Maybe you make a new recipe every week or two. That’s reasonable. I tried making 56 in four months.
I had a good reason. Halfway through pursuing my Food Studies Master’s Degree, I landed a fellowship at Bon Appétit to find out what goes into creating a recipe. What makes these chocolate chip cookies BA’s “best”? How is a roast chicken recipe deemed “no-fail”? I wanted to see what I could learn by cooking them. The Bon Appétit 56 was the perfect place to start—it’s a collection designed to help home chefs explore their potential.
Cooking 56 recipes in a finite amount of time was, admittedly, ambitious. I knew there’d be many trips outside my comfort zone, starting with cottage cheese and peas—a pair that I never considered to be the makings of a dinner main. These pillowy green pea fritters showed me the light (and tasted fantastic between a brioche bun for lunch the next day). Vegan cacio e pepe sounded like something that I, a person with no dietary restrictions, would probably scroll right past. That was before I discovered the magic of a cheesy cashew sauce. Letting myself be surprised by creative ways to use ingredients was freeing, and helped me find an excellent use for a jar of peanut butter (spicy braised chicken).
“Trust the process” is antithetical to the idea of confident cooking. Growing up in a family that didn’t own measuring spoons taught me to make adjustments when it feels right and to improvise based on personal taste. When I started this list, I decided to tame myself, following each recipe exactly as written. As badly as it hurt to put meatballs in the oven (apologies to Marcella Hazan and her delicious, albeit laborious, pan-sear method), roasting them really did make my night that much easier. I learned that while we all need to be needed, a focaccia doesn’t need to be kneaded. And miraculously, all it took to overcome my fear of baking was orange juice muffins that looked dangerously full in the tin, but ended up perfectly sized. Turns out baking isn’t scary, you just need to follow the exact measurements. Who knew?
And still, cooking also means being adaptive. I took this journey with my vegetarian partner and realized some flexibility would be required on my end. Thankfully, my carnivorous neighbors were more than willing to accept food at their door at odd hours (brisket! At 11 p.m.!), but I was still determined to find substitutions my partner could enjoy. It was a crash course in fake meat, the many personalities of tofu, and amazingly shreddable oyster mushrooms that stand in wonderfully in chicken tinga tostadas. Beyond Sausage paired perfectly with the pungent red curry paste in this rice cake stir-fry, and swapping in Impossible Beef was unnoticeable in these spicy-sweet gochujang sloppy joes. Lest we forget the surprisingly meaty black bean smash burgers, secured forevermore in my weekly repertoire.
Beyond leveling up my cooking skills, I was determined to master the art of hosting a dinner party. My house is a revolving door of adventurous eaters, and this project was the perfect excuse for nine of them to watch me face one of my biggest fears: roasting my first (pomegranate-glazed) duck. New York City lore tells tales of brave home cooks who have smoked out their kitchens trying to roast this particularly fatty bird. Now I am one of them—and proud to be. After opening the windows, the result was worth it: impeccably cooked duck, an enormous hit.
Fifty-six recipes, five dinner parties, four months, and only one full-on meltdown (yes, it was the duck) later, I did it. What I can offer you from the other side is this: The more you practice, the more you’ll get out of cooking. Try something new, ask your butcher for lamb, make your own noodles, and yeah, have fun. If you make only one new recipe, great. But if you’re like me, you’ll want to keep going.
