I Need Good Recipes for One

Photograph by Isa Zapata, Food Styling by Thu Buser

ON THIS WEEK’S episode of Dinner SOS, test kitchen director and host Chris Morocco is joined by test kitchen editors Kendra Vaculin and Jesse Szewczyk. This Valentine’s Day they are eschewing heart-shaped cakes, romantic dinners, and, frankly, any mention of the holiday and instead celebrating the pleasure of cooking for one.

To one degree or another, we all must adjust our cooking practices to suit the needs and desires of others. So this week’s episode makes a strong argument that cooking solo can be a form of self-care and fulfillment. The process, and outcome, can be entirely yours! No dietary restrictions to consider but your own and no competing preferences. Kendra and Jesse talk about the relief and joy that cleaning the kitchen before they eat brings them, unburdened by thinking of the chores ahead. For solo dinners, Kendra loves to roast a whole chicken and use it as the starting point for several meals in the form of stock and soups.

For Jesse, solo dinner often means fish or other simply prepared components, like plain vegetables and carbs, which he then dresses up with store-bought sauces and condiments. Chris reflects on the way cooking pasta has evolved for him from when he was cooking for himself vs. cooking for family members with different dietary restrictions and needs. They go on to take listener questions, like from caller Julia, who is looking for some guidance on how she can be health-conscious, earth-conscious, and adventurous when cooking solo and avoid waste from products geared more toward families. Chris, Jesse, and Kendra all agree that Julia should start buying tomato paste in a tube, which lasts longer and is better suited to solo cooking. Jesse also recommends getting creative with how she remixes her leftovers. Embrace the leftovers! Turn leftover pasta into a crispy egg pasta frittata the next day!

After becoming an empty nester, caller Bea has lost the motivation and inspiration to cook. Raising a healthy human and being healthy herself was incredibly important to her, so she’s looking for ideas on how to maintain a healthy lifestyle after losing the motivation to cook.

For Bea, Chris references a story called “Big Batch Entertaining” from the brain of Amiel Stanek, a Bon Appétit contributor and former staff member. He suggests that Bea, like in the story, treats big-batch cooking as a way to get ahead on meal prep. If what Bea loves to do is cook for people she loves, why not approach cooking for herself as if she were cooking to entertain. As a result, she’ll have stuff to lean on in the week when she doesn’t feel like cooking. Kendra also suggests that it might be useful for Bea to set a goal of learning a new technique or skill in the kitchen each week and invite others to share in her discovery.

Listen now to hear Chris, Jesse, and Kendra’s insight on cooking for one, including a special bonus segment called “Test Kitchen BFFs,” to see if Jesse or Kendra can answer more trivia about each other, and take home a Mauviel copper saucepan!

Chris Morocco: Hey there, listeners, future callers, and cooking enthusiasts. Welcome to Dinner SOS, the show where we help you save dinner or whatever you're cooking. I'm Chris Morocco, food director of Bon Appétit and Epicurious.

This week we're not talking hearts and roses, or dinner for two, or those weird little candies that only show up one time of the year. We're talking about the gentle art of cooking for yourself and only yourself. I'm joined by two of my colleagues, Jesse Szewczyk. Hi, Jesse.

Jesse Szewczyk: Hello.

CM: And Kendra Vaculin. Hey, Kendra.

Kendra Vaculin: Hello.

CM: You both are people who live with their partners. When I say cooking for one, what does that mean to you?

KV: It's funny to think about. To me, when I first heard that this was going to be what we were going to talk about today, I interpret cooking for myself, because so often I cook a meal that only I eat but my husband is also there. He has made something that he wants that's separate. Or we're doing scrounge dinner where we're both cobbling together random bits and bobs from our fridge, and our meals turn out different even though we started from the same melange of items. This prompt makes me think of when he is not home.

CM: Yeah.

KV: When I'm fully, truly-

CM: Truly.

KV: ... alone.

JS: No one can judge you.

KV: No one can judge me.

JS: Yeah.

KV: No one is watching.

JS: There's no performance. Yeah.

KV: No performance, nothing. It's just me cooking for me and my eyes only type of vibe. While the food is not necessarily that different of what I would make if he was there, it's the process and the after dinner that is different for me.

CM: Yeah. What is that?

KV: The process is my favorite thing to do is make dinner, clean the whole kitchen and everything, and then eat.

JS: That's the only way I eat.

CM: What?

JS: We talked about this earlier. It's the only way I eat, too.

KV: I want-

CM: Only when you are by yourself, or full stop?

