🎶 Please Don't Stop the Madness

WELCOME.
masters of the madness

Munch Madness, Pepper’s annual 64-recipe bracket competition, kicked off, and Sweet 16 voting goes live this weekend!

We’ve already experienced incredible upsets, like our CEO Jake’s Lox of Flavor Sandwich taking down these Hong-Kong Style Mango Pancakes in the first round. Suspicious, anyone 🤔 ?!

This year’s winner will receive Pepper+ free for a year! We’ve also got other great prizes that will be handed out along the way. Respond to this email with your Chompion pick to enter!

Big shoutout to HexClad, our incredible Munch Madness sponsor. HexClad is offering 10% off to Pepper users throughout the tournament. Check out their new baking steel here and claim the exclusive discount!

WHAT’S COOKIN’ AT PEPPER?
hint: a lot

Here’s what the Pepper team has been cooking up -

• Pepper+ launched! Community members on Pepper can now gain access to a monthly cooking class with top creators, create Personalized Cookbooks, and organize Custom Collections. There’s so many more amazing features we’ll be adding to Pepper+… stay tuned!

• Lights. Camera. Smart Paste! If you have a recipe in your Notes App, Google Docs, physical cookbook, or just want to quickly type out the recipe, we can now auto-format your recipe – cutting down the time it takes you to upload and leaving more time for eating! Check out the feature in action. More coming on improving the upload process!

• LIVE COOKING CLASS with Brittany Khamille! 1 Creator, 1 Dish, 1 class. On Saturday April 20th at 12pm EST, join us for our new monthly series where we go live with the talented creators of the Pepper community. We’ll be making her famous One Pot Cheesy Ravioli & Air Fryer Chicken. Sign up for Pepper+ by 4/6 to join.

FOOD NEWS FOR YOU.
is this McDonald’s dinner box thing for real

McDonald’s is in the news again after users on TikTok are claiming a secret menu item exists: the McDonald’s Dinner box.

For $12.99, the “box” includes 2 Big Macs, 2 cheeseburgers, a 10 piece nugget, and 4 small fries. We spent plenty of time going through videos talking about the box on TikTok, and transparently, we’re still unsure if this is real or not.

If you’re out on McDonald’s but in on the idea of a dinner box, check out these ideas for a homemade version:

• Big Mac Sliders by @Nani_147

• Cheeseburger by @gastronomical.eats

• McDonald’s Copy Cat Chicken Nuggets by @tinekeyounger

• Maw Maw’s French Fries by @alinacooksthings

DINNER BUT DIFFERENT.
diy dinner with friends

If you’re looking for a unique dinner party theme idea, hotpot night should be at the top of your list. Its versatility and ability to get everyone involved in cooking the meal makes it perfect for a group dinner.

Start by making your own sauce (we used soy sauce, peanut butter, chili oil, sesame oil, scallions & garlic) and then cooking ribeye, shrimp, pork belly, enoki mushrooms, bean curds, cabbage, bok choy, noodles, soft boiled eggs in the hotpot.

Do yourself a favor - buy a hotpot, go to your local Japanese market for some goodies, and invite your friends or family over for a night your stomachs will never forget 🍜 

COMPLIMENTS TO THE CHEF.
matthew mancuso (@theartofeating)

FAVORITE RECIPE ON PEPPER. “Spicy whiskey BBQ sauce by Dan Lancaster.” 

BEST COOKING STORY. “8 months out of culinary school, I landed my dream job working for Thomas Keller. I started at Per Se but moved up to be a CDP at the new Bouchon Bakery opening in Rockefeller Center. For months we'd been training and putting this place together and finally, the day of opening comes and everyone seems to have forgotten how to do everything. I remember being pulled off my station to help someone else.

‘I need 200 of these filled in the next 15 minutes,’ I hear from my fellow cook.

I thought to myself this is physically impossible. I pick my head up and call for help, ‘anyone who’s free or has a second please grab a piping bag and help out.’

With the softest voice, I hear next to me, ‘I guess I should roll my sleeves up.’

Thomas Keller himself appears out of nowhere, grabs a bag, and for 10 minutes stood there with me talking about opening day of The French Laundry, as we hustle to fill these up for yet another opening. It was at that moment everything made sense, everything felt right, and I knew this was the right choice for me.”

HOW HE LEARNED TO COOK. “I began cooking when I was 6 or 7 with my mother and grandma. As an-Italian American, we spent most of our days in the kitchen or around a table. I knew from an early age that my life was always going to be about food. When I graduated HS I went on to study at The Culinary Institute of America and then to NYC to work in Michelin kitchens.”

BEST COOKING TIP. “It sounds cheesy because I'm sure you hear everyone preach about it, but understanding the importance of Mise En Place even as a home cook is a game changer. The french term means "to put in place," meaning to have all of your ingredients or equipment ready to go before starting a recipe. That way you can think clearly, you're not fumbling around looking for anything and you can execute properly. Regardless of the recipe, having your mise en place ready will help you tackle anything at any level.”

BIG BRAIN THOUGHT OF THE WEEK.
removing bananas from our diet, we think

We recently learned that bananas are slightly radioactive. They contain small amounts of potassium-40, a radioactive isotope of potassium.

Is this a big deal? Probably not. But, our COO, Matt, had at least one banana every day for 5 years straight! He’s currently rethinking whether bananas have a place in his diet, especially now that Trader Joe’s raised the prices of their bananas for the first time in 20 years 😡 

If you see someone glowing green with a banana hanging out of their backpack in the streets of midtown Manhattan, don’t forget to wave! Matt is super friendly :)