https://openburner.co Cooking, slowly, mostly on Tuesdays. en-US Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT https://openburner.co/post/the-mortar-and-pestle-that-earns-its-shelf-space/ https://openburner.co/post/the-mortar-and-pestle-that-earns-its-shelf-space/ Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT Rosa Whittaker tools Rosa Whittaker resisted buying one for eight years. Then she did, and she uses it five nights a week. https://openburner.co/post/the-bread-you-bake-for-someone-who-is-sick/ https://openburner.co/post/the-bread-you-bake-for-someone-who-is-sick/ Thu, 11 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT Petra Sloane bread Petra Sloane on the loaf she takes to a friend recovering from chemotherapy. Soft, plain, deliberately unimpressive, and warm in a tea towel. https://openburner.co/post/what-a-good-stock-jar-earns/ https://openburner.co/post/what-a-good-stock-jar-earns/ Thu, 11 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT Petra Sloane pantry Petra Sloane keeps two jars of homemade stock in her freezer at all times. She explains why, and what they have replaced. https://openburner.co/post/what-the-fridge-becomes/ https://openburner.co/post/what-the-fridge-becomes/ Thu, 11 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT Adrian Coate kitchen-notes A small experiment from a Halifax apartment: three months of daily shopping instead of weekly, and what changed in the kitchen. https://openburner.co/post/the-broth-bowl-as-a-weeknight-default/ https://openburner.co/post/the-broth-bowl-as-a-weeknight-default/ Wed, 10 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT Sam Park weeknight Sam Park makes a case for the broth bowl — a quart of stock, a handful of noodles, an egg, a green — as the dish that closes a hard day without effort. Three versions, all under twenty minutes. https://openburner.co/post/an-overnight-pot-of-pho-broth/ https://openburner.co/post/an-overnight-pot-of-pho-broth/ Tue, 09 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT Sam Park slow-cooking Sam Park learned to make pho broth from his neighbour in Cleveland, a Vietnamese cook named Tran Thi Lien, who simmered her bones for twelve hours and then waited until the morning to do anything else with them. https://openburner.co/post/smoked-trout-on-the-back-porch/ https://openburner.co/post/smoked-trout-on-the-back-porch/ Tue, 09 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT Rosa Whittaker preserving Rosa Whittaker cures and cold-smokes four small rainbow trout each spring on a homemade rig assembled from a cardboard box and a soldering iron. https://openburner.co/post/the-house-amaro-after-dinner/ https://openburner.co/post/the-house-amaro-after-dinner/ Mon, 08 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT Lou Bertillon drinks Lou Bertillon keeps a bottle of Averna on the kitchen counter year-round. After most weeknight dinners, she pours an ounce into a small glass and calls the meal closed. https://openburner.co/post/the-kettle-loaf-and-the-cold-apartment/ https://openburner.co/post/the-kettle-loaf-and-the-cold-apartment/ Fri, 05 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT Sam Park bread Sam Park bakes a small enriched loaf in a Seoul apartment kitchen with no oven. It rises on top of the rice cooker and bakes in a heavy pot on the stove. https://openburner.co/post/the-stove-top-coffee-pot-as-a-daily-machine/ https://openburner.co/post/the-stove-top-coffee-pot-as-a-daily-machine/ Thu, 04 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT Adrian Coate tools Adrian Coate's six-cup Bialetti has made him coffee every morning since 2011. He explains the small differences that matter. https://openburner.co/post/the-kettle-as-the-days-metronome/ https://openburner.co/post/the-kettle-as-the-days-metronome/ Thu, 04 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT Sam Park kitchen-notes Six tea drinkers describe the small ceremony of the kettle, and how it organizes the hours of a working day. https://openburner.co/post/five-ingredient-yogurt-marinated-chicken/ https://openburner.co/post/five-ingredient-yogurt-marinated-chicken/ Wed, 03 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT Rosa Whittaker weeknight Rosa Whittaker walks through the yogurt-marinated chicken thighs she has been cooking on her small Toronto balcony since the first warm week of May — yogurt, garlic, lemon, salt, and time. https://openburner.co/post/a-mustard-jar-rotation/ https://openburner.co/post/a-mustard-jar-rotation/ Wed, 03 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT Lou Bertillon pantry Lou Bertillon keeps four mustards in her refrigerator door and uses each of them differently. Here is how the rotation works. https://openburner.co/post/a-pot-of-osso-buco-on-a-cold-tuesday/ https://openburner.co/post/a-pot-of-osso-buco-on-a-cold-tuesday/ Mon, 01 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT Adrian Coate slow-cooking Adrian Coate is not Italian, but he has been cooking osso buco on Tuesdays in winter for eleven years. The four shanks go in at one in the afternoon and come out at six. https://openburner.co/post/quick-pickled-onions-for-everything/ https://openburner.co/post/quick-pickled-onions-for-everything/ Mon, 01 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT Adrian Coate preserving Adrian Coate keeps a jar of pink-pickled red onions in his refrigerator at all times. He makes a new one every nine days, which is roughly how long the old one lasts. https://openburner.co/post/the-microplane-as-an-honest-tool/ https://openburner.co/post/the-microplane-as-an-honest-tool/ Sat, 30 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Petra Sloane tools Petra Sloane has zested ten years of lemons across the same coarse-grater. The teeth still bite. https://openburner.co/post/focaccia-on-a-hot-afternoon/ https://openburner.co/post/focaccia-on-a-hot-afternoon/ Fri, 29 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Lou Bertillon bread Lou Bertillon does not bake bread in July, except for this one. Olive oil, rosemary, a kitchen with the windows open, and forty-five minutes of patience. https://openburner.co/post/the-olive-oil-bottle-you-actually-finish/ https://openburner.co/post/the-olive-oil-bottle-you-actually-finish/ Wed, 27 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Sam Park pantry Sam Park argues for keeping two olive oils on the counter, not five, and explains how to choose them without spending a small fortune. https://openburner.co/post/the-second-coffee-pourover-rosa/ https://openburner.co/post/the-second-coffee-pourover-rosa/ Wed, 27 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Rosa Whittaker drinks Rosa Whittaker has a morning drip and an 10:30 pour-over. The two cups do different work, and after six years she has stopped pretending one is better than the other. https://openburner.co/post/fifteen-minute-tomato-and-white-bean-stew/ https://openburner.co/post/fifteen-minute-tomato-and-white-bean-stew/ Tue, 26 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Adrian Coate weeknight Adrian Coate cooks a stew from two cans and an onion in the time it takes the rain to start — a defence of the pantry dinner as the honest end of a hard day. https://openburner.co/post/a-shoulder-of-lamb-and-a-bottle-of-wine/ https://openburner.co/post/a-shoulder-of-lamb-and-a-bottle-of-wine/ Mon, 25 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Lou Bertillon slow-cooking On a wet Saturday in May, Lou Bertillon braised a four-pound lamb shoulder in a bottle of Cahors for seven hours. She did almost nothing while it cooked, and ate it that evening with her brother and a loaf of yesterday's bread. https://openburner.co/post/salt-cured-egg-yolks/ https://openburner.co/post/salt-cured-egg-yolks/ Sun, 24 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Sam Park preserving Sam Park keeps a tray of curing yolks in his refrigerator most weekends. By Wednesday they are firm enough to grate over rice. https://openburner.co/post/the-half-sheet-pan-tested-over-twelve-years/ https://openburner.co/post/the-half-sheet-pan-tested-over-twelve-years/ Fri, 22 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Adrian Coate tools Adrian Coate has roasted on the same Vollrath half-sheet since 2013. The corners are still square. He explains why this matters. https://openburner.co/post/the-tuesday-dinner-rule/ https://openburner.co/post/the-tuesday-dinner-rule/ Thu, 21 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Lou Bertillon kitchen-notes A six-month log of weeknight cooking that revealed a small, useful pattern: dinner gets easier when you stop trying to make it special. https://openburner.co/post/the-tinned-tomato-question/ https://openburner.co/post/the-tinned-tomato-question/ Wed, 20 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Adrian Coate pantry Adrian Coate buys eleven tins of tomatoes from eight producers and reports on which ones actually justify the price. https://openburner.co/post/weeknight-frittata-and-the-end-of-the-vegetable-drawer/ https://openburner.co/post/weeknight-frittata-and-the-end-of-the-vegetable-drawer/ Tue, 19 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Lou Bertillon weeknight Lou Bertillon makes a frittata on the Tuesday before market day, when the crisper is bare and the eggs in the door are looking at her — eight eggs, a hot pan, and the courage to leave it alone. https://openburner.co/post/a-pot-of-cassoulet-over-three-days/ https://openburner.co/post/a-pot-of-cassoulet-over-three-days/ Tue, 19 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Rosa Whittaker slow-cooking Rosa Whittaker started a cassoulet on a Thursday evening in late April and finished it on Saturday night. The pot, an old French cazuela her aunt brought back from Toulouse in 1979, did most of the work. https://openburner.co/post/the-electric-kettle-eight-years/ https://openburner.co/post/the-electric-kettle-eight-years/ Tue, 19 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Rosa Whittaker drinks Rosa Whittaker has been writing about kitchen tools for twenty years. The kettle in her own apartment is a $32 electric she bought at a Canadian Tire in 2018, and she has no intention of replacing it. https://openburner.co/post/the-sauerkraut-crock-on-the-windowsill/ https://openburner.co/post/the-sauerkraut-crock-on-the-windowsill/ Sun, 17 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Rosa Whittaker preserving Rosa Whittaker fills a five-litre stoneware crock in her Toronto kitchen every October, and the cabbage carries her through the dark months. https://openburner.co/post/a-saturday-morning-buttermilk-biscuit/ https://openburner.co/post/a-saturday-morning-buttermilk-biscuit/ Fri, 15 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Lou Bertillon bread Lou Bertillon's biscuit recipe, taught to her by a line cook from Tennessee in 2011, takes twenty-two minutes from cold butter to hot oven. https://openburner.co/post/the-wooden-spoon-as-the-truest-cooking-tool/ https://openburner.co/post/the-wooden-spoon-as-the-truest-cooking-tool/ Fri, 15 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Lou Bertillon tools Lou Bertillon's beech spoon was bought in a Vermont hardware store for two dollars in 1999. It has stirred more food than any other tool in her kitchen. https://openburner.co/post/the-kitchen-table-as-desk/ https://openburner.co/post/the-kitchen-table-as-desk/ Thu, 14 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Adrian Coate kitchen-notes On the small Portland apartment where the same maple slab is breakfast, work, mail-sorting, and dinner — and what it teaches about how kitchens really get used. https://openburner.co/post/the-fried-rice-rule-for-tuesday-leftovers/ https://openburner.co/post/the-fried-rice-rule-for-tuesday-leftovers/ Tue, 12 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Sam Park weeknight Sam Park argues that every honest kitchen needs a default dish for the half-cups of cold rice, the egg about to turn, and the spring onion at the bottom of the produce drawer — and his is fried rice. https://openburner.co/post/dried-beans-actually-worth-cooking/ https://openburner.co/post/dried-beans-actually-worth-cooking/ Tue, 12 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Petra Sloane pantry Petra Sloane sorts through fourteen heirloom and commodity beans and reports back on which ones are worth the soak. https://openburner.co/post/brisket-that-starts-on-friday/ https://openburner.co/post/brisket-that-starts-on-friday/ Tue, 12 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Sam Park slow-cooking Sam Park's mother brined a brisket for two days, baked it overnight, and served it on Saturday at seven. He has been trying to match her result, in a Seoul apartment with a single oven, for fifteen years. https://openburner.co/post/iced-barley-tea-mugicha-summer/ https://openburner.co/post/iced-barley-tea-mugicha-summer/ Mon, 11 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Sam Park drinks Sam Park's wife introduced him to roasted barley tea in 2019. Seven summers later, the household keeps a two-litre pitcher of it on the bottom shelf from June through September. https://openburner.co/post/a-year-of-marmalade-by-month/ https://openburner.co/post/a-year-of-marmalade-by-month/ Sun, 10 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Petra Sloane preserving Petra Sloane keeps a marmalade ledger in a notebook on the shelf above her stove. Twelve batches, twelve months, twelve answers to the question of