Community – Page 2 – FoodWatcher

The 10 Recipes You Couldn’t Stop Cooking in May

If there’s one takeaway from May’s most popular recipes, it’s that summer is here—and our community is ready to celebrate. This past month, we baked festive pink cakes filled with seasonal fruit and whipped up batches of panini stuffed with chicken, pesto, and sun-dried tomatoes. We made rendang fried chicken, grilled piles of shrimp and garlic bread, and doused cinnamon rolls with bourbon-infused icing. However different these recipes may seem, there’s one thing that unites them: They’re all dishes that are meant for sharing. So, whether you’re hosting a full backyard feast or simply cooking dinner with a few friends, these are the recipes you can (and should) reach for every time.

In no particular order, here are our most popular recipes from May 2023.

The Food52er Serving Up Our Community’s Favorite Weeknight Recipes

The best part about Food52 is our community. Take a peek at the lively debates in our articles’ comments sections, or check out the thousands (upon thousands) of recipes our community members have contributed, and you’ll see what we mean. Occasionally, one of these community recipes will become unexpectedly popular, generating the same kind of interest and buzz as the recipes from our Test Kitchen. This, of course, always catches our attention.

Anna Chwistek is a community member whose recipes have done just that. In total, she’s published 91 (!) recipes on our site, and while they all look delicious (her photography and food styling is top-notch), there are, of course, a few standouts. Her Creamy Tortellini Soup With Sausage, which incorporates store-bought tortellini and Italian sausage to maximize flavor and texture with minimal effort, boasts 23 five-star ratings and 17 glowing reviews. There’s also her Eggplant Halloumi Stir-Fry, complete with noodles and a deeply savory sauce. Honestly, there are so many others worth highlighting (think: Spicy Tomato Beans With ‘Njuda, Bloody Mary Pasta, and Fried Feta With Sesame & Spicy Honey, just to name a few) that we couldn’t possibly list them all.

A Sneak Peek of What Our New Community Editor Is Cooking Up

After running a community-focused site for over a decade (RIP Brooklyn Based), it’s taken me some time to find a role where I really feel at home—until now. I’m beyond thrilled to be Food52’s first Community Editor, and I hope to be meeting as many of …

One of the things I love about Food52 is how dynamic it is; there are so many nooks and crannies of our community to dig into. Our recipes, of course, are brilliant and vast, and grow daily not just from our regular contributors and Residents, but also from members who contribute recipes to our site. I know I’m not the only one who appreciates our videos: Just take a look at the comments on Lucas Sin’s tutorials (“I can't believe I get to watch these videos for free!”) or Erin McDowell’s master classes on all things baking (“I have been on a mission to make a good crust for years and you've helped crack the code.”) And our Instagram and TikTok are some of the most delightful rabbit holes to fall into, in part because of the hilarious comments you post. (The thread on the April Fool’s “Cooked Water” post is priceless: “For those asking if store bought is okay—trust me, it tastes a lot better when you make it from scratch.”)

Meet Our New Community Editor!

A few months ago, I let you know that we were looking for our first Community Editor, and today I’m thrilled to introduce you to Nicole Davis, who started this week!

Nicole has been an editor at The New York Times and Departures, and is a longtime com…

A few months ago, I let you know that we were looking for our first Community Editor, and today I’m thrilled to introduce you to Nicole Davis, who started this week!

Nicole has been an editor at The New York Times and Departures, and is a longtime community leader—she co-founded Brooklyn Based, which began as a newsletter in 2007 and grew into a thriving organization that hosted sold-out events from wedding fairs and food crawls to cocktail clubs and tasting events featuring local restaurants. They even did kitchen swaps, where people exchanged cookware with each other. Nicole once received a peculiar device that looked like a skyscraper mashed up with a guillotine—designed for halving cherry tomatoes. Just what every kitchen needs!

This Homemade Sriracha Was Food52’s First-Ever ‘Viral’ Recipe

Sometimes you know a viral recipe when you see one—and back in 2010, one was dangled before our eyes. We ran a recipe contest with the theme, “Your Best Condiment,” and Edamame2003, from Pacific Palisades in California, entered a recipe for Fresh Srira…

By 2010, Sriracha had begun to challenge the Cholulas and other hot sauces in the American market. You started to see it more and more on restaurant tables, in your friends’ fridges, and on the shelf at the grocery store. As Edamame2003 wrote in their headnote, “It’s so popular that The New York Times has written about it and the ‘Rooster’ has a Facebook page with over 220,000 fans.” Sriracha comes from Thailand, but the ubiquitous green-topped bottled Sriracha is made by Huy Fong Foods, a company in California started by David Tran, who immigrated from Vietnam.

Our 52 Most Popular Products of All Time

Have you ever wondered what our most popular products of all time are? Which kitchen and home goods have stood the test of time since our Shop was born in 2009? Which items would be voted MVP year, after year, if our Shop was a baseball team? If you an…

We've scoured over the years of data—compared numbers, read endless reviews, and analyzed rankings—to find our 52 best-selling products of all time. Buckle up, get your scrolling finger ready, and see if any of your personal favorites made the cut.

Watch Amanda Hesser Go Behind the Scenes at Food52 & More in the ‘Founder Files’

Hey Food52ers, I’ve got some news!

We’ve created a new show—Founder Files—which will take you behind the scenes with me on my ever-changing and unconventional job as a founder of a cooking and home company that now includes Food52, Schoolhouse, and Da…

Hey Food52ers, I’ve got some news!

We’ve created a new show—Founder Files—which will take you behind the scenes with me on my ever-changing and unconventional job as a founder of a cooking and home company that now includes Food52, Schoolhouse, and Dansk.

Meet 2 Social Clubs Cultivating Joyful Communities in the Wine Industry

The wine industry has a history of exclusivity. Traditionally, consumers are told whether they’re tasting the “right” or “wrong” notes, wine labels are difficult to understand, and information about wines and their producers is hard to come by. Upscale restaurants with extensive wine programs can often feel stuffy and uninviting, and community events where folks outside of the industry are welcome are few and far between.

Beyond those barriers, a lack of diversity in the wine industry has been the elephant in the room for years, with an overwhelming lack of jobs available for those not “in the know.” At wine events, being one of just a few (if any) women, queer folks, or people of color is not an uncommon occurrence. Today, many people are working to change the industry for the better by focusing on inclusivity through community building events and education.

We’re Launching a New Travel Column—& We Want Your Recommendations

Hello. Welcome. Greetings. Howdy?

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of our new travel column, 52Cities. Written by former Food52 editor Marian Bull, the column will celebrate the 52 best food, shopping, and culture destinations in a given city. Re…

Hello. Welcome. Greetings. Howdy?

19 All-Natural Spring Cleaning Tricks For the Kitchen

Tips and tricks for easy, effective cleaning are like good books—you simply can’t ever have too many. It follows suit that despite how much we love to test and share our favorite methods for stain-busting, pest-control, and grime-scouring, we can alway…

Tips and tricks for easy, effective cleaning are like good books—you simply can't ever have too many. It follows suit that despite how much we love to test and share our favorite methods for stain-busting, pest-control, and grime-scouring, we can always learn a thing or two from our community (that's you!).

We revisited past cleaning posts and Hotline threads that got you riled up the most and culled the best ideas from the comments section. As it turns out, the vast majority of your suggestions were for all natural, eco-friendly, or otherwise non-chemically-laden solutions. We're all about finding more natural ways to do the work of classic cleaners, and in the spirit of sharing, here are the 18 best tips from our archives and your tidying expertise: