Cooks! The September Test Kitchen is happening on Sunday the 20th in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley neighborhood.
This month’s optional Test Kitchen challenge: CASSEROLES! Layers, cheese, carbs, questionable decisions—we want it all. As the days grow shorter, it’s time to embrace the glory of bubbling cheese, crispy toppings, and dishes that arrive at the table in their own bakeware. We’re talking turkey tetrazzini, tamale pie, doria, moussaka, tuna noodle casserole, shepherd's pie, sushi bake, enchiladas, baked ziti, or whatever comforting carb-fueled casserole dish you’ve been meaning to tackle.
As always, this is a *test kitchen*, not a potluck. The goal is experimentation. Make something you’ve never made before, something too intriguing to pass up. Maybe your casserole emerges golden, bubbling, and worthy of a 1974 spiral-bound church cookbook cover. Maybe it welds itself permanently to the baking dish. Either way—bring it to the table. We celebrate both successes and failures, because every culinary triumph and catastrophe comes with a story.
Post your dish at least two weeks before the Test Kitchen. Head to the event’s Comments section and let the other cooks know what you’re planning to make.
Bring your culinary curiosity, your appetite, and a trivet!
Previously at the Test Kitchen
The August Test Kitchen was a delicious tour of San Francisco’s culinary history, nostalgic favorites, ambitious recreations, and wonderfully creative experiments. Highlights included an exceptional lemongrass pork banh mi with homemade pâté and Dutch crunch bread, silky Tartine cheesecake, irresistible dry-fried chicken wings, and a spot-on roast chicken and bread salad inspired by Zuni Café. There was also plenty of San Francisco nostalgia, from chicken tetrazzini to a Green Goddess salad to Rice-a-Roni and fortune cookies, alongside sophisticated sesame chocolates with lotus paste and a glorious peach cobbler ice cream with snickerdoodles and chocolate Magic Shell. Comforting dishes like clam chowder with bacon, red-braised pork belly, baked goat cheese salad, and cheddar biscuits rounded out the feast. Even the less successful Celery Victor had its charms as a fascinating culinary time capsule—and a reminder that the Test Kitchen celebrates not only delicious successes but also the occasional glorious failure. Overall, it was a joyful, generous, and wonderfully eclectic celebration of food, experimentation, and the pleasure of gathering around the table.
Check out pics from this and other past Test Kitchens on [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/gay_mens_test_kitchen_?igsh=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr).
