Imagine I’m the old lady at the end of the bar making my point with a lit Parliament. Ready?
I’ve been writing about food for The New York Times since before the Instant Pot was invented. I was around when all we put on sheet pans were cookies and the idea for a Cooking app wasn’t even a gleam in Sam Sifton’s eye. (Mostly because there weren’t even iPhones then. I know, right?)
I can say without reservation that we have never had a bigger, brighter or better staff bringing you recipes. I’ve not met all of them in person because of #Covid, but I have met Eric Kim.
I live in Atlanta, where he grew up. He came to the South to visit his family a few weeks ago, and we got together to eat chips and dip and talk about octopus, lemon pepper and life. Eric is the smart guy who came up with a way to make chicken breasts tender using pineapple juice, but you might know him from his wildly popular sheet-pan bibimbap. He even reinvented potato salad (above) this summer by roasting fingerlings with tomatoes and tossing it all with a dressing kissed with barbecue sauce.
Yewande Komolafe was born in Berlin and raised in Lagos. I haven’t met her yet, but I am a fan. I’ve got her blistered tomato dressing in regular rotation, and if you haven’t made her moyo sauce yet, do it before the summer is over. Her garlic chicken with guasacaca sauce was such a hit, it’s like the song that made someone famous and that they will have to sing for the rest of their lives.
Genevieve Ko made the great leap across the country in 2020, leaving The Los Angeles Times to take a job watching over all of our home cooking endeavors. She’s a recipe pro. But she hasn’t forgotten those of us who need smart, simple ways to cook what we love, like this oven bacon and egg breakfast. She has a ton of experience and a gentle way of guiding people through projects, like how to make dumplings with homemade chile crisp. I mean, who doesn’t appreciate being told without judgment that decorative pleating is optional?
Find lots more from the new kids on the block in New York Times Cooking. Subscriptions help us keep recruiting and paying great talent to bring you even more ways to cook. And if you need help with anything related to the technical aspects of our site or the recipes themselves, send a note to cookingcare@nytimes.com.
My final ideas this week come from Melissa Clark, who is the O.G. of New York Times Cooking. She’s also been here since before Instant Pots were invented, but once they were she wrote a definitive guide on how to use them. Her latest summer recipe is halloumi with corn, cherry tomatoes and basil, which is feeding my summer halloumi obsession.
Coincidently, she’ll be taking over the newsletter until Sam’s back.
It’s been a great week. See you in the news pages.
