An Arepa Recipe You Won’t Soon Forget

In Colombia, where the food stylist Mariana Velásquez grew up, every region has its own variety of arepas. Some have more than one. Bogotá, Ms. Velásquez notes in her new cookbook, “Colombiana,” has at least 72 variations all by itself. “From the sweet yuca arepas of Cesar to the anís arepas of Magangué, from the…

The Year of Purchasing and Purging

For more than 13 years, the molds that Roland Mesnier used to fashion frozen desserts for heads of state, celebrities and the first family of the United States sat in his basement. After Mr. Mesnier retired as the White House pastry chef in 2004, he began taking his roughly 300 dessert molds to his home…

How New York Waiters Got the Upper Hand

New York City’s recovery will depend in large part on the success of a restaurant industry now required to extend its definition of prosperity to include the ability of workers, both front and back of house, to live decently. In this case, the rhetoric of returning to normal is inapt, because “normal” was dysfunctional and…

Can a Yarn Store Be a Place of Healing?

Unlike so many small businesses, Downtown Yarns, Leti Ruiz’s yarn store in New York’s East Village, managed to make it through the pandemic intact. A surge in interest in crafting — including knitting and crocheting, the store’s specialties — brought both returning and new customers in search of comfort and distr action. When people were…