KV: I had to stop doing it with Michael because he was like, "What are you doing?"

CM: Food's dying on the pass, babe.

KV: He's like, "It's hot and we should be eating it." And also, Michael is the dishwasher. We don't have a dishwasher so our dishwasher is named Michael. He will do every dish, I don't have to do a dish, which rocks. But the compromise is I have to wait for them to be done until dinner is done. That's when he will do them.

CM: Got it.

KV: I give up my right to clean in the middle. Now it's only something that I do when I'm fully alone. If he's out of town, if he's on a work trip, or whatever, or has some plans, I will make myself dinner, clean everything, and then sit down and eat the food that I made.

JS: That's so nice.

KV: Because it gives me this I can sit at the table and I can look at the kitchen-

JS: Just chill.

KV: ... and the kitchen is clean. I just feel like I have no weight on my shoulder. The night is young, anything is possible. I don't have chores ahead of me.

JS: I love this for you.

KV: It's so delightful.

JS: I love it.

CM: I'm sitting here thinking, "I never even realized this was an option."

JS: It's all I ever do.

CM: Do you put the food on a plate and then wash the pot?

KV: Okay. Great question, great question. The things that don't get washed in this [inaudible 00:03:25] cleaning period is the Dutch oven, or the pan, or whatever that the food was made in.

CM: Okay.

KV: And my bowl. At the end of the night, there's just the bowl that I ate out of, my fork, the serving utensil that I took it out of the Dutch oven or the pot with, and the pot itself. Everything else is clean.

JS: I'm so aligned.

CM: Hold on. Jesse, we're going to get to you in a sec. Tell me if this is the same or different. Before I start cooking, I have to clean the kitchen. But in my case, it's because three semi-rabid humans have torn through it multiple passes over the course of a day.

KV: Yeah.

CM: There's breakfast detritus, there's spent smoothie setup maybe that's been festering over the course of the day. I can't cook if there's stuff in the sink. That moment where you're trying to wash lettuce but you're perching-

KV: You're avoiding the smear of-

CM: You're avoiding the cat's bowl at the bottom of the sink.

KV: Ew.

CM: God help you if you're down on that level. I'm not proud, but that's what being-

KV: Help, we're alive.

CM: ... a human enthralled to a small feline creature. But is that the same thing or is that different?

JS: Same.

KV: No, that's different. I am a big clean as I go girlie. I had this instilled in me from a young age. There is not usually detritus from the other meals.

CM: Okay.

KV: I just want everything ... We're talking the cutting board and knife that I used to prep the vegetables that went into the soup. We're talking the measuring cups. We're talking whatever, a small bowl where I whisked a dressing, or all those little bits and bobs all have to get washed. I don't have a dishwasher, so it's a process.

CM: Jesse, you're right there with her.

JS: I am, yeah.

CM: This is part of your solo cooking process, too.

JS: I would not even consider having dishes after I've cooked for myself. I hadn't even thought about that, it feels so normal to me.

CM: What?

JS: Yeah. I don't know, it'd feel like chaos.

CM: That's just table stakes for you both.

KV: Yeah.

CM: What about what you actually cook?

KV: Right. The one difference for me if I'm completely alone is that I have dessert.

CM: Meaning you have a savory meal plus a dessert at end?

KV: Correct. Yes.

CM: You don't have pancakes for dinner?

KV: Correct.

JS: Does Michael not like sweets?

KV: He's not a sweets guy. If he is like, "I'm going to the bodega, we're going to get something fun," he comes back with barbecue potato chips.

JS: Sure.

KV: That's the energy for him. For me, I will go get a pint of vanilla ice cream and gummy candies and eat almost all of both.

CM: What about you, Jesse? What is a solo dinner? Dennis is out of town or not around. What are you cooking for yourself and what is the kind of dish that you would only cook for yourself? Either because it's something you love and he doesn't, or some other circumstance.

JS: I secretly eat a lot of fish.

CM: Secretly-

JS: Yes.

CM: ... eat fish.

JS: My whole thing is if I could eat anything, I would just eat fish for every meal.

KV: Wow.

JS: Dennis, he has this thing about mercury levels. I don't know what's been-

KV: He has this thing.

JS: He's instilled with some knowledge about mercury levels. I'm like, "Don't worry, I eat it twice a week. No biggie." But if he's gone, I'm eating fish.

KV: Always.

JS: I mean the high mercury level fish, too.

KV: Which is what?

JS: Tuna.

CM: Apex predator fish.

JS: Yes, the big ones.

