We’ve picked a few highlights from a memorable year, including the protein era, the Indian pizza boom, and squeeze-worthy olive oil.

As we close out this fantastic year, our eighth full year in publication, I wanted to take a quick moment to look back. Our podcast, This Is TASTE, has become a must-listen show for many fans of restaurants, cookbooks, and those working in and around the food industry. We once again 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 TASTE land of podcasts. Have you subscribed?

Even with the podcast in production basically all the time, we have found time to publish some truly memorable written (and reported, illustrated, and photographed) work this year. Cathy Erway continued writing her award-winning column, Shelve It, with detailed reporting about fleur de sel and the squeeze-bottle olive oil era. We dove into the Indian pizza boom, the tinned fish backlash, and protein creeping into all areas of our eating lives. These are just a few of the many worth mentioning, and here’s our full lineup of top stories, dictated by online traffic, social engagement, and conversations online. — Matt Rodbard, Editor in Chief