This is One Thing , a column with tips on how to live.

I read a lot of recipes. In fact, investigating why so many of them lead home cooks astray is my side gig right now here at Slate ( send us a question! ). And in all of my reading (and subsequent cooking), there’s one simple instruction that immediately endears me to a recipe. One simple directive that convinces me to trust the mind behind the text, because it’s a step that truly makes a world of difference. It’s so easy. A quick trick that augments any dish; it’s the food hack to end all food hacks: a drizzle of olive oil.

Pasta recipes far and wide benefit from an extra drizzle of olive oil. Soup is improved immensely from a small trail of the stuff, and I would even suggest it should be standard practice to fin

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