extra crispy

In the past few years we’ve seen an explosion of plant-based protein, from yellow pea milk to

Growing up in Alabama, I knew that the hardest part of making gumbo was getting the roux right. Add as many tasty ingredients as you want, but if you don't have that essential binder, it'll be soup, not gumbo. Roux was intimidating to me. I knew burning it was bad. I knew that if I was making gumbo, I was also moving around 50 things at once in the kitchen, and burning it was also easy to do.

I used to be such a rude treat boy. When I was 4 I had a treat-related meltdown. This is an embarrassing story, but here we go. We were taking a family photo, and I was told that if I got dressed up, stood there patiently, and behaved I’d be given a treat at the end. In my idiot-kid brain, I dreamed up the magnificent treat that I wanted. It was something sweet and elaborate, and for some reason it was purple. I didn't know what it was called but I knew what it looked like. It was a tall, purple fanciful creation, and I needed one.

Giant tins of popcorn scream holidays.

I've become a breakfast person, which is weird, but necessary for my gut health. It's a whole thing.

Ham is a wonderful holiday treat. It is delicious and low key. It makes great leftovers. It makes great puns. It inspires a uniquely dedicated set of fans. In our office, we love ham enough that we made our holiday party last year entirely about ham and Champagne. It was called Hampagne. But things can go awry with ham, as with any large meal that you're cooking over the holidays.

Antoni Porowski may seem like the ideal host on Queer Eye (he makes sangria! he uses an infrared grill!), but in real life he’s not frequently slicing up fruit for parties.