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The Reluctant Gourmet Website Established 1997
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Deer Valley Chili Recipe

Deer Valley Turkey Chili With Black Beans and Corn

Thanksgiving stuffing in glass pan

Thanksgiving Stuffing Made Outside the Turkey

Peas and Carrots Recipe

Two Classic Pea Recipes for Thanksgiving

Orange Cranberry Sauce Recipe

Spiced Orange Cranberry Sauce With a Whole Orange

Thanksgiving Cranberry Sauce Recipe

Classic Cranberry Sauce From Scratch

A large stockpot filled almost to the top with golden turkey broth

How to Make Turkey Stock From a Roasted Turkey Carcass

Beurre Blanc Sauce in saucepan

How to Make Beurre Blanc Sauce Without Breaking It

Sea scallops searing in a hot cast-iron skillet.

How to Cook Scallops — Why They Stick, Why They Stay Pale, and How to Fix Both

A white bowl of creamy orange-pink lobster bisque topped with chunks of lobster meat and chopped tarragon

Easy Lobster Bisque Recipe With Cooked Lobster Meat

A glossy dark brown Perigueux sauce being spooned over a sliced strip steak on a white plate

Périgueux Sauce Recipe: Demi-Glace, Madeira, and Truffles

Bright green beans being lifted from a pot of boiling water with a spider strainer

How to Blanch Foods: Boil Briefly, Then Cool Fast

A spoonful of red habanero sauce being drizzled over a fried egg and a street-style taco on a plate

Habanero Sauce Recipe — How Hot It Is, How to Make It, and How to Dial It Back

A bowl of turkey soup with fresh cilantro and bright green snap peas

Leftover Turkey Soup: The Quick Version and the All-Day Carcass Version

Linguine tossed in marinara with Kalamata olives, topped with a piece of tuna broken open to show a just-cooked interior

Tuna Poached in Marinara: Why My Sauce Tasted Fishy and How I Fixed It

Tuna, jasmine rice and bok choy cooked in a convection steam oven

Steam Oven Tuna with Bok Choy and Jasmine Rice

A woman in her late 40s in a crisp white culinary school jacket, focused on plating a dish in a teaching kitchen.

Am I Too Old for Culinary School? What Age Actually Has to Do With It

A bowl of Tuscan soup

How to Fix a Bland Shortcut Tuscan Soup

A Dutch oven with a browned chuck roast nestled among carrots, onions, and herbs

The Beef Cuts That Actually Want to Be Braised

Bread Making Ingredients

Bread-Making Ingredients — And the Advice I Got Wrong

A bottle of wine next to a wine list and an iPhone

I Used AI to Choose Wine at a Restaurant. Here’s What Happened

Grill Zones to control heat

Two-Zone Grilling: The Setup That Saves a Flare-Up

3 sized onions and how to convert them

Onion Conversions: Chopped, Sliced, Dried and by Weight

dry pasta varieties arranged in loose natural groupings on a worn white marble surface

Pasta and Rice Conversions — Dry to Cooked, by Weight and by Serving

Testing pan heat with a drop of water

Pan Heat 101: The Sear-vs-Steam Test That Actually Works

Learn how to stir-fry.

How to Stir Fry Properly — The Science, the Setup, and Secrets

A market in Spain displaying Jamon meats

Jamón Ibérico: Spain’s Everyday Luxury, Explained

My daughter preparing tortillas in a press

Homemade Tortilla Recipe — The Corn Masa Method We Learned From a Friend

Hungarian Paprika

Paprika: What It Actually Is, and Why the Type You Grab Matters

folding an open-ended burrito on a wooden cutting board

How to Make and Wrap a Burrito — The Layering Order and the Fold That Holds

A beautifully plated piece of flaky Atlantic cod served with smooth, glossy Mornay sauce

Mornay Sauce Recipe — How to Make It, Which Cheese to Use, and How to Avoid Breaking It

Roast Turkey

How to Roast a Moist Turkey This Year

Thanksgiving Turkey Tips and Techniques

Let’s Talk Thanksgiving Turkey Tips

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About

I’ve been cooking seriously since the mid-1980s — self-taught, a lot of trial and error, and genuinely interested in why things work in the kitchen. I started this site in 1997 because I couldn’t find cooking writing that explained the reasoning. Still at it.

G. Stephen Jones at a food hall Full story →

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