Tis the season, friends. We’re back at it with another round of Dry Pasta January, our favorite annual tradition to kick start a new year. Yes, the holidays are over, and, yes, it’s cold and everyone is sad, but we can still celebrate made-up holidays to fuel us through winter.
For those of you just joining, let’s talk Dry Pasta Jan rules. (More loose guidelines; we aren’t Fight Club.)
Every January, we create new recipes in our Flour + Water Test Kitchen inspired by our favorite pantry staples and a few easy-to-source fresh ingredients. The objective? Minimize the amount of time you have to spend outside your home, while giving life to that dusty can of tomatoes you have lurking behind 17 cans of chickpeas (see: "Chickpea Anxiety.")
This year, we’ve created recipes featuring two products we’re particularly excited about – Napa-based Rancho Gordo’s heirloom cranberry beans, and our favorite SF culinary shop Bernal Cutlery’s Yuzukararin citrus chili pepper condiment. If you aren’t familiar with either, allow us to nerd out for a moment. There’s a reason that Rancho Gordo has a waitlist for their quarterly subscription bean club. Founder Steve Sando created the company with a mission to preserve and champion heirloom beans and grains indigenous to the Americas. That genuine intention shines through in the exceptional quality and freshness of his products. If you haven’t had his beans before, they will change the way you view these humble legumes.
Closer to our SF neck of the woods, we love Bernal Cutlery so much that we spent years developing "The World’s Best Pizza Cutter" with them. And then, when we thought we couldn’t love them more for making our pizza-cutting dreams come true, they introduced us to the magic of Yuzukararin. Crafted in Mihara Village on the Japanese island of Shikoku, this product is truly an ode to a region that’s known for its yuzu. Combining that yuzu with chili peppers and salt creates this incredible balance of bright acidity and gentle heat that doesn’t blow out the palate. It’s everything we want to put on, well, everything.
The two recipes we're dropping this month put both these pantry staples in the spotlight where they belong. We can’t wait for you to give them the good ole Dry Pasta Jan try. Happy '26, Pasta People.