Cookery Monster is the brainchild of Megan McArdle, who writes about politics, economics and public policy for the Washington Post. She is also an avid amateur cook, who coincidentally happens to be married to the best amateur bartender in the world.

When you add together a love of cooking, and a more generalized idiopathic nerd-dom, you get a kitchen gearhead. And back in the day, when Megan was a blogger, her culinary gear-headedness expressed itself as a comprehensive annual holiday list of all the gadgets she loved. That guide continued through her years as a staff writer at The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, and Bloomberg.

But in 2018, she moved to the Washington Post. It turns out the Washington Post, being a large newspaper with many fine writers providing comprehensive coverage to a broad general audience, already does its own kitchen gift guide. For two years, the kitchen gift guide went dormant.

The Guide’s longtime fans—not necessarily all that numerous, but touchingly committed—protested. Megan’s heart was warmed. So in 2020, when we all longed for the familiar, the tried-and-true, the little moments of human connection that tie person to person and present to future to past … well, to put a long story short, she decided to bring it back.

In time, there may also be some recipe notes, which she emails to herself from time to time in order to preserve her successful experiments. But for now, there is the guide, and her heartfelt appreciation to all the readers who demanded she bring it back.

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As an Amazon Associate, she earns from qualifying purchases. She never has, and never will, recommend anything that she does not fervently believe is an excellent product.