Dinners for the Spookiest of Nights

Today is Halloween, an ancient autumn holiday rooted in Celtic druid traditions that, over the course of a few thousand years, has morphed into the all-out, ghoul-happy, trick-or-treat candy fest we celebrate today. When my daughter was very young, we made sugar cookies shaped like skeletons and black cats. Now, she just wants to costume…

Book Review: ‘The Lemon,’ by S.E. Boyd

THE LEMON, by S.E. Boyd Many fiction writers lament the solitary nature of their work, but perhaps it doesn’t have to be that way. “The Lemon” marks the arrival of S.E. Boyd, a pseudonym cooked up by its three authors, the journalists Kevin Alexander and Joe Keohane, and the editor Alessandra Lusardi. Drawing on Alexander’s…

Butternut Squash Everything

Winter squash, I love you. I love you in soups, stews and grain bowls, roasted with bacon for pasta, nearly melted into risotto and baked into bubbling lasagna. I love you for sweater weather and in the depths of winter, when it gets dark in New York at 5 p.m., and a good dinner really…

Recipes I Crave

This week’s newsletter was inspired by a craving that struck like a lightning bolt. It was Sunday evening, and I had to have stuffed shells. It was too late for me to get to the store, buy the ingredients and make them myself. I texted people who I thought might know where to get it…