Citrus Flavors From Ladurée

This holiday season, Ladurée has enlisted the Parisian chef Jean-François Piège to create some of its French pastries: macarons, stunning bûches de Noël and, a favorite of mine with a glass of Champagne or just to nibble, his take on a simple loaf cake. Called the Cake, it’s a buttery, citrusy confection festive enough with…

Cook Like Alex Guarnaschelli

Helpful, funny, personal and typically self-deprecating, the voice of Alex Guarnaschelli, the chef, restaurateur and television cooking personality, is unmistakable throughout her new book, “Cook With Me.” There are many great recipes that should have a place on your table. Something for New Year’s? Go no further than her deviled eggs soaked in borscht (not…

Kwanzaa’s Principles and Traditions

During the height of the Black freedom movement in 1960s Los Angeles, Maulana Karenga designed a Black holiday, Kwanzaa, that was modeled after West African harvest festivals on the African continent and used Swahili words and phrases. (Swahili is a lingua franca and mother tongue primarily spoken along the eastern coast of Africa.) Every day…

What You Can Do Post-Vaccine, and When

What’s safer to do once most of the population is vaccinated? It should be much safer to move around once your community achieves herd immunity — the point when the virus can’t easily spread because enough people have become vaccinated or have already had the illness. This also helps protect people who can’t get vaccinated…

Condiment City

Good morning. One of the few joys of the pandemic lockdown, as Tejal Rao wrote for The Times last week, is the sharp increase in the number of condiments many of us have put in our refrigerators since March. Tejal listed beautiful examples: “Preserved lemons from a neighbor’s tree. Sludgy garlic pickles in a distressingly…