Cheesy and Spicy

Hi and welcome to Five Weeknight Dishes. The word at NYT Cooking headquarters this week is cookies: We have just published our holiday spectacular, which we have so humbly titled “12 Stunning Cookies That Will Impress Everyone You Know.” And yet, unless you know only professional pastry chefs, I really do believe this is truth.…

Love Letter: A Loving Gray Divorce

Love found on reality TV is often proven to be the kiss of death. In this week’s Vows column, however, Joe Anglim and Sierra Dawn Thomas, who met in 2014 while competing on the 30th season of “Survivor,” beat the odds and eventually won at love. And, many turn to social media and online dating…

The Topanga Tea Ceremony

LOS ANGELES — A reasonable question one who has never attended a tea ceremony might have in advance of attending their very first tea ceremony is: What happens at a tea ceremony? But when I spoke on the phone with Baelyn Elspeth a week before she hosted a carefully planned “tea sit” in Topanga Canyon,…

The Most Incredible Holiday Cookies Ever

Good morning. Susan Spungen gave us a Christmas gift this week, gave it to the whole world: a package of modern cookie recipes, starring the fantastic sugar cookies you see can see above these words. Susan’s an artist and food stylist, a recipe developer and former lieutenant at Martha Stewart Living. She is also a…

Why Won’t the Padded Headband Die?

Stephane Cardinale – CorbisGetty Images We tend to look at fashion through rose-colored, obnoxiously tiny sunglasses. The proliferation of influencers, paired with the addictiveness of scrolling topped off by the intoxicating immediacy of fast fashion means we consume trends faster than ever. We participate before common sense kicks in. We line up to buy questionable…

The $120,000 Banana Wins Art Basel

Leave it to Maurizio Cattelan. The first flight of V.I.P. collectors had barely arrived at Art Basel Miami Beach, the art fair that some call the “Running of the Billionaires,’’ and the satirical Italian artist had already won the battle for Instagram. All he needed was a banana and some duct tape. In a gesture…

You’ll Never Buy Caramel Corn Again

Can a person have too many popcorn epiphanies? I had my first last year, when the Los Angeles chef Jessica Koslow taught me that using more oil than corn kernels yielded the best-textured, crunchiest popcorn. But my latest revelation came a few months ago, when I sampled a caramel popcorn superior — lighter, crisper, more…