For decades, as Lebanon has endured persistent strife and discord, the story of Lebanese wine has been the industry’s ability to rise above the violence and dysfunction. It’s a remarkable tale of triumph over adversity, of courage and perseverance. Yet, while this framing is integral to the narrative of Lebanese wine, how is it expressed…
The end of 2020 is mercifully in sight. Ordinarily, November and December would be the time for gatherings, parties and celebrations. These are the months when the merchants of sparkling wine earn their keep. This year? Sigh, and cue the shrug emoji. We will find ways of commemorating the surreal nature of this year. But…
HOW, I HAVE often wondered, did people first discover the highly specific applications of particular plants and herbs? That ginseng improves energy, say, or that ginger alleviates nausea, or that horsetail, which contains silica, might help hair to grow? One theory, possibly apocryphal and certainly much maligned by modern medicine, is that the physical characteristics…
Six years ago, Katy McNulty, the chef and owner of The Pixie and the Scout, a catering company, raised $40,000 through Kickstarter to create her dream kitchen in a warehouse in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. This summer and fall, she could finally pay it forward. As restaurants closed because of the pandemic, many of her chef…
For almost 30 years, the Canadian-born photographer Norman Jean Roy made his name synonymous with beautiful portraits of beautiful people: Rihanna reclining in a shark’s open mouth, George Clooney waltzing in a garden, Carla Bruni posing beneath the Eiffel Tower. His own life was as chic as his subjects’, with an apartment in Manhattan, a…
Good morning. A classic Mississippi Roast is really a no-recipe recipe: It’s just a beef chuck roast placed in a slow cooker with dry-packaged ranch dressing and “au jus” gravy, a stick of butter and a handful of pepperoncini. Some people add a splash of brine from the peppers. Cook that for a long, long…
Headliner Mark’s Off Madison The chef Mark Strausman was on the verge of opening his own restaurant in the former A Voce space at Madison Square Park when the pandemic struck. Plans were not just delayed: They were adjusted to accommodate required safety protocols and to adapt to what Mr. Strausman saw as long-term changes…
In the backyard of the new Greenwich Village restaurant Silver Apricot are a few tables, about a dozen chairs, plexiglass partitions to separate them, a couple of patio umbrellas and two heaters, one of them a simulacrum of a cast-iron wood stove with a window through which you can watch the embers flicker electronically. The…
If we’d talked this time a year ago, I would have told you with giddy enthusiasm why I always, every year, without fail, make not one but two kinds of potato dishes on Thanksgiving (one mashed, one roasted). I would have explained, in excruciating detail, why I choose certain varieties of potatoes (the particular starch…
Dining at restaurants has always been about more than the food — one of the joys of going out is the opportunity to enjoy a new and different environment. At home, the most ambitious hosts have long sought to create atmospheric dining rooms that offer a similar sense of occasion. And at a time when…