Good morning. Straight talk, no malarkey: I don’t like New Year’s Eve. I grew up in New York City and work in Times Square, and my view of the holiday has always been informed by the crowds here and the fences that contain them, the way they wait and wait. Wake up, sheeple! It’s cold out.
I don’t want to be in a restaurant, either: fixed menus, cheap Champagne, everyone trying to nurse their tables along toward midnight beneath the glares of fuming waiters, captains, sommeliers. New Year’s Eve is a night for amateurs. It’s not ever fun.
Well, hardly ever. I can think of a couple of exceptions, and the best one is just to stay home and have a blowout with family and friends, then hit the rack as soon as I like. For instance: Champagne, oysters, vodka, caviar, blinis, lobster Cantonese, prime rib (above). Pull off even a third of that list on Tuesday night, and you’ll remember 2019 with affection for the rest of the ’20s. (Pair the prime rib with a giant Yorkshire pudding, please.) Get your shopping done today!
While you’re out there, pick up what you’ll need to make Korean fried cauliflower for dinner tonight, with jarred kimchi if you haven’t made your own, and plenty of steamed rice.
Also, maybe some boxed spaghetti, so you can raid your pantry on Monday night for a dinner of pasta puttanesca.
Tuesday night we’ve discussed. Plan your play. Play your plan.
You may arise on Wednesday wanting to get 2020 off to a fast start, with a cherry-almond smoothie and a brisk trot through the park. (Alternatively, you may awaken in sickness and shock, and desire only a diner breakfast, a Dr Pepper and a fistful of Advil.) Either way see if you can’t end the day with a burger, just because. You could make it a shrimp burger instead. A black bean burger. A mushroom and farro burger. We have a lot of recipes for burgers.
Thursday, I’m thinking, is a good one for velvet fish with soft tofu and a bunch of wood-ear mushrooms, another bowl of rice.
And then, to round out the week? Sweet potato confit with chorizo and crème fraîche. If the instructions seem daunting, you could always just roast the potatoes in their jackets, rubbed in oil and wrapped in foil, then slice them open to accept the chorizo and crème fraîche. It’s anyway a dish that once you’ve made it, you will make it a lot.
Many thousands of other recipes to cook this week are waiting for you on NYT Cooking. We believe that at least a few of them have the power to change your life for the better. And that is one reason, but not the only reason, that we require you to take out a subscription to the site and apps. So that we’re in this together, in pursuit of the delicious, working to understand our world.
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Now, it’s nothing to do with Camembert or green grapes, but you should read ProPublica’s investigation into what really happened on board the U.S.S. John S. McCain during the Navy’s worst accident at sea in 40 years.
I liked Mallika Rao in The Believer, on the Hindi word “jugaad.”
Finally, to play us off: Prince’s acoustic demo for “I Feel for You” is wild. As Ben Ratliff was saying the other day, “He was 20!” I’ll see you tomorrow.
