We picked a few highlights from a memorable year, including the new rules of frozen pizza, our McTorta moment, the cutthroat world of vintage cookbook collecting, and how the best apples look like potatoes.

This year we celebrated five years of publishing TASTE—and it will be six in early February. Five years of brainstorming, debating, editing, writing, rewriting, assigning art, drafting headlines, and hitting publish to see the seasonal fruits of our labor land in a reader’s NPR farmers’ market tote. This was the year we said goodbye to our longtime senior editor Anna Hezel (catch her new cookbook out next spring) and said hello to our wonderful new colleague Aliza Abarbanel. While our podcast has been keeping us really busy (thank you to the many thousands of you who found us this year), it’s the writing that we hold closest to our hearts. 

We launched a new column with Jordan Michelman, and we continue to publish remarkable monthly work from Cathy Erway. We wrote about ugly apples, Aldi superfans, and the secrets of Bonne Maman. We nerded out with a frozen dumpling nerd and covered the Bloomin’ Onion, Greek food’s big boom, and a real frozen pizza renaissance. And we welcomed Kate Telfeyan as our latest Cook in Residence. Picking 20 favorite stories is nearly impossible. We love them all, like we love teriyaki and vintage cookbook collecting. But here goes. – Matt Rodbard