How The Washington Post’s food critic Tom Siestema embraced home cooking during the pandemic

For more than 20 years, Washington Post food critic Tom Siestema has been reviewing other people’s cooking. But lately, he writes in a new essay, his own cooking has increasingly been critiqued by his partner. The critic rediscovered the joys of home cooking during the pandemic, including how to repurpose ingredients such as leftover gazpacho and takeout rice; practicing kitchen hacks for prep and storage; and learning to pull together simple yet compelling three-ingredient dishes, like a crisp celery salad tossed with blue cheese and onions. Siestema also shares the recipe for his go-to pandemic dish: baked chicken drumsticks basted in a West African-inspired peanut butter sauce. The dish earned a solid “A” rating from his partner. We’ll have to test it out and judge for ourselves.