Delicious One-Pot Wonders With Big Flavor

After reading Yewande Komolafe’s most recent column — the diary of a truly perfect fall day with her daughter in Brooklyn — I started daydreaming about getting a pot of maafé going, scenting my kitchen with sizzling garlic and ginger and simmering tomatoes and peanut butter. Yewande makes the comforting Senegalese stew with plantains, squash,…

Can Cultural Identity Be Defined by Food?

“The food your grandmother cooked, that everybody cooked — suddenly it’s called something else,” Johari said. “It’s convenient for people to say, ‘It’s all shared.’ Of course it’s shared, but please give recognition where it’s due.” AT DAWN, FROM the Southern Ridges, the city was a set of dominoes against a sky of smoked orange.…

Cheap and Easy Thanksgiving Recipes

Thanksgiving, for a lot of us, means a glistening table practically buckling under the weight of the food: a burnished bird, overflowing side dishes, every kind of pie and several bottles of wine. But with food costs soaring and continued supply chain issues, this year’s feast might look a little different. How do you create…

These Cakes Have Thorns

Today’s wildly ornamented creations veer even further from tradition and toward self-expression. In Berlin, Hana Betakova, 29, sells surreal tiered cakes through her bakery, Růstcakes, that are edible studies in opposition. She likes to work with aquafaba meringue, which is easily shaped into peaked dollops, obscuring the fluffy crumb within. Her signature style pairs frosting…

Pecan Tarts: A Love Story

My first pecan tart came from a crush. A guy who lived next door. In the way of queer latchkey teenagers globally, we baked at his place in the afternoons. I crushed pecans. He sifted sugar. Sometimes we brushed hands, folding butter into flour. Once the tarts had been baked, we split them down the…