Two Wrongs Don’t Make Mr. Right

Sitting in bed after his five-year planning exercise, I asked him what traumas he was working through. Despite being the daughter of a social worker, or perhaps because of it, I still haven’t learned how to gently ask that question, or rather I still haven’t learned how to not ask it. “I’m actually doing really…

Why Is Everyone Else Quitting?

Send questions about the office, money, careers and work-life balance to workfriend@nytimes.com. Include your name and location, or a request to remain anonymous. Letters may be edited. Making a Midwest Move My partner and I are considering a move to Ohio because of the lower cost of living and the opportunity to have a good…

What to Do With All Those Apples

I went apple picking last weekend, along with about a million other people in the New York metro area. Is it me, or does recreational apple picking just continue to surge year over year as a fall activity? Some people are not into it, which I get, and yes, cynically speaking, it’s an excellent flannel-clad…

Fried Chicken Recipes

Good morning. I’ve fried chicken in shallow pans and deep-sided, cast-iron chicken fryers, in a nasty bar-kitchen fryolator, in a super-clean one in a sparkling kitchen, in an as-seen-on-TV counter appliance, in a wok placed over a propane hob in the yard. I like the deep cast-iron skillet best, both for its even heat-keeping abilities…

Jay Ellis Comes Home to Harlem

Jay Ellis was buying snacks at a corner bodega in Harlem when a woman in a crop top and Ray-Bans approached him. “Oh my God, I’m so happy!” she said. This was on a sticky Monday in September, halfway through a walking tour of Harlem, where Mr. Ellis had lived, on and off, in the…