Pizza in Philly, a Holiday Sneak Peak & a New Era in Genius Recipes

I’m just back from skiing and college tours. Conclusion: I love a chewy, over-salted ski lodge French fry, but the rest of the ski food category could use some disruption!

Food in Philadelphia:

The college tours around Philadelphia allowed me to introduce our kids to a hoagie, and produced some solid restaurant recs:

• Eeva—for pizza, a wildly good green salad, lacto-fermented pickles, and a semolina cake that you’ll be talking about.

• Sor Ynéz—for superb guacamole, Mayan pumpkin seed hummus, and heritage pork carnitas.

Sneak peeks:

I’m in Portland now, visiting our sister companies, Schoolhouse and Dansk, for our holiday 2023 product reviews. Here’s a first look:

• From the Department of Cuteness: A felt carton of blueberries tree ornament, made by a FAIR TRADE company in Kyrgyzstan. Fun fact: Our buyer, Jess Callantine, said, “In my experience the felt items made in Kyrgyzstan are the most detailed and have the highest level of craftsmanship.

• From the Department of Dansk-ness: We’re bringing back fan-shaped serving boards designed by Jens Quistgaard.

Other happenings in Food52-land:

• After conducting extensive research on grocery store merch, we narrowed down the best contenders for The 2023 Grocery Store Fashion Power Rankings. And, whoa did the winner surprise me!

• After 13 years of enlightening us with Genius Recipes, Kristen Miglore is retooling her column to add a new layer of genius. "On top of sharing a surprising recipe from a cookbook author or chef each month, I’ll be boldly demonstrating how to take their genius even further with a recipe of my own," she says. This week, Kristen has two new soup recipes that just so happen to be vegan: Creamy (Vegan!) Mushroom Soup From Wil Yeung and Kristen's own Genius creation, a Creamy Artichoke & Green Chile Soup. See how to whip them up here.

• Spring cleaning is upon us—so we rounded up five household essentials the Food52 community stocks up on most. In case you missed it, we also featured a 30-day spring cleaning challenge you can start (and stop, then start again) anytime.

• KHEM Studios, a small maker from the Hudson Valley, just dropped in our Shop. We all fell head over heels for their buttery soft butcher block.

• Over the next month or two, we’ll be adding a slew of new products to our outdoor entertaining selection, including this ceramic and glass drink dispenser, which holds 2.5 gallons and looks fetching while doing so.

• A new Amanda Messes Up in the Kitchen is out in the world—this week, I put a Shun knife to the test while making Flank Steak with Green Sauce, a recipe that's on the regular in our house.

I asked. You answered.

In my last note, I asked you what foods you’d like to see Ella Quittner explore in her Absolute Best Tests column. The Food52 community has spoken, and you want to know the best way to poach eggs, cook eggplant, and roast pork tenderloin (and have it not dry out!). Keep an eye out for these in the coming months.

Some big content news coming in my next note—in the meantime, let’s all aim to relax like my dog Fiver.

Amanda Hesser

Founder & Executive Chair