Test Kitchen Top 3: Washing Machines and Lots of Butter

Things were a little bit in uproar (in a good way!) in the test kitchen yesterday -- our beloved test kitchen manager Jennifer Vogliano is out for the month of August, and we welcomed a new friend and photographer, the lovely Karen Mordechai of Sunday Suppers. Here, she reviews shots with Merrill at the end of a long day of testing Your Best Mayo-Based Salads:

The other portion of the uproar came from the repair of Amanda's washing machine! (Fans of this recipe for Ruggelach may remember the memorable washer-dryer installation happening in its photo slideshow.) Here, Kenzi and I calmly roll cookie dough while the dust (er, lint) settles.

And speaking of cookie dough, we made a big, BIG batch of it yesterday. (Why? You'll see soon enough!) So big that we used five -- count 'em, five -- sticks of butter and eight cups of flour in the batter. Amanda's KitchenAid deserves a medal for doing such a great job paddling the dough together.