KV: Oh, wow.

CM: What are you doing to it?

JS: Well in this instance, I'm trying to find a way to cook it so it doesn't smell the whole house. I find that poaching or cooking it in something with a lid on works. I do it in the rice cooker a lot, honestly. Yeah. But I always try to cook myself a hearty meal, always. A vegetable and a protein, and a carb, I always try to be good to myself. But it's maybe not the same food I'd make Dennis in the sense that I just make food to feed myself and I rely on condiments to make it taste good, and oils, and stuff like that.

CM: Okay. Interesting.

JS: Yeah.

CM: What about you, Kendra? What is a dinner that you would only ever cook for yourself?

KV: It's interesting because that's changing, that's shifting. Michael was a vegetarian for a really long time and we almost never cooked meat at home. Michael being gone was an opportunity where I would make meatballs, usually meatballs. I just love meatballs.

CM: Meatballs, beef meatballs.

KV: Yeah.

CM: Sauce, no sauce?

KV: Beef and pork.

CM: Oh.

KV: I would do both. I'd make the sauce. I wouldn't even need the pasta necessarily. I just want saucy meatballs and bread, definitely. If he was gone for a weekend or a couple days work retreat, I would roast a chicken and then make the stock, and then make chicken soup type of thing.

CM: Wow.

KV: I had a couple of days to be whole chicken sustaining me for that time. It's one of those cooking practices that makes me feel deeply tethered to all of the women in all of time cooking.

CM: You rinsing the rice-

KV: Rinsing rice.

CM: ... has always stuck with me.

KV: That one, kneading bread. There's a couple of culinary little moments where suddenly I'm like, "Oh, we have been doing this for millennia. This is important."

CM: Yeah. Love that. What about the dessert part of that equation for you? To what lengths will you go to satiate your craving for dessert?

KV: What's crazy is not that big of lengths because I'm so happy with the tiniest little thing.

CM: Okay.

KV: A pint of Haagen Dazs vanilla bean is truly it for me. That's so good.

CM: Just vanilla?

KV: Yeah, that's the joke. I will try all the fun ice creams at the ice cream parlor and then I will say, "Can I have one scoop of vanilla bean?" That's what I want actually to have. But I will say something that I'll do if he's gone and I don't want to go out, if it's snowing or whatever, is I'll make really, really (censored) cookies. I'll Google one bowl have nothing cookies, because I'm just trying to create a vessel of sugar to my body.

Since Shilpa developed the chocolate chip-less cookies, those have become the thing that I make, which are just as easy as the shitty cookies and they are actually good. That's a huge win for me. I love those because you don't have to use a mixer, you brown the butter, it's super easy. I will scoop out the balls and I'll bake off half, and put the other half of the balls of dough into the freezer. To me, that's a joy.

CM: Wow. Nothing signifies the difference between cooking for others and cooking for myself more than with pasta.

JS: Pasta.

CM: Pasta is, to my mind, this is the litmus test for where I am in my life, in terms of how I'm making it and who I'm making it for. When I was single, when I think about how little was in my fridge, you know what I mean? There was nothing in there.

KV: Yeah.

CM: I had butter, I had parm. I usually had some cured meat of some kind, a piece of cheese or two. I swear I had pasta, some version of carbonara, every night that I cooked for myself.

KV: Yeah.

CM: Which wasn't that many nights. But there's a certain quality to making three to four ounces of pasta and the way that you can work that pasta around in a skillet, or in a saute pan. When it's just that small amount, you can really think about that emulsive quality of your sauce and finishing the pasta in there. Contrast that with what I have to do these days. Which is gluten-free for my wife.

KV: Kid friendly.

CM: Then plain pasta for one of my kids, but saucy pasta for the other one. Where is my starch-bound pasta water finished butter-girded sauce? It's not (censored) there.

JS: Yeah.

CM: Sorry.

KV: How often are you cooking where there's nobody else around?

CM: Never.

KV: Never?

JS: Oh, wow.

CM: I can't even remember the last time.

KV: Oh, wow.

CM: It's cool because listen, bit by bit, my kids are getting more into different sauces, different textures. It is happening. But it's not that it's me and a skillet, and cacio e pepe.

JS: Sure.

KV: What is a huge alarm to me in that explanation is that I have never in my life made three to four ounces of pasta.

JS: I don't think I have either.

KV: Never. Even when I'm fully making it just for me, I'm making at least eight ounces of pasta because I want there to be tomorrow.

CM: Sauced?

KV: Yeah, fully.

CM: No.

