Every Monday night, Bon Appétit editor in chief Adam Rapoport gives us a peek inside his brain by taking over our newsletter. He shares recipes he's been cooking, restaurants he's been eating at, and more. It gets better: If you sign up for our newsletter, you'll get this letter before everyone else.

Hot take: The best part of Bon Appétitʼs Best Weekend Ever wasnʼt the food (though I am still dreaming about Rick Martinezʼs bubbling vat of crispy carnitas, Konbiʼs Instagram-famous egg salad sandwich, and George Motz’s legendary smash burgers). The best part, as is the case with any great party, was the people.

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Brad, sandwiched by fans! Photo by David Alvarado

Over the course of four days and a suite of events—from intimate dinners and hands-on cooking classes, to a 2,000-person Hot 10 mega bash—I met BA fans from, quite literally, all over the country. At Brad Leoneʼs make-your-own sauerkraut class on Friday, two wide-eyed young women who couldnʼt quite believe they were in the BA Test Kitchen, caught me during my daily 3 p.m. espresso break. They introduced themselves, letting me know that they had jetted in from Wyoming and Nebraska, respectively. Normally, this would have stunned me, but the night prior, I sat down to Georgian-style feast prepared by Washington, D.C.ʼs Maydan restaurant, and dined next to a couple who had come down from Ottawa and across the table from two food-loving buddies who had traveled from a small town just outside Madison, Wisconsin. And so it went all weekend long. At Saturday nightʼs Hot 10 party, it was a roll call of podcast fans, video die hards and, yes, good old fashioned magazine readers, who arrived from Boston, Baltimore, D.C., Virginia, Dallas, and, of course, Brooklyn.

At BA, we spend all day every day developing recipes and writing and recording and filming our stories. But we rarely get to meet all the people who consume our work. And so when the gentleman from outside Madison raised a wine glass to give a toast, he noted how appreciative he was “for a small town of just 2,000 people” to be able to get the quality and quantity of content on a daily basis from Bon App. Well, that was pretty cool. We love what we do at BA, and we try hard to convey that enthusiasm in all our platforms. To see firsthand that this is working meant the world to us.

Alex Delany holding one of those killer smash burgers. Photo by Rachel Karten

In the coming months, weʼll continue to expand our notion of what an editorial brand can do. We have live podcasts tentatively scheduled for January and April. Our Making Perfect: Thanksgiving six-part series just launched on our free streaming channel and will be rolling out on a weekly basis on YouTube. And keep an eye out for a much more dynamic online merch shop, coming to you just in time for the holidays.

Sometimes we wonder why we give ourselves so much work to do. But when we get to meet so many BA fans out there, we remember why.