David

I used to keep my knives loose in a drawer, and one morning a paring knife nearly got me while I fumbled for a whisk. That is the moment I started taking knife storage seriously, and it is why our team spent three months testing the best kitchen knife blocks we could find for . … Read more

My kitchen refrigerator ruined a case of Barolo before I admitted the obvious: the door shelf is not a wine cellar. Every open and close swings the temperature five degrees, the corks dry out because a regular fridge runs at 15 to 30 percent humidity, and the garlic from last night sits two inches from … Read more

Last summer, our team set out to find the best outdoor pizza ovens after watching a friend turn out perfect Neapolitan pies in his driveway while my indoor oven produced sad, pale discs. Over three months, we cooked more than 180 pizzas across five models in a backyard, on a small patio, and even at … Read more

I smoked my first brisket on a cheap charcoal offset and nearly burned down the patio. After three weekends of babysitting coals, I switched to propane and never looked back. Propane smokers give you that set-and-forget convenience without giving up the smoky flavor we all crave. Over the past year, our team tested 8 of … Read more

My first offset smoker was a rusted hand-me-down that ate a full bag of charcoal every two hours and painted black flakes onto my brisket. I loved it anyway, because nothing on earth matches the flavor of meat cooked over real burning wood in a horizontal barrel. That was nine years and six smokers ago, … Read more

I have spent the last two autumns testing fire pits almost every weekend in my backyard, on camping trips, and at friends’ houses. I burned through stacks of firewood, a couple of propane tanks, and more marshmallows than I want to admit. After all that time, I learned one thing clearly: not every fire pit … Read more

Last summer, my family spent three months testing 12 different wood-fired pizza ovens in our backyard, on camping trips, and at weekend cookouts. We burned through 40 pounds of hardwood pellets, made over 200 pizzas, and logged temperature readings with an infrared thermometer at every cook. This guide shares exactly which models earned a permanent … Read more

Cast iron is the only cookware I own that I expect to hand down to my kids. When our team went looking for the best cast iron cookware sets of , we spent weeks cooking with six of them side by side — searing steaks, baking cornbread, frying eggs, and hauling a few out to … Read more

We spent three months braising short ribs, baking sourdough, and slow-simmering chili through 10 of the most popular Dutch ovens on the market. Some are heirloom investments, others cost less than a week of takeout, and the performance gap between them was smaller than we expected in some places and much wider in others. If … Read more

Every cook eventually reaches for one pot more than any other, and in my kitchen that pot is an enameled Dutch oven. It sears a chuck roast better than a stainless skillet, braises it afterward in the same vessel, bakes a loaf of sourdough on the weekend, and then carries the whole meal to the … Read more