Who Needs Turkey?

Here’s a Thanksgiving confession. During the first year of the pandemic, when our little family of three celebrated the holiday with no flock of relatives to feed, we replaced the usual 12-pound turkey with a diminutive roast duck. I posted this on my Instagram and got a blizzard of positive responses. There are, of course,…

The Pasta You Need

This isn’t a newsletter about Thanksgiving. But it is a newsletter about the days leading up to Thanksgiving, three weeknights for fast, easy dinners. My personal guidelines for those days: Make everything as simple as possible. Don’t cook or eat anything that echoes the sweet and mushy dishes (I say this with love) of the…

A Thanksgiving Cook’s Timeline

My brother is hosting us for Thanksgiving in Los Angeles, right at the edge of the San Gabriel mountains, and it’ll be a team effort, but I’m in charge of the cooking. This means I can’t put it off any longer: It’s time to think things through and really get organized! I’m definitely looking to…

Cheap Dinner Recipes for the Whole Family

Feeding a family is no joke. That one doesn’t eat raw tomatoes, this one hates chicken (unless it’s in nugget form) and that one over there won’t touch anything green. It’s improbable, if not impossible, to please everyone all at once, so instead of trying to address every little preference with one finished dish, opt…

The Ultimate Thanksgiving Stuffing Recipe

Last year, when I published a pizza-inspired stuffing recipe, some readers were vehement that sage-and-onion-infused traditions should not be messed with. “Is this a joke?” one commenter wrote. “You’d be laughed, if not chased, out of the South!” wrote another, adding that it’s called “dressing” there. Who knew that soggy bread crumbs would be so…