight, Em said, “Steph, can you just write a blog post with all the website you go to for gifts?!” So, here goes.

Enter Fancy Hands, an awesome online tool my colleague Paul introduced me to. For $30 a month, I get a virtual concierge service that helps make me more productive, by doing a lot of the time-consuming pre-research for me.

“I’m doing this #100happydays challenge on Instagram,” Stephany said, out of the blue. “Why don’t you do it with me?”