Test kitchen

... all right.

So today we're asking, are there any store-bought snacks that are worth making at home? Welcome to In the Test Kitchen, a culinary playground and proving ground where recipes are developed, tested, and tasted until they're as close to perfect as possible.

And now you're invited inside as we discuss and debate the most popular foods at ATK and beyond.

I'm Lan Lam, recipe developer and host of Technically.

She was the first ever manager of the first ever Shake Shack.

She's a bonafide Bon Appétit Test Kitchen all-star and OG.

She's got James Beard awards.

She writes recipes.

[laughs]

...

the Test Kitchen was, like, a thing.

Prime time, yeah.

That's so cute.

But they got in contact with one of the former Test Kitchen editors-

Mm-hmm

... and said that they, um, that she remembered Carol, and that they were constantly going to the file cabinets and pulling out-

...

they, well, I will say this.

At noon each day in the Test Kitchen, this was back in, uh, the early, late '80s, early '90s, they'd get 4,000 recipes a month.

Mm-hmm.

Silber met Baraghani at a party celebrating the chef's debut cookbook, The Cook You Want to Be, which won a James Beard Award and a place on the New York Times bestseller list.

Baraghani had built a devoted audience while working in Bon Appetit's Test Kitchen from 2015 to 2021, just as food videos were exploding in popularity.

His timing was unbelievable, said Christine Mulkey.

a writer and culinary consultant who was the executive editor of Bon Appetit when Baragani arrived.

The test kitchen job required the candidate to be a good cook, a good writer, and a good recipe writer, whose food connected with the food world at large, plus a new twist, natural on-camera charisma.

Skilled and humble with a knack for flavors, Baraghani became a fan favorite.

Out Magazine declared him the internet boyfriend of our dreams in 2020.

We're gonna try them all and try to decide what makes the best red sauce.

[upbeat music] Welcome to In the Test Kitchen, a culinary playground and proving ground where recipes are developed, tested, and tasted until they're as close to perfect as possible.

And now, you're invited inside as we discuss and debate the most popular foods at ATK and beyond.

I'm Lan Lam, recipe developer and host of Technically.

I'm Lidey Heuck, editor-in-residence and cookbook author.

Grab your apron.

You're In the Test Kitchen.

I grew up with essentially the same thing, Lan.

We built a lot of systems that hand over creativity to them.

We have a test kitchen where the younger chefs write a dish every week.

there was a lot of, yeah, like we've been doing that since day one.

Like, um, the whole idea of that is to give them the creative license to, to think and to fail.

I think that's the big thing.

Like letting... letting them have input into where we go.

That's what came from the Test Kitchen series.

The young chefs, you give two chefs one ingredient and they both go down different paths and potentially that's not the one that you thought.

And she enrolled herself in culinary school.

She later started working in Martha Stewart's Test Kitchen, where she worked alongside leading creative voices in food and really rose to serve as the culinary brand director.

So she was developing food and beverage products for Martha's iconic brand.

And...

And that was really like, you know, the start of this 12 year journey to where I am now.

So I've worked in restaurant kitchens.

I worked in Martha Stewart's test kitchen as a recipe editor and then recipe developer and food editor.

And then ended up being her culinary director and developed any food and beverage product that had her name on it.