Lisa Donovan

New York

Senior Publishing Editor at The Wall Street Journal

@WSJ senior publishing editor. Previously: Edit lines and bylines in Chicago newspapers and beyond. Always a Nebraska kid.

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Articles

A New Orleans Legend's Incredible Cornbread

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Lisa Donovan

Image Credit... Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Heather Greene. When Southerners talk about cornbread, they're really talking about where they come from. More specifically, they're talking about the peoplethey come from. You might think the differences in cornbread are marginal, the list of ingredients often identical.
On Our Own Terms: How Cottage Bakers Have Reclaimed and Transformed the Domestic Space

2 months ago | newsletter.wordloaf.org | Anne Byrn |Andrew Janjigian |Lisa Donovan |Julia Skinner

America’s Test Kitchen recently published When Southern Women Cook, a tribute to the vast contributions that Southern women have made to American foodways. It was created and edited by Toni-Tipton Martin and my friend Morgan Bolling, both of whom are from the South themselves.
Never Underestimate the Power of a Good Cookie

Dec 3, 2024 | nytimes.com | Lisa Donovan

Image Credit... Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Sophia Eleni Pappas. The charms of the Western desert are so overwhelming that even a girl like me can forget to eat. At least, that's what I was telling myself early in the pandemic as I camped here and there in my car and occasionally - in nearly a full hazmat suit - at national-park sites and house rentals that provided deep cleaning and safety.
The Perfect Pecan Pie Inspired by Southern Grannies

Nov 5, 2024 | nytimes.com | Lisa Donovan

Image Credit... Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Megan Hedgpeth. Nancy Brewer, owner and baker of the Kitchen Shop in Grand Coteau, La., had a quiet epiphany in culinary school. While practicing pâte sucrée, she realized it was nearly the same dough her grandmother in Louisiana used for her sweet pies, a crumb and texture that isn't quite a short crust and also isn't quite a pie dough but its own thing all at once.
A Brioche That Will Make a Believer Out of You

Oct 9, 2024 | nytimes.com | Lisa Donovan

Image Credit... Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Paige Hicks. In Angers, France, at a bakery called Boulangerie des Carmes, you can behold (and taste) the most beautiful brioche loaves gracing bakery shelves - I'll say it - universewide. They are perfectly and only slightly sweet, complex, with a textured crumb that makes even the most trained baker marvel. This particular brioche is a testament to practice and evolution.
The Biggest Lie About Baking

Sep 3, 2024 | nytimes.com | Lisa Donovan

Image Credit... Chris Simpson for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Sophia Eleni Pappas. Clafoutis, the rustic, eggy beauty from France, most certainly stands alone. It's easy to whip together, delicious whether rewarmed or freshly baked and still gooey or left over for a few days and eaten as cold, firm petits fours with your hot morning coffee. It comforts while exuding an unpretentious elegance.
My Grandmother's Tortillas Were the Best. Try Them Yourself.

Aug 6, 2024 | nytimes.com | Lisa Donovan

Image Credit... Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Heather Greene. My grandmother's comal was only about six inches in diameter. It was as central in her home, tucked behind pecan trees and loblolly pines heavy with Spanish moss in Live Oak, Fla., as the amber ashtrays and pickled hot peppers in Mason jars on her dining-room table. This house was full of "Hee Haw" and the Mandrell Sisters and Ray Charles and old dogs that smelled worse than they looked.
The Pie I'll Never Shut Up About

Jul 9, 2024 | nytimes.com | Lisa Donovan

One of the quiet joys of being a restaurant pastry chef is that you arrive early, typically before anyone else, probably just an hour or two after the last of the line cooks are done scrubbing and sanitizing the splashbacks and lowboys. The room invariably still smells like degreaser and leftover wine, no matter how immaculate. That is, at least until you pop your first espresso shot, then a third and a fourth. Here you make yourself a kind of force field.
The Perfect Cake Does Not Exi ... Is That Buttermilk Tres Leches?

Jun 11, 2024 | nytimes.com | Lisa Donovan

To make a stodgy cake is human. To soak that cake in sweet milk is divine. The long and sometimes boozy history of soaked cakes is a varied and delightful category of the human baking experience. For reasons from old bread to stale pastry to clumsy baking, we have learned, with time and ingenuity, to take our best liquids and make a uselessly dry nothing into something sodden with flavor once more. Soaked cakes are everywhere.
This Impressive Cake Has Many Layers

May 14, 2024 | nytimes.com | Lisa Donovan

Image Credit... Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food stylist: Sue Li. Prop stylist: Sophia Eleni Pappas. In 1976, Johnny Cash released a song called "Strawberry Cake." It was a bit of an outsider tune, not altogether popular. But to me, it falls well within the canon of simple yet great Americana storytelling. In an interview, Cash talks about walking past a man sleeping on a New York street while on his way to his hotel.