KV: I want leftovers. I also would like if I so desire to eat eight ounces of pasta. I have a limitless capacity for pasta. While I know that you're right, that it's going to be the most delicious, emulsified, glossy, gorgeousness if I am economical with how much space I'm taking up in the pan. That ain't my bag. I'm making as much pasta as I can.

CM: All right, interesting. We learned something here. We're all mostly the same people when we're cooking for other people, but not entirely. To one degree or another, we're all calibrating our cooking practices to suit the people that we live with. But it sounds like what's cool is, listen, you both clearly have the ability to still make things that bring you your own unique joy and that's great.

We're going to take a quick break. When we get back, grocery shopping for one and how to drum up the motivation to cook when the only diner is you.

All right, Kendra and Jesse, are you ready to answer some listener questions?

JS: I'm ready.

KV: Absolutely.

CM: All right. First up, here's a question from listener Julia who writes, "I'm a single woman in her 20s living an amazing solo, independent life. However, one issue I have is that it is hard to cook for one and also have variety. I also don't want to create food waste. Everything seems to be meant for a family of four, or at least a couple. I buy some lettuce and I have to commit to eating salad every day for the week or a lot goes in the trash. I buy some tomato paste, I have half a can of it in my fridge for weeks. I know I can just have leftovers, but it is really hard to try something new when I know I have to be the one to eat all my cooking experiments over the next few days or trash it. Just going to the supermarket is stressful because buying for one and trying to be healthy about it is hard. How can I be health-conscious, Earth-conscious, and adventurous when cooking solo?"

KV: Okay, one immediate, off the bat thing. Buy tomato paste in the tube.

JS: Yeah.

CM: Scooped! Scooped! Nobody should be buying cans of tomato paste.

KV: You got to get the tube.

CM: Ever.

JS: It lasts forever, too.

KV: It lasts forever.

JS: Yeah.

KV: You got to get the tube.

CM: Double-concentrated tomato paste in the tube, even triple-concentrated is out there now.

KV: Yeah.

CM: Okay? But that's one problem solved.

KV: My friend Alex Bernes, shout out Alex Bernes, has this fake start-up idea, he will tell you it's a real start-up idea, called Sprig. Sprig is you text Sprig and you say, "I need one sprig of cilantro," and they deliver it to your house. I think this came up for him when he was living by himself and he was like, "What am I going to do with a huge bunch of cilantro?"

I think it's an eternal question. She's struggling with something that everybody feels where if you buy a sensible number of groceries for the week, that's all you got and you're the one who has to eat them all.

CM: You can be a family of four and still not know quite what to do with that last half of a bunch of cilantro.

KV: Totally.

JS: Yeah.

KV: You need Sprig.

CM: You need Sprig.

I want to invoke the next over principle here. I think there's certain issues ... Okay, listen. I'm not going to sit here and try to justify why buying an entire Blue Hubbard squash, or some equally improbably large winter squash makes any kind of sense, whether you're a solo cook or a family of six. But I think the issue is you can't make certain things and then consume them the same exact way multiple times in a week if you're most people. You've got to roast off that squash, and then you need to use some of it in a pasta and some of it in a wintry minestrone soup, and then some of it in Asha Loupy's vampiro tacos.

You need to get creative about how you're using these elements and see the myriad possibilities in any given component that you might make. What does that spark for you both?

JS: My mind was going to remixing leftovers. Pick recipes that you think you can do things with. A pasta can turn into a crispy egg pasta frittata the next day. Do interesting things, or try to, could be a good way to not get sick of them.

CM: Tell me more about a crispy pasta egg frittata.

JS: Well, that just came out of my mind. I've seen people do it though. You take your leftover pasta, and then you crack a bunch of eggs, and you mix it together, and you fry it in a cast iron skillet with a bunch of fat so it doesn't stick. Then you have a pasta frittata.

CM: Love that.

KV: It sounds really good.

CM: It sounds great.

JS: Yeah. Things like that, I think you could do a lot with.

KV: Yeah. I think "meal prep" gets a bad wrap sometimes, but that is functionally what we're describing.

JS: Yeah.

KV: Creating bits and bobs for yourself that you can mix in different manners throughout the week so it doesn't feel like there was only end goal, there was only one dish and then that dish has to be repeated.

I think cooking green for yourself and sauce. To me, if you just have some sauces in your fridge, you can apply them in all sorts of different ways. If you have a hummus, if you have a red sauce or a green sauce of some kind, you can do all sorts of things with it and apply your different groceries to it without it feeling repetitious.

