Hello and welcome to Five Weeknight Dishes. If you ever cook to meet your mood, then next week could be quite a ride in the kitchen — a time for drink mixing and nacho making? Maybe you embrace noodles in uneasy times, or pasta, or stew? Are you an anxiety baker? When I sat down…
A few weeks ago, as the temperature decreased and my pandemic fatigue increased, I did something I hadn’t done in years: I simmered up a homey beef stew. I’d forgotten all about beef stew, seduced by the likes of wine-braised short ribs and fancy Bourguignon. But while braises and Bourguignons may be more impressively company-worthy…
The biggest claim to fame for the border city of Piedras Negras, in Coahuila, Mexico, is that it was the birthplace of nachos, one of America’s most popular snacks. Yet that fact is not widely known beyond the region, something that has long frustrated the people of Piedras, as locals call their hometown. They’re so…
Master sommelier is the most prestigious title in American wine, and those who earn it instantly join the ranks of the highest-paid and most influential members of the profession. Only 155 people have achieved the honor since the 1997 founding of the Americas chapter of the Court of Master Sommeliers, the examining body that confers…
Cecilia Chiang, whose San Francisco restaurant, the Mandarin, introduced American diners in the 1960s to the richness and variety of authentic Chinese cuisine, died on Wednesday at her home in San Francisco. She was 100. Her granddaughter Siena Chiang confirmed the death. Ms. Chiang came to the United States from China as a daughter of…
Welcome. I wrote a few weeks ago about the sounds of pigeons undertaking their vigorous morning drills, their wings slapping against my windows. It’s easy, when we’re caught up in a day’s worth of doing and getting done, to ignore the soundtrack that’s always accompanying us, whether furnished by nature or by civilization. So many…
Yotam Ottolenghi brought us a smart new recipe this week for a giant couscous cake with roasted pepper sauce (above). What’s great about it is, you can use that amazing sauce on anything you like. You could spoon it on pan-fried tofu, Yotam wrote, or pair it with leftover meatballs. You could eat it with…
NEWARK — The Ironbound neighborhood, sitting to the east of Newark’s main commuter transit hub, is well known throughout New Jersey for its vibrant restaurant scene and after-hours nightlife. Large Portuguese, Brazilian and Spanish restaurants anchor corner lots along the main commercial drag, and smaller tapas cafes are tucked on side streets, adjacent to neat…
The Asian emporium Pearl River Mart spun off a branch of its Canal Street flagship in the Chelsea Market three years ago. Now it is adding a food market on the lower level of the market, with stalls, including Kimbap Lab, with Korean maki; Tea and Milk for bubble teas; and Mao’s Bao, with soup…
Headliner Le Crocodile Upstairs The creative lengths to which restaurateurs and chefs in New York and elsewhere are going to compensate for pandemic hardships are dazzling. And often effective. Take Jake Leiber and Aidan O’Neal at Le Crocodile, the brasserie at the Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They have turned the rooms on the hotel’s…