In January, at a restaurant in Guangzhou, China, one diner infected with the novel coronavirus but not yet feeling sick appeared to have spread the disease to nine other people. One of the restaurant’s air-conditioners apparently blew the virus particles around the dining room. There were 73 other diners who ate that day on the…
If you grew up as part of Nina Balducci’s clan, the rhythm of the week was set by meals orchestrated with equal parts panache and tradition. Friday night supper, in keeping with her Roman Catholic faith, was fish. Saturday was steak night. Sunday was pasta and red sauce. And always there was bread, whose wrapper…
There’s one thing you can do to make any pasta dish easier, and arguably more satisfying: Cook the pasta and the sauce together in a single pot. The technique hinges on the magic of the starchy cooking water, which is often added to pasta dishes to help the sauce come together. But here, the very…
LONDON — Before our world was turned on its head so abruptly only a few (very long) weeks ago, the center of my universe outside home was my test kitchen. A modest space underneath a railway arch in Camden, north London, it doubles as a cooking hub and an office. Six of us spend most…
Next time you head to the market to restock your canned fish, here’s something to consider: Throw some salmon into your cart along with all that tuna. According to Paul Greenberg, the expert on ocean and environmental issues who wrote “American Catch: The Fight for Our Local Seafood,” canned salmon is better than tuna, for…
Good morning. I’m lucky to have a grill out back, and it’s been put to good use of late: baby back ribs and beer-can chicken and hot slaw and glazed carrots and grilled peaches straight from the jar. Now it’s back to the uncomfortable chair and the rickety desk, my makeshift office a step from…
Of the many heartbreaking stories I’ve read or heard during this ghastly pandemic, one stands out as especially distressing, almost criminal. The headline, on Page 1 of The Times on April 12, read: “Empty Shelves, But Farms Put Food to Waste — Milk, Eggs and Produce Buried and Dumped.” That day I was researching food…
The modern American slaughterhouse is a very different place from the one that Upton Sinclair depicted in his early-20th-century novel, “The Jungle.” Many are giant, sleek refrigerated assembly lines, staffed mostly by unionized workers who slice, debone and “gut snatch” hog and beef carcasses, under constant oversight of government inspectors. The jobs are often grueling…
Welcome back to Five Weeknight Dishes. As the weeks wear on, I am missing so much food I would like to be eating — hot popcorn at the movies, ice-cold Caesar salad at a restaurant, fried oysters on a planned beach trip — that it feