Riffing on a Classic Roman Pasta

Good morning. Pasta alla gricia is one of the all-stars of the Roman pasta canon, a simple preparation with guanciale, Pecorino Romano and black pepper. But if you don’t have guanciale (and don’t have a few days to prepare your own), you might make salami pasta alla gricia (above) instead. There’s something delightful about how…

Resisting the Hot Reservation Economy

If you’d prefer to stay off the reservation sites, you can try calling: Restaurants of a certain era, like Yakitori Totto near Carnegie Hall, sometimes take last-minute reservations over the phone. Or you should join every restaurant obsessive I know in dining out at 6 p.m. Sure, it’ll be on the quiet side when you…

Rescuing Ukrainian Family Recipes

Food memories from childhood summers tend to stick. Olga Koutseridi, a graduate student adviser at the University of Texas at Austin, formed hers in Mariupol, the small city on the Black Sea whose name has become synonymous with the worst devastation Russia has inflicted on Ukraine. While she was growing up, her family often moved…