Good morning. Time was, a goodly part of my correspondence was with readers annoyed with me or with The New York Times for publishing recipes calling for ingredients unavailable to them, either for reasons of geography or because they didn’t wish to stray beyond the aisles of their local supermarket. Online shopping and better supermarkets…
Four mothers sat quietly in the nursing room around midnight, breastfeeding their newborn babies. As one mother nodded off, her eyelids heavy after giving birth less than two weeks earlier, a nurse came in and whisked her baby away. The exhausted new mom returned to her private room to sleep. Sleep is just one of…
Today’s newsletter is all about recipes that take the flavors of one beloved food and apply them to something else, creating a dish that’s both familiar and novel. What can we say? It’s the end of January, we’re a little stir-crazy and we love a bit of fun in the kitchen. First up: Ali Slagle’s…
Marea, the plush Italian seafood restaurant on Central Park South, reopened last fall with subtle renovations to repair flood damage. Now the restaurant is embarking on a bigger change, joining another of New York’s premier restaurant groups to expand what it calls “the Marea brand” worldwide. Marea’s owner, Altamarea Group, founded by Ahmass Fakahany, has…
In June 2021, the insurance plan for North Carolina state employees was paying for 2,800 people to take weight-loss drugs. Last year, it paid for nearly 25,000. Medications like Wegovy cost the North Carolina State Health Plan $100 million last year, rising seemingly out of nowhere to represent 10 percent of its spending on prescription…
Gary Weinstein, a retired lawyer, has lived in Manhattan for 30 years, and for most of that time, he has used his oven for storage. “It stares at me with mockery,” he said, gesturing to the forsaken pans inside. His relationship with his microwave, however, is far more collegial. Mr. Weinstein relies on it to…
The origin story of one of Peru’s most popular desserts is almost as romantic as its name — suspiro a la limeña, or “the sigh of a lady from Lima.” More than a century ago, the story goes, the wife of the poet José Gálvez Barrenechea made him a custard similar to dulce de leche…
More than a decade ago, when Ryan Guererri was in his early 20s, he became obsessed with craft beer. As breweries rolled out a nonstop roster of new products, he bought hundreds of different beers, from bitter I.P.A.s to strong Belgian ales. “It was exciting trying everything,” said Mr. Guererri, who is now 35 and…
The woman in the vegan diner mentioned her thumbs. They looked like they had been hammered flat, just like mine. I felt the rush of connection, followed by the ache of regret. This woman, my sister, was a stranger. We had last seen each other more than 30 years ago. I was 7; she was…
Good morning. Mark Bittman is a freewheeling cook, a minimalist, open to improvisation. His recipes are often set-it-and-forget-it in style. If I were writing his biography, I’d title it “Largely Unattended.” Kenji López-Alt is the opposite: an exacting, scientifically minded kitchen authority who employs terms like “polysaccharide glue” to explain why, for example, his Parmesan-crusted…
