When it comes to food-focused boards, cheese and/or charcuterie are usually the star. I love both of these things, but they don't have to be the focal point of a snack board, especially when there are so many other types of snacks.

There are very few dishes — or moments — that can’t be improved by the addition of fat, salt, and heat, which may explain the popularity of nduja, a spicy, almost violently red pork salumi popping up on menus everywhere. Here's how to make you own.

I rarely cook something the same way twice. This is especially true with pasta sauce, as it is adaptable by nature. The other night I was making a simple spaghetti dinner for myself and a friend, simply because I had found a can of tomatoes I didn’t know I had.

As I was tasting and tweaking, I remembered I had about half a cup of the spicy, nduja-like spread I'd made earlier in the week. I tossed it in the sauce and, after tasting, rejoiced.

Hello, and welcome to a very special edition of Will It Sous Vide?, the column where I usually make whatever you want me to with my immersion circulator. Not only are we finally cooking a long-requested dish — porchetta di testa — but we have video.

If you're going to plop down a serious chunk of change for a fancy meat, you want to make sure you're actually getting the good stuff. To learn the difference between charcuterie trash and treasure, Epicurious enlisted meat expert Elias Cairo of Olympia Provisions to blindly taste a whole variety or meats at various price points.

I am an absolute fool for a good charcuterie board, and enjoy all of their offerings, from the super-hard salumi to the spreadable and whipped liver mousse. But there is something special about a terrine which, at its best, is a harmonious amalgamation of flavours, textures and (of course) meats.

I love a Whitman's sampler, but I buy those for myself February 15, when they are half-price. Though I'm not one to turn down a box of chocolate on Valentine's Day, giving them can feel a little impersonal, and we can do better.

I am a very big fan of store-bought recess meals, both as a product and a concept. The no-cook, assemble-and-eat boxes of food are convenient, customisable, and fun for all, including actual school children and those who are just children at heart.

Charcuterie is the branch of cooking devoted to prepared meat products, such as bacon, ham, sausage, terrines, galantines, ballotines, pâtés, and confit. If you've only heard of half of those terms before, here's a bogan-friendly meat primer to get you up to speed.