eChowderAbout eChowder
I'm Marianne, and I've been cooking dinner for other people since I was about fourteen, when my grandmother handed me a wooden spoon and told me to stir while she went to answer the phone. I didn't stop stirring, more or less, for the next twenty-five years. eChowder is the record of what I've learned since then — mostly by making mistakes in a kitchen that is too small, with a budget that is usually too tight, for two kids who have opinions about texture.
This isn't a magazine test kitchen. There's no staff, no second oven, no backup equipment closet. Every recipe on this site has been cooked at least twice in my own kitchen in central Ohio, usually on a weeknight, usually while someone is asking me how much longer until dinner. If a recipe doesn't work with a toddler underfoot and one pan free, I don't publish it, because that's not the kitchen most of us are actually cooking in.
What you'll find here
Weeknight recipes that don't require a special trip to the store. Honest reviews of the kitchen gear I've actually bought, used, and in a few embarrassing cases returned. And every so often, an essay about why we cook the way we do, because I think about this stuff more than is probably healthy.
How I test recipes
Every recipe gets cooked at least twice, on two different days, usually by two different levels of attention and patience. If it only works when I'm paying close attention, I rewrite it until it doesn't need that. I measure in cups and spoons because that's what's in my drawer, and I note oven quirks because ovens, in my experience, all lie a little.
How I review gear
I buy almost everything I review, at full retail price, from a regular store or a regular website, because I want to know what it's actually like to be a customer. When a brand sends me something unsolicited, I say so in the post. I keep things I'd actually use again and send back the ones I wouldn't, and I write about both.
Get in touch
You can find me most days somewhere between the stove and the laundry pile. If you've made one of these recipes and it went sideways, tell me — I want to fix the instructions, not just hear that it worked for someone else.