Credit: Serious Eats / Kelli Solomon; Tim ChinGentle Reader,When one asks a friend or suitor for tea, it is never JUST for tea. It is an opportunity to present oneself in the highest regard in the most elegant settings available in the light of day. And when one has a tea party expectations are even higher. One’s dress should be elegant yet appropriate...

Serious Eats / Yasmine Maggio, Amanda SuarezI have a love-hate relationship with peanut butter. I’m talking about the good stuff, the real stuff, the stuff made with peanuts, maybe a touch of salt, and none of the more processed add-ins like sugar, palm oil, and emulsifiers—the stuff that also, as a result of its minimal ingredients, is prone to separating....

Serious Eats / Amanda SuarezThere’s a lot of banana bread out there, but slices of truly great banana bread are few and far between. Here, I present a recipe to change that. Great banana bread should be fairly simple to prepare while also having incredible banana flavor. And while “bread” is in the name, it shouldn't be bready-y or tough at all. It...

Serious Eats / Amanda SuarezThe week after I gave birth to my son, my sisters kept my kitchen stocked with an assortment of fun snacks and beverages. While our baby slept, I ate my way through New York City without even leaving my bed, chowing on a whole box of sweet, briny uni sushi, pizza slices from my favorite local joint, Mama’s Too, and many other...

Serious Eats / Amanda SuarezLemonade has plenty of zip, but there's always room for a touch more zing, and what's zingier than the fiery heat of chiles? I'm not the first person to think that spicy lemonade is a good idea, and I sure won't be the last. But I might be the first to come up with this particular method for making it—and the method makes...

Serious Eats / Amanda SuarezWhen you’ve got a bunch of bananas slowly turning spotty on the countertop, the common course of action is to mash them up and turn them into banana bread, right? But the next time this happens to you, I suggest making banana cookies instead. Serious Eats / Amanda SuarezI understand why banana cookies, or bananaramas as I...