what to do with citrus. https://openburner.co/post/no-knead-bread-ten-years-later/ https://openburner.co/post/no-knead-bread-ten-years-later/ Fri, 08 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Adrian Coate bread Adrian Coate started baking the Jim Lahey no-knead loaf in 2014 and has not stopped. What has changed, what has not, and what the recipe gets right that nothing else does. https://openburner.co/post/a-kettle-that-works-after-eight-years/ https://openburner.co/post/a-kettle-that-works-after-eight-years/ Fri, 08 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Sam Park tools Sam Park's Bonavita gooseneck has boiled water four times a day since 2018. The thermostat clicks the way it did the first morning. https://openburner.co/post/cooking-through-a-grief/ https://openburner.co/post/cooking-through-a-grief/ Thu, 07 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Lou Bertillon kitchen-notes A reader writes about the months after her father's death, and the small dinners that held the days together. https://openburner.co/post/sheet-pan-chicken-thighs-and-the-crisper-drawer/ https://openburner.co/post/sheet-pan-chicken-thighs-and-the-crisper-drawer/ Wed, 06 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Rosa Whittaker weeknight Rosa Whittaker makes a case for the sheet-pan dinner as a small act of pantry inventory — six bone-in thighs, a hot oven, and the vegetables you bought on Saturday and forgot. https://openburner.co/post/the-salt-question-settled/ https://openburner.co/post/the-salt-question-settled/ Mon, 04 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Rosa Whittaker pantry Rosa Whittaker spent six months cooking with seven salts in her Toronto kitchen and emerged with a position she is willing to defend. https://openburner.co/post/a-twenty-four-hour-beef-stock-on-the-back-burner/ https://openburner.co/post/a-twenty-four-hour-beef-stock-on-the-back-burner/ Mon, 04 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Petra Sloane slow-cooking Petra Sloane started a pot of beef stock on a Friday afternoon in March and did not turn it off until late Saturday evening. The result was a quart of dark, gelatinous liquid she would parcel into ice-cube trays and use across the next two months. https://openburner.co/post/tea-as-the-days-structure/ https://openburner.co/post/tea-as-the-days-structure/ Mon, 04 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Petra Sloane drinks Petra Sloane does not drink coffee. She drinks tea, on a schedule that has not changed in fourteen years, and she has come to think of the kettle as the day's metronome. https://openburner.co/post/dried-tomatoes-in-late-august/ https://openburner.co/post/dried-tomatoes-in-late-august/ Sat, 02 May 2026 09:00:00 GMT Lou Bertillon preserving The dehydrator runs for fourteen hours on the back porch in Brooklyn while Lou Bertillon writes a magazine in the next room. By Labor Day she has six jars. https://openburner.co/post/an-overnight-rye-for-monday-sandwiches/ https://openburner.co/post/an-overnight-rye-for-monday-sandwiches/ Thu, 30 Apr 2026 09:00:00 GMT Adrian Coate bread Adrian Coate mixes a dark rye on Sunday night that is ready for sliced ham and mustard by Monday lunch. A loaf for the work week. https://openburner.co/post/cooking-after-surgery/ https://openburner.co/post/cooking-after-surgery/ Thu, 30 Apr 2026 09:00:00 GMT Petra Sloane kitchen-notes How a Glasgow baker rebuilt her kitchen life after a right-shoulder repair, one slow Tuesday at a time. https://openburner.co/post/one-pot-lentil-dal-that-improves-by-thursday/ https://openburner.co/post/one-pot-lentil-dal-that-improves-by-thursday/ Wed, 29 Apr 2026 09:00:00 GMT Adrian Coate weeknight Adrian Coate cooks a pound of red lentils on Sunday and eats them, with small alterations, until the pot is empty — a working argument for the dish that gets better while you ignore it. https://openburner.co/post/the-only-knife-you-actually-need/ https://openburner.co/post/the-only-knife-you-actually-need/ Wed, 29 Apr 2026 09:00:00 GMT Rosa Whittaker tools Rosa Whittaker owns three knives. She used to own twenty-two. The eighteen she gave away are not missed. https://openburner.co/post/lemon-ginger-shrub-summer-jar/ https://openburner.co/post/lemon-ginger-shrub-summer-jar/ Wed, 29 Apr 2026 09:00:00 GMT Adrian Coate drinks Adrian Coate keeps a quart of lemon-ginger shrub on the second shelf of his refrigerator from June through September. He drinks it with cold water and uses what's left in vinaigrettes.