CM: I also am a firm believer in my freezer.

JS: Yeah.

CM: I'm a firm believer, as evidenced by the test kitchen, in buying a roll of painter's tape, green or blue, and a Sharpie. Anything that has a reasonable shot of living another day, rather than sticking it in the back of the fridge where you're either going to ignore it or you may get sick of it a little bit too soon, just put it in your freezer.

KV: Yeah.

JS: Yeah.

CM: Labeled and dated.

KV: Yeah. That's also great because if you get the thing of all the chicken breasts, you don't have to eat chicken breasts every single day-

CM: No!

KV: ... until the package is complete. Put the rest of the chicken breast in the freezer. Then go to your bag in your freezer that has pork chops in it and take one of those out. Now you have a chicken breast one day, a pork chop the next day. You're mixing it up.

CM: I do think there is something to just the quantities of produce items, the quantities of many packaged goods just obviously being geared towards a non-solo cook.

KV: It does suck.

CM: It does kind of suck.

JS: Yeah. Try to go to places where you can actually buy the produce in bulk. Trader Joe's is like, "Here is a portion."

KV: Right.

JS: Yeah, I don't like that.

KV: Yeah. I will say it's a fashion rule, but it probably applies to grocery shopping in this way, too. If you think, "I'm going to buy this cabbage, I have to imagine three ways I can use this cabbage." Like you're supposed to imagine three outfits you could wear these new pair of shoes with, or whatever. I think if you do that and they're disparate in your mind. Okay, I could make larb, that could be on the outside of that. I could slice it really thin and make it into a slaw on the side dish. I could roast the rest of it and put a little cheese sauce on it. Okay, here are three super different ways I can use this cabbage, I can use this cabbage for this week. If you can't, if it's like I'm going to buy this arugula and all I can think of to do with my arugula is make arugula salads again and again, maybe that's something you skip.

JS: I like that.

CM: Our next and last question comes from Bea. "Recently, my life went through a big transition. I became an empty nester. My son is in college and moved into an apartment with friends. For the past 20 years, I have been dedicated to making wholesome, vegetable-forward meals every night. Raising a healthy person and being healthy for him was so important to me. While I still care about my health and live a very healthy lifestyle, I've lost my motivation to cook. The exception is when I have company coming. Then I'm ready to make a seven-course feast. I've come to realize I think I like cooking for other people more than I like cooking for myself. My SOS question for you is how do I maintain my healthy lifestyle as an empty nester who has lost their motivation to cook? I eat out a couple times per week, but I'm mostly providing breakfast, lunch, and dinner for myself every day."

KV: That's a very sweet question.

CM: Wow. What a transition to go through.

KV: A huge change. And so nice to learn that about yourself though. That when the idea of someone coming over and eating with you is on the table, it's like, "Okay, I can click back into that mentality, I've done it for 20 years. I know how to do that." But this other thing is new and hard.

CM: Yeah.

JS: It honestly sounds like how I feel about cooking, too. That's why when I cook at home, I have just ratios. I have a carb, a vegetable, and a protein, and then I just turn to sauces and condiments as the thing that makes it fun for myself.

CM: What are some of those things for you? These are store bought things, or things that you've made?

JS: Both. Also, I'm lucky that in the test kitchen, I take home any leftover sauce or something. I've had Kendra's green sauce is a great one. Any type of chili oils or chili crisps are really great. Something as simple as, honestly a sriracha and a bit of sesame oil does wonders, and Kewpie mayo, things like that. I make seemingly boring food and then make it exciting for myself.

CM: Okay. I guess I have a few thoughts here, Bea. The first thing would be, and it's just a question because obviously you're going through a moment here, and sometimes that's just where you need to be. I guess my question would be is there anything that you feel free, particularly empowered to make, given that it is just you cooking for you? Is there anything that you might have liked that maybe your son didn't like as much? Something that you've been meaning to try that you could exercise? Just asking the question, just as a top line thought.

Next, you know what came to mind? You two are very familiar with this story. We did a story called "Big Batch Entertaining," which was from the brain of Amiel Stanek, a Bon Appétit contributor and former staff member. Who, his POV on entertaining is to use it as a pretext for getting ahead on meal prep. In my head, that is so not where I am in my life. I can barely get one chicken in and out of my oven at the time that I need to. But his POV, and I do think it's highly valid and member there's something to it as it concerns Bea here, is rather than spatchcocking one chicken and roasting it off to have your guests over on a Sunday night, make two chickens. Make a double-batch of sauce. Make a double-batch of blanched greens with super punchy anchovy breadcrumbs.

