Donna Currie

Donna Currie has been cooking ever since she was tall enough to stand on a chair and melt butter in a 1-cup-sized Revere Ware saucepan that came with her mom's adult-sized set. She first started writing for Serious Eats many years ago with a bread-baking column and then, later, a cooking gadget column. After a hiatus to write her cookbook, Make Ahead Bread, she returned to write equipment reviews. The daughter of an accomplished home cook and a machinist who loved gadgets, it's no surprise she loves fiddling with all kinds of kitchen gear.

Her food-related work includes maintaining her blog, Cookistry, developing recipes for appliance booklets, writing for The Spruce Eats and Whisk Magazine, editing for Healthy Eats 101, and more.

What is your desert island food?

Pizza! Oh, how I adore pizza! But not just any pizza! I want all the pizzas, from plain old cheese to barbecue chicken! I even love the little tiny pizzas that are made from flour or cornmeal and folded in half and filled with spicy meats, peppers, onions, and vegetables, as well as the thicker ones filled with gyro meat and topped with tzatziki! I love sweet pizza crusts topped with cream cheese and apples. Yeah, I could be really happy on the Island of Pizza. And then I'd probably paddle over to a nearby dessert island for some chocolate cake and chocolate ice cream.

What's your favorite condiment?

This is tough, but I'd have to say mayo. (So sorry, barbecue sauce!) Not just because it is perfect for tomato sandwiches in the summer, but also because mayo is so versatile. I smear it on flattened chicken breasts before coating them with panko and frying. I use it for mom's potato salad. I use it for homemade creamy salad dressings. Mayo and horseradish makes a nice creamy sauce for beef; add ketchup and lemon and it's a simple dip for shrimp. Aioli counts as mayo, too, so there's even more versatility. And the egg yolk sauce that's used at teppanyaki restaurants is a kind of mayo, so I have to include that. Plus, it's easy to make at home and inexpensive to buy at the grocery store.