About Liz E. Pepper

Welcome to My Kitchen

Hi, I’m Liz E. Pepper, the creator behind LizTable. For over 15 years I’ve been developing, testing, and refining recipes that actually work — not just on the first try, but on the third and the seventh and the Tuesday night when everything else has gone sideways. My husband Marco calls me the most stubborn cook he’s ever watched work, and I take that as a compliment.

Every recipe on LizTable has been made in my own kitchen, adjusted until it couldn’t be improved, and written for cooks who want results without theater. I believe the best food is honest food — and honest food takes patience, attention, and the willingness to throw a batch away when it isn’t right.

Where This Started

My mother grew up outside Siena, in a farmhouse kitchen where the rule was simple: use what’s good, don’t complicate it. She cooked the way her mother cooked — by feel, by smell, by the sound of oil hitting a hot pan. I spent summers there as a child learning that the most important ingredient in any dish is attention. I’ve been chasing that standard ever since.

Watching her make ribollita on cold evenings — the same Tuscan bread soup every January, never from a recipe, always perfect — is what made me serious about cooking. I’ve made that soup probably three hundred times. Mine is close. Not the same. But close.

My biggest kitchen failure happened during a private dinner I catered for twelve people in 2017. A ricotta-stuffed pasta I had made successfully dozens of times broke completely during service — the filling turned grainy from overheating and the pasta split. I served it anyway with a composed expression and spent the next two months understanding exactly what temperature causes ricotta to weep. That failure changed how I write recipes: every technique note I include now exists because I’ve done it wrong first.

Professional Background

Formal Training

I earned my Culinary Arts Degree from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, graduating with honors in 2012. My training focused on classical French and Italian techniques, international cuisine, and pastry arts. I completed advanced Mediterranean cooking coursework at the International Culinary Center in 2016, and have attended specialized workshops in fermentation, bread baking, and plant-based cooking. I am ServSafe Food Handler Certified since 2013.

Recipe Development

From 2014 to 2019 I worked as a freelance recipe developer for Better Homes & Gardens and Food Network Magazine. My work has appeared on Epicurious, Serious Eats, and The Kitchn. I’ve developed more than 750 original recipes across Mediterranean, Italian, family, and healthy weeknight categories. LizTable won the Saveur Best New Food Blog Award in 2024.

How I Cook at Home

Marco is an architect, and his feedback on food is architectural: he tells me when something is structurally sound and when it isn’t. He doesn’t use those words, but that’s what he means when he says a dish “holds together” or “falls apart on the plate.” His instinct for composition — visual and structural — makes him the most useful taster I’ve ever had. When Marco goes quiet after a first bite, I know the recipe works.

We don’t have children, which means our kitchen runs differently than most family food blogs. I cook for dinner parties, long Sunday lunches, and the kind of weeknight meals that feel like a small occasion even when it’s just the two of us. That’s the lens LizTable is written through: food worth making even when no one’s watching.

Two things live permanently on my counter: a bottle of good Sicilian extra-virgin olive oil and a small ceramic bowl of flaky sea salt. I finish almost everything with both. The salt is Maldon — not because it’s precious, but because the texture is part of the experience, and I stopped apologizing for caring about that years ago.

My tasting ritual is fixed: I taste during cooking, once before plating, and once the next morning cold from the refrigerator. Cold food tells you the truth. A sauce that tastes balanced warm will often taste flat cold, and that’s the version someone eating leftovers experiences. I write recipes for both moments.

One opinion I’ll defend without hesitation: pasta water is the most underused ingredient in home cooking. A ladle of starchy, salted pasta water turns a broken sauce into something that clings the way it should, and most home cooks pour it down the drain before they think to save it. I’ve been saying this for a decade. I’ll keep saying it.

What You’ll Find on LizTable

LizTable is built around a single standard: recipes that work, explained by someone who has made them fail and figured out why. Every post includes step-by-step instructions with technique notes, make-ahead guidance, substitution options, and the kind of honest troubleshooting that comes from testing the same dish until there’s nothing left to fix.

• 750+ tested and refined recipes across Mediterranean, Italian, and family categories
• Detailed technique notes explaining why each step matters
• Make-ahead instructions and storage guidance for every recipe
• Honest troubleshooting based on real failures during testing
• Nutritional information calculated for every dish