The point being do the thing you want to do, which is have people over, and just let that be an excuse to just make a little extra so that you have stuff to lean on in the week. I think that could be an interesting solution for you, and find excuses to gather.

KV: Yeah. The thing I was going to say is that one way that you might be able to find excitement in cooking again, when you wrote about it that it was important to raise a healthy person and you be healthy yourself for him, it's mission-driven. Your cooking had a mission, it had a goal. If you find a goal, or shift your goal in what cooking is for you, I think you might be able to feel that same fire for it.

Maybe it's learning a new technique or skill. Maybe once a week, you look up a recipe that means that you're going to try something you've never tried before. Be that a flavor combination, or a technique, or a style of cooking. You are gearing up all week for Thursday when it's time to figure out what the heck Pad Thai is like when you make it at home, or whatever. You can make a project out of it, it could be a while thing. Then the other nights of the week, you can have scrambled eggs one time. But it's because you really made a meal, no pun intended, of the big one. I think that's a fun way to reframe.

JS: I like that. Also, just it's nice to take care of other people but also take care of yourself, too. Yeah, treat yourself that one day a week and make a party for yourself. Yeah.

CM: It could be so low stakes.

JS: Totally.

CM: Sometimes I just marvel. The only time that I have cooked for myself really in the past few years is lunch at home. I'm pulling stuff out of the fridge, and I'm getting fired up because you've got the cooked leftover rice, you're making some fried rice. You're grating some ginger or garlic. You're making scrambled eggs like an event, and putting crispy-crunchies on it. All of that stuff, sometimes I'm stunned at just how quickly I can put something together for myself that's barely cooking. But it means something to me, it means I'm taking care of myself. Calibrating things to my own taste, making them a little bit bolder, spicier, punchier. That brings me a lot of joy but doesn't necessarily require much effort.

A lot of different layers of advice here, Bea. But I hope you find a solution or set of solutions that works for you. I just love that your impulse is to continue to want to take care of other people, and I have a feeling that exercising that feeling is going to be important whatever you come up with.

We're going to take another break. When we get back, we're going to play a little game.

Welcome back to Dinner SOS. Now, Jesse and Kendra, you've been coworkers in the test kitchen for a couple of years now. You both clean before you eat, at least in an ideal world. How well would you say you know each other?

CM: What's crazy is what we in the test kitchen know so well about each other is our food preferences, and how we cook, and how we like to eat. And not that much about other aspects of our lives. But I would guess that all of my coworkers know my food preferences and cooking style better than my husband does because they just see me cook all day long, all the time.

JS: I agree.

CM: Yeah?

JS: By the hours, we probably spend the most amount of time next to each other physically than anybody else.

KV: Yeah.

CM: Okay. We're going to test that theory out. We're going to play a little game we're calling Test Kitchen BFFs. That's Test Kitchen Best Friends Forever.

Here's how it works. I will ask one of you a question about the other's preferences. You'll write down your answers and compare. If you match, then you get a point. If you get something right, you get a point. If you get three points or more, you will win a Mauviel Copper [foreign language 00:28:33], which I've been hanging onto for the last six-plus years. It's a small-

KV: A small saucepan.

CM: ... a small saucepan.

JS: Yeah.

CM: But with a-

KV: It's very beautiful. Listeners, it's a beautiful pan.

JS: Very luxe.

CM: The point being I didn't bring some BS that fell off the back of a truck, okay?

KV: I'll be honest, when you brought this pan in, I thought what the surprise was was inside the pan.

CM: Inside!

JS: Me, too. Me, too.

CM: That's so funny. Once again, I'm going to ask you a question about the other's preferences, both of you are going to write down your answers, and then we're going to compare. If you match, then you get a point. It's like the Newlywed Game. Did you guys ever see that? Okay, great.

All right, first question. Jesse, what is the condiment Kendra reaches for first when she wants to add pizazz to her lunch?

KV: Oh, I don't know if I do.

CM: Kendra, do you even know?

JS: I don't have ...

KV: What's my lunch, Chris? What am I having for lunch?

CM: Let's say it involves rice.

KV: Okay.

CM: Do you both have an answer?

JS: I do, but I'm not-

CM: You're not confident?

JS: I'm not sold, yeah.

CM: I know. This one's a little bit more open-ended.

KV: One, two, three.

CM: What do you got?

JS: Oh! We got it.

CM: Lao Gan Ma Chili Crisp.

