Love Letter: Bridging a Cultural Divide

[Sign up here to receive Love Letter, a weekly newsletter about relationship highs, lows and woes, in your inbox every Friday.] First-date etiquette suggests that talking about politics, race or religion is off limits. However, when Marlena Brown went on a first date with a brazen firefighter who had chased her down the block to…

Putting the Fried in Fried Rice

I cooked a lot of fried rice before I learned to take the frying seriously. When I used to stir-fry it, I focused on the stirring part of the equation. I’d move the rice across a hot oiled pan with vegetables and the occasional pork product, seasoning it with soy sauce and sesame oil. It…

When Did Gluttony Become So Glamorous?

LANGOUSTINES DROOPED FROM above, their whiskers trailing like vines. Below them, the table was laden with duck potpies, caviar and great loaves of pâté; lobster tails spilling from a ceramic shell nearly as large as the one that birthed Venus; lamb chops with the bones jutting out amid cracked-open pomegranates yielding glittering ruby seeds. Some…

Let Them Wear Cake

MILAN — The day after a billionaire became a punching bag on a debate stage in Nevada, and questions of money and privilege and elitism once again were in focus, at the end of a runway in Milan Jeremy Scott constructed an actual stage for his Moschino show and raised the same issues on it.…