Can the Four-Day Workweek Start With Restaurants?

On March 15, 2020, the pandemic forced the chef Dominic Piperno to close Hearthside, his then-two-year-old restaurant in Collingswood, N.J. When he reopened it six months later, industrywide staffing shortages meant he could operate only four days a week. During that period, he noticed what seemed like “a better lifestyle for everybody,” he said. In…

Five Weeknight Tomato Dishes

Juicy, acidic and sun-warmed sweet, a perfect summer tomato is a blessing. (A less perfect tomato is fine, if a little dull; a wan out-of-season tomato is to be avoided.) I eat tomatoes every day in August, sometimes at every meal. That’s why it’s Tomato Week here at Five Weeknight Dishes, with recipes that feature…

‘Birds Are My Eyesight’

Jim Wilson/The New York Times. On an average morning, Susan Glass can sit on the patio at her condominium complex in Saratoga, Calif., and identify as many as 15 different bird species by ear: a steller’s jay, an acorn woodpecker, an oak titmouse. For her, birding is more than a hobby. “Birds are my eyesight,”…

Caviar Gets Even More Refined

An Opulent New Way to Put an Egg On It These days, it seems that some restaurants will add a dollop of caviar to anything, from fried chicken to hamburgers, practically reducing the once-luxurious treat to a condiment. So it’s perhaps no surprise that chefs are turning their attention to something more rarefied than your…