We’ve picked a few highlights from a memorable year, including examinations of the life and death of fancy ketchup, how pistachios represent quiet luxury, lunch with Eli Zabar, the fallout of peak beverage, and much more.

This was a year for the record books in so many ways. Our podcast, This Is TASTE, has become a must-listen show for many fans of cookbooks and those working in and around the food industry (Bon Appétit agrees). We doubled our monthly audience (thank you, listeners), and we have found ourselves at the center of many important food media conversations. There’s so much more to come from the land of podcasts. Have you subscribed?

But it was on the story front where we really, truly hit a new level in our seventh year of publishing. We welcomed some new writers to the mix, including a new, limited-run garlic column from Jason Diamond, as well as Zola Gregory’s essential recipe writing in Extra Good. You may not have heard it here first, but Zola is a name to watch.

We also saw incredible work from our longtime columnists Cathy Erway and Jordan Michelman. Cathy’s column, Shelve It, explores in detail the grocery store products that ask a big question in culture, while Jordan digs deeper and deeper into the topics that interest him (and many of our readers) in his must-read Rabbit Hole dispatches. I continued to work alongside the amazing Aliza Abarbanel, who, in addition to editing features and cohosting the podcast with me, publishes her own independent magazine, Cake Zine, with the talented writer-chef Tanya Bush.

Anyways, enough behind-the-scenes business. Here are 20 great stories that really stuck out and resonated with our audience. Please give them a read, and we so look forward to much more in 2024. —Matt Rodbard