Sweet, Sour and Ready to Top Toast

My introduction to caponata, when I was a teenager, was a supermarket version from a shelf somewhere near the tinned sardines and anchovies. It came in a distinctive disc-shaped glass jar, about 4 inches in diameter and an inch deep. The clamped-on lid was imprinted with an ornate logo, and somewhere it said “product of…

Could This Be the End of Frankincense?

For thousands of years, cultures around the world have revered the sweet aroma of frankincense. In Ancient Egypt, embalmers stuffed it inside the bodies and tombs of pharaohs and queens and its ashes were ground into eyeliner. Religious texts say rabbis burned it as offerings in Jerusalem’s temples, the three biblical Magi gifted it to…

Make It Easy

Hello and welcome to Five Weeknight Dishes, where we are always about simple cooking, but especially so this week. The holiday has passed, the days are getting hot, school is off, work is somehow still on — sometimes you just need dinner to be easier than easy, the culinary equivalent of screwing the cap off…