We’ve put together a recap for you of just a few of the foods and topics we experienced together this year—maybe you’ll find a podcast episode to listen to in these final days of 2025, maybe you’ll make some sweet potato fritters for New Years Eve, maybe you’ll finally understand just what the hell to do with your leftover frying oil. Maybe you’re not even checking email—good for you! We’ll see you next week. Happy New Year—we are so glad for another year spent with you.

The Bittman team hosted a special event and luncheon on a ship before it sailed off to parts unknown (just kidding, it was headed to the Caribbean). Thirty lucky Bittman Project subscribers joined us for a meal, plus a tour of the ship, tons of champagne, and a fireside chat between Kate and Mark—with lots of thoughtful audience questions.

We’ve started to treat popcorn the same as any other grain-based ingredient. Like croutons, it adds crunch and heft everywhere it goes. Except there’s one big difference: Instead of getting soggy in liquid, popcorn turns pleasantly chewy while its nooks and crannies collect sauce and seasonings. (Also: It tastes corny.)

In 2001, Ebury Press published Living and Eating by John Pawson and Annie Bell. It was a quiet release, not much splash. The book is still not very easy to find. But in the last quarter century it’s achieved a certain cultish status among contemporary cookbook collectors—and has inspired a thousand lookalikes.

State legislators have tried to regulate hemp products in order to make products that contain THC harder for teens to access. But state rules designed to clamp down on hemp have been hampered by a federal law that experts worry hemp producers are exploiting a loophole in, in order to make products that are as potent as marijuana products but without state or federal oversight.

The elemental pleasures of dairy products are dulled in their supermarket forms, their subtler essences erased by the demands of industrial production, storage, and distribution systems. Cured cheeses take months or years to finish, so making them at home is beyond the reach of almost all of us. But fresh cheese—paneer in South Asian cuisines, queso fresco in Mexican, ricotta in Italian—is easy.