Make It Ahead

Hello and welcome to Five Weeknight Dishes. My daughter said something kind of funny the other day at lunch: “Dinner is coming for us, Mama!” She was just narrating the events of the day as she expected them to unfold, using her toddler syntax. But she had divined a feeling I often have these days:…

Love Letter: Living Alone in a Pandemic

[Sign up here to receive Love Letter, a weekly newsletter about relationship highs, lows and woes, in your inbox every Friday.] Like anything else, living alone has its perks and pitfalls, but being by yourself in a time of social isolation can present an array of challenges and emotions. We asked our readers to share…

Is It Safe to Go Out to Eat?

Restaurants are slowly returning in many states. Just because you can eat out again, though, does not mean that you should. And if you decide to go back before the virus is under control, it will not necessarily be clear which dining rooms are safest. Restaurants will have to navigate a situation that is new…

The Hidden Language of Masks

When, early in the onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic, production shortages of medical grade N95 masks turned obtaining them into a hunt for the grail, D.I.Y. ingenuity kicked into gear. Suddenly people found themselves improvising lesser-grade face masks from fabric, scraps, bandannas, coffee filters, even sanitary pads. Newspapers (including The New York Times) published…

Lady Jordan

The Mrs. Files looks at history through a contemporary lens to see what the honorific “Mrs.” means to women and their identity. Lady Jordan Denice Frohman reads her poem Lady Jordan. It didn’t matter that I married the game or slept with a ball under my arm, Mom said Girls don’t hoop, they wear hoops.…