The Impermanence of Beauty

Has vegan food ever been so beautiful? “Kajitsu,” a cookbook explaining the Zen Buddhist Shojin cuisine of Japan, offers page after page of magnificent seasonal dishes, with recipes. The book’s all based on the Murray Hill restaurant Kajitsu (now closed because of the pandemic), which moved to its present location from the East Village in…

Cocktails Delivered Straight to Your Door

You’ve heard of ghost kitchens, where chefs without brick-and-mortar restaurants work on food for delivery? Now, welcome Ghost Bar, an online cocktail service. Its menu of well-made premixed drinks, in 6- to 10-ounce portions ($12 to $24), ranges from classics like Negroni and Sazerac, to inventive libations, like the delicious Old Money with spiced rum,…

An Organ Recital, With a Coronavirus Shot

SALISBURY, England — On a recent Saturday afternoon, Margaret Drabble, 83, sat beneath the soaring arches of Salisbury Cathedral, swinging her legs back and forth under her chair like a schoolgirl. Minutes earlier, in a booth near the cathedral’s entrance, she had received her first shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against the coronavirus. But that…

Cook for Yourself

Good morning. I was flying solo there for a couple of days, cooking only for myself. This was not as simple as I’d thought it might be, as many over the years have pointed out to me in letters and messages, at cocktail parties, at the end of news meetings, once at a funeral. The…