Austria is best known for its white wines, grüner veltliners and rieslings primarily. But it also produces brilliant reds, which, because they often seem like afterthoughts, can be great values. Why do they seem so relatively obscure? Partly, it’s because grapes like blaufränkisch, which has great potential for making complex, contemplative wines, and zweigelt, the…
When I joined The New York Times as a columnist in 2022, I hadn’t worked in an office in over two decades. Before, I wrote freelance articles and books at home; my only co-worker was Tux, my tuxedo cat. On my first day, I was shown to my cubicle and given a computer. Feigning confidence,…
In the business of reporting on and reacting to culture — whether it’s theater, film, music, books or restaurants — eventually something you write will end up in promotional advertising. I’m a living example: If you’ve ever ordered a fish taco from Tacombi on a delivery app, then you might have noticed its description starts…
One of my favorite Hindi terms is “ghar ka khaana.” It literally means “home food,” but it also encompasses the singular joy and unfussiness of meals made in your own kitchen — the dishes that remind you of childhood, the ones you won’t often find in restaurants. My quintessential ghar ka khaana? Dal. To make…
While most experts agree that you should wear sunscreen year-round to prevent damage from the sun, harmful ultraviolet rays are strongest during the late spring and early summer. The Times’s Well section partnered with Wirecutter, a New York Times Company that reviews and recommends products (and publishes annual ratings of sunscreens for the face and…
On Tuesday, the largest credit card companies in the United States reached an agreement with merchants to reduce the so-called swipe fees retailers pay for accepting credit card payments, potentially saving the retailers $30 billion. These fees also help fund the credit card rewards programs that many travelers redeem for things like free flights and…
It began as ideas, good and bad, often do: in a bar. My soccer club — a group of mostly middle-aged dads in suburban New Jersey — was enjoying its weekly post-match pint when we began talking about how fun it would be to play against a similar team in Mexico City, where several of…
Hello! It’s Eric Kim, reporting for duty and filling in for Mia Leimkuhler this week. How are we doing today? They say you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take, so here’s my pitch for a television show: It’s called “You’ve Been Sheet-Panned!” Each episode starts with a contestant’s cherished family recipe or…
How do we define furniture? It might seem like a silly question, but it’s one that kept coming up in October of last year, when, in a conference room on the 15th floor of The New York Times building, six experts — the architects and interior designers Rafael de Cárdenas and Daniel Romualdez; the Museum…
If Indiana Jones took a turn toward the elegant and developed an obsession with textiles, he might be a bit like Louis Barthélemy, the French illustrator and designer who travels to Africa and the Middle East to work with weavers and craftspeople who are skilled in traditional techniques. Ishkar, a London-based company that collaborates with…