JS: I wrote chili crisp, but that's the default.

KV: That's the one.

JS: Yeah.

CM: That's the default. Okay.

KV: Hell yeah.

JS: All right.

CM: That's a strong start. Okay. Next question. Kendra, what snack does Jesse crave at 4:00 PM?

JS: Oh! You'll actually know this if you ...

KV: Will I? Oh, no, no. I'm afraid that I won't know.

JS: What's my emotional support snack?

CM: Some of these are going to be hard. Listen, we're not soft-balling you guys.

KV: One, two, three.

JS: Oh!

KV: Oh, no!

CM: Wait. What do you have, Jesse? Chocolate chips from Costco.

JS: You know the big bag.

CM: Kendra's got grapes.

JS: Grapes a good answer though.

CM: Jesse's got chocolate chips from Costco. When have you had chocolate chips from Costco in the kitchen?

KV: We have a Kirkland bag of chocolate chips-

JS: Giant.

KV: ... upstairs.

CM: Really?

JS: It's giant.

KV: It is the size of your pillow on your bed.

JS: It's like a dog food bag.

CM: Wow.

KV: It's huge.

JS: Yeah.

CM: Hilarious.

JS: Every day, I take a little bit.

KV: I think Shilpa might have known that because they share a station.

JS: Yeah. Grapes is my favorite food though.

KV: Well, there you have it.

JS: Yeah. She knows.

CM: Okay. Jesse has one point because he got the condiment, and then Kendra-

KV: I have zero points.

CM: Zero points. Okay.

KV: Because I have grapes.

CM: Okay. Next up. Jesse, what was the first recipe of Kendra's that was ever published on Bon Appétit? This is going to be a tough one.

JS: I know, we had this ... I feel like we talked about this.

KV: I know the first, well, because at first I developed recipes for Epicurious. Is it that one? No.

CM: For Bon Appétit.

KV: I know, I know what it is but he won't know it because it's very old.

JS: Yeah, I don't know.

CM: No?

KV: But do you know the Epi one?

JS: Maybe this is ... I don't know why, I have a food in my mind. It's totally random, but I think it might be.

KV: Okay. Can I say the answers? The first recipe I ever put on the internet for us-

CM: Okay.

KV: ... was for Epicurious, and it was hamantaschen.

JS: Look, I wrote hamantaschen!

KV: Incredible!

CM: Whoa!

JS: I did it.

KV: We talked about this.

JS: Yeah.

KV: But the first recipe I ever developed for BA was swordfish with tomatoes and olives, which was in the summer issue. I did not work at Bon Appétit yet, I still worked at Epicurious.

CM: I think that's worth half-a-point.

KV: I think it is, too.

JS: That's fair, that's fair.

CM: I remember that hamantaschen recipe because you did it in the test kitchen.

KV: I did. I developed it because my very first week here, David pulled me into his office and he said, "I'm supposed to develop a hamantaschen recipe and I have no time. Will you do it instead?" I said, "Okay!"

CM: All right. Kendra, what is the subtitle of Jesse's cookbook Cookies?

KV: I feel like I'm getting all the hardest questions. Okay.

CM: Don't worry, you're going to get some good ones.

KV: Okay, okay. I was ready to put Jesse's first recipe for Epicurious. Okay.

JS: No one ever calls it this. This is a tough one.

KV: I have no idea. I'm going to make it up.

JS: I want to hear it.

KV: I'm making up a subtitle. The New Classics.

JS: Are you kidding me?

CM: Stop!

JS: That's amazing!

CM: That was amazing! I was like, "What?"

KV: It's because I knew it was something about you're reinventing whatever.

JS: Sure, sure, sure. That was impressive.

KV: Wow.

CM: Wow, Kendra. Okay.

JS: We're doing good.

KV: Wow. Okay.

CM: Jesse, what did I facetiously say was, "a sensible choice for the kitchen," regarding Kendra's outfit one day somewhat recently?

JS: Oh, man. I'm trying to think.

KV: I'll give you a hint.

JS: Okay.

KV: It was the day of our Christmas party.

CM: Try to keep in mind it's not like I would say something inappropriate.

KV: He doesn't usually comment on my outfit.

CM: It would have to be something kind of safe for me to comment on, right?

JS: Sure, sure, sure. I'm going to get this wrong.

KV: That's okay. Okay. The answer was extremely high heels with socks.

JS: I put heels!

KV: Yay! Very good.

CM: I think they were open-toed as well.

KV: They were open-toed high heels with socks.

