A Spread Worthy of Royalty

In Min Jin Lee’s 2017 novel “Pachinko,” a restaurant owner approaches the protagonist, Sunja, after hearing of her famous kimchi. Sunja’s reputation preceding her, the owner hires her on the spot to supply his restaurant’s banchan — the small side dishes that often accompany a Korean meal. “Any fool can make a marinade and grill…

How to Read a Wine Label, in 12 Easy Lessons

Buying wine can be a paralyzing challenge. Facing a wall of unfamiliar bottles can frustrate even the most worldly consumer. Those bottles have labels, of course, often with loads of information about the character and nature of the wine within. But the more detail they offer to knowledgeable wine consumers, the more baffling they seem…

Your Best Sandwiches

I ate ham and cheese sandwiches for two months of lunches, it felt like, until one day I lost the taste for them and had to make a switch. I had a little fist of duck breast left over from when I’d made a couple of them for dinner, cooked slowly on the stovetop under…

A Potential Downside of Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting is a trendy weight loss strategy. But a new study found that a popular form of intermittent fasting called time-restricted eating produced minimal weight loss and one potential downside: muscle loss. The new research, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, is one of the most rigorous studies to examine time-restricted eating, which involves fasting…

A Theory About Conspiracy Theories

More than 1 in 3 Americans believe that the Chinese government engineered the coronavirus as a weapon, and another third are convinced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has exaggerated the threat of Covid-19 to undermine President Trump. The numbers, from a survey released on Sept. 21 by the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg…