I’m Marlow Bendrose, and I run PastaPeak out of a narrow galley kitchen in Brooklyn. The “peak” in the name started as a joke about how high the pasta water climbs the moment I walk off to answer the door, and it stuck.
Before this site I spent eight years working inside New York food media: testing recipes, line-editing other people’s recipes, and fact-checking nutrition claims that often turned out to be nonsense. I left because too much of what gets published online has never actually been cooked by the person whose name sits at the top. I wanted a place where that wasn’t the case. So PastaPeak runs like a small test kitchen. Every recipe here is cooked at least three times before it goes live, usually by me and two other cooks, and nothing gets published until we agree it works in an ordinary home kitchen with ordinary equipment.
What you’ll find here
The writing splits into two kinds. There are recipes, the actual “here is dinner” pages, with weights, timings, and the substitutions I’ve already tested so you don’t have to guess. And there are what I think of as lab guides: longer pieces that take one question seriously, like why pasta cooked al dente has a lower glycemic load, or how to rescue a sauce that has gone watery. If a topic doesn’t deserve a full, honest answer, I don’t write a thin post just to fill the calendar.
How I test
I cook on a standard four-burner range and weigh ingredients in both grams and ounces. Where a recipe is fussy, I say so, so I can warn you before it bites you. When a sauce ratio is the thing that matters, I give you the ratio instead of a vague “to taste.” When timing makes or breaks the dish, I tell you exactly what to watch for rather than “cook until done.” If a recipe failed the first two times and I figured out the fix, that fix is written into the post.
Where the numbers come from
Nutrition figures and food-science claims are checked against established culinary and food-science references before they go up. When I make a specific claim, about gluten, resistant starch, or protein content, I point you to where it comes from rather than asking you to take my word for it. If I get something wrong and you catch it, email me. I correct mistakes in the article itself and add a short note saying what changed and when.
What PastaPeak is not
This is a cooking site, not medical or dietary advice. If you are managing a condition where carbohydrates or gluten genuinely affect your health, please talk to a registered dietitian or your doctor. I can explain how a dish is built; I can’t tell you what is right for your body. I also don’t run sponsored posts dressed up as recipes. On the rare occasion there is an affiliate link to a tool I actually use, it is marked plainly.
Get in touch
The fastest way to reach me is the contact page. I read everything, including the emails telling me my carbonara method is wrong. (It isn’t, but I read them.)
Marlow Bendrose, Brooklyn. Last updated June 2026.