CM: I honestly don't even care if you're wearing high heels in the kitchen because go with God on that, but the open-toed. I'm just seeing paring knives stuck into big toes.

KV: So funny. You just said, "Sensible choice for the kitchen."

CM:Jesse, that was great.

JS: We're doing good.

KV: We're doing really good.

CM: All right. Kendra, Jesse recently had to bring his computer in to our tech support department. What is the first thing that they said when they saw Jesse's computer?

JS: This is an attack.

KV: I don't know if I'm going to have it exactly right. Okay.

JS: Okay. They said, "Before they can fix it, they have to physically clean my computer because it's so crusty."

CM: "We need to clean this first."

JS: She knows. My computer is famously-

CM: Crusted. For somebody who finds it necessary to clean their kitchen before they eat dinner if left to their own devices, you should see Jesse's keyboard of his laptop.

KV: I give him no shade for this. We cook with our laptops! Our laptop is open next to splattering oil.

JS: It's the oil in the air.

KV: Yeah, yeah.

JS: Yeah.

KV: There's no way around it. I had a sesame seed stuck under one of my letters on my keyboard, and I had to get one of those compressed air blowers to blow the sesame seed out.

JS: Yeah. I'm not ashamed.

CM: Okay. Jesse, how does Kendra take her coffee?

JS: That's easy. She doesn't drink coffee.

KV: That's right!

JS: That was an easy one.

KV: That's correct.

JS: That was an easy one.

CM: All right, whatever. I just assume everybody drinks coffee.

KV: I know. You were so furious when you discovered it.

JS: Nobody drinks coffee in this test ...

KV: I know.

JS: It's just such a small pool.

CM: Yeah. No, that's true.

JS: Yeah.

CM: Kendra, what is the secret ingredient in all of Jesse's sauces involving melted cheese?

KV: Easy.

JS: This is going to be an easy one.

KV: Easiest answer. Jesse?

JS: Corn starch, yeah.

KV: That's it! It's the reason why I can't have any of them. But they all look really good.

JS: Yeah. My cooking runs on corn.

CM: Really? Even those early ones, really found it hard to stump you all. Jesse, you have barely squeaked out a win here, with a score of three-and-a-half to Kendra's three.

KV: Great job!

JS: Oh, just the half? Wow.

CM: Very well done.

JS:All right, all right.

KV: Congratulations.

CM: You both know each other in the kitchen so well, I have to say. Even beyond my wildest dreams.

KV: It's really true. We spend so much time learning each other's preferences and go-tos.

JS: That's true.

CM:Jesse, Kendra, thank you both so much for being here and playing along. Any last words of advice for people going off to cook for themselves?

KV: I think don't be afraid of leftovers. We hear some leftover slander now and again, and people are like, "I don't want to eat the same thing over and over." I get that, I do. But also, is it so bad? If you made something you really like, does it suck to have to eat it again tomorrow? It shouldn't.

JS: Yeah.

KV: You made something delightful. Leftovers are okay.

JS: Just treat yourself. Buy yourself nice food, cook yourself nice things. You're just as important as your friends.

CM: But if you do want to weigh your pasta so it's four-ounces generally speaking, and around 100-grams, all right?

KV: Imagine doing anything other than dumping the entirety of the box of pasta into the pot. I cannot imagine. It could never be me.

CM: If you have a dinner emergency on your hands, write to us at dinnersos@bonappetit.com. Or leave us a voice message at 212-286-SOS1. That's 212-286-7071. We'd love to feature your question on the show. You can find the recipes featured on today's episode plus the rest of the Bon Appétit recipe archive on the Epicurious app brought to you by Conde Nast. Just search Epicurious in the app store and download today. If you're not yet a subscriber, you can sign up today for a 30-day free trial in the app or at bonappetit.com.

If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a rating and review on your podcast app of choice. Hit that follow button so you never miss an episode. Thanks for listening to Dinner SOS. I'm your host Chris Morocco. My co-hosts this week are Kendra Vaculin and Jesse Szewczyk. Our senior producer is Michele O'Brien. Peyton Hayes is our associate producer. Cameron Foos is our assistant producer. Jake Lummus is our studio engineer. This episode was mixed by Amar Lal at Macro Sound. Jordan Bell is our executive producer. Chris Bannon is Conde Nast's head of global audio.

Next week, Karen lives in a dorm which makes cooking for herself a bit of a challenge.

Karen: I've just been boiling whatever that can be boiled, mostly noodles and other produce I have. It just tastes the same because I use the same sauces.

Originally Appeared on Bon Appétit