Let Them Eat (Wacky, Whimsical) Cake

Adorned with dried Queen Anne’s lace, red clover flowers, bolted callaloo, dried onion flowers, fresh thyme and a fresh cabbage rose on top, the cake that baker Aimee France made for a recent wedding at the Loeb Boathouse in Central Park looked as if it could have been decorated with flora she found while transporting…

The Best Cookbooks of 2021

Even those of us who enjoy cooking go through periods where we feel uninspired by our usual rotation of recipes. But nothing snaps you out of a cooking funk quite like the thrill of a brand-new cookbook. Hundreds of cooking guides hit bookshelves this year, each of them a testament to the exciting-if-you-let-it-be art of…

The Welcome Return of the Run-In

Sloane Crosley, an essayist and novelist, said that during the pandemic “a lot of us were living in one-woman shows, performed seven nights a week. No intermission. It’s nice to be in an ensemble cast again, to see all the players, good and bad.” Ah yes, the bad. Weirdly, my brain doesn’t bother to register…