The Bittman Project

Food Is Everything. Let’s Treat It That Way.

Through the early part of my career, I (Mark Bittman) mostly wrote about cooking and its pleasures. As I learned more, my focus evolved to include the impact that food has on humans and our relationship to the earth and one another: agriculture, processing, the environment, public health, labor, politics, racism, inequality, justice, and more. This evolved while I was at the New York Times — where I worked for 30 years — and has continued since I left, including the two years I spent running Heated on Medium.

I’m now channeling all of my energy into The Bittman Project as part of a team that shares a common set of values: specifically, that food should be fair to people and animals, affordable for everyone, nutritious, and produced in a way that respects nature and the environment. Food should also taste good; more often than not, that requires shopping, preparing, and cooking.

Lots of food publications embrace the pleasurable and entertaining parts of food and ignore everything else; others focus on the serious issues and ignore the joy. The Bittman Project does both. It’s also essential that we continue to support work from everyone, particularly BIPOC writers, photographers, and illustrators. In doing so, we’re delivering the best of what’s out there on food and cooking — right now, straight to your inbox.

Cooking and Recipes Are Just the Beginning

Our cooking isn’t flashy, but it feeds your soul, your family, and your creativity — every day. We bring you new projects and old favorites; fast, lazy, simple, terrific weeknight standbys; and challenging weekend adventures. We give you traditional written recipes as well as experiment with audio and video (to all of those who’ve told me that you miss The Minimalist—we heard you, it’s back—sorta). We share letters from the kitchen, tips, tricks, techniques, tools, product recommendations (yes, when there’s stuff we truly love, we use affiliate links), ingredients, family secrets, even playlists. 

But it doesn’t stop there. We produce reported pieces, profiles, interviews, and rants about what’s broken in the food world (there’s a lot) and how to change things for the better. People sometimes tell me to just keep politics out of it. Respectfully: No. Food is political. We can’t and won’t ignore that. 

Want a Seat at the (Kitchen)Table? Become a Member

We’ve thought a lot about what would make it worth it to you to become a paying member of The Bittman Project community. We'll continue to make some of our recipes available and free to everyone—really good recipes that have been tested again and again. Members, though, will have access to every single recipe that we publish via our Recipe Archive. Members will also be invited to participate in regular community discussion threads (like this one) and get weekly Super-Cheap Dinner recipes that will recoup the cost of a yearly membership (seriously) and plenty more bonus material and perks.

More important, we are building The Bittman Project to be a true community, a place where we share what we know and ask about what we don’t; a place where we figure out how to cook with less meat, money, or time, or more confidence, flavor, or joy. A place where we encourage each other to treat food like it really, truly matters (because it does!). My life has been shaped and enriched in countless ways by the community of cooks around me: We want to expand that to include you.

That’s what you’re getting when you join The Bittman Project, and why we think it’s worth it: membership is $7 per month, or $50 per year (roughly the cost of one fancy cappuccino a month).

Need The Bittman Project For Free? No Problem. Want to Support Us by Paying More? Also No Problem.

The Bittman Project can only exist with your support; yearly and monthly memberships will pay for the salaries of those who help create it, a team we hope to see grow. At the same time, it would be ridiculous not to acknowledge that many of us are not doing OK. If The Bittman Project is to be useful and valuable, it can’t just be for people who can comfortably afford it. So, if you want to become a member but can’t for whatever reason, just email us (bittman@markbittman.com) and ask for a free membership. You don’t have to say why; it’s yours, no questions asked. 

On the flip side, if you’re doing fine, feeling generous, and believe in this project, you can give a membership as a gift or become a Kitchen Cabinet Member for $200 — or more if you want to support this work on an even deeper level. We’ll give away two annual memberships to people who can’t afford them for everyone who joins the Kitchen Cabinet.

GIVE A GIFT SUBSCRIPTION

For me, The Bittman Project is both the natural continuation of four decades of work and, fingers crossed, the beginning of something that will last at least four more. There is much to be done. I hope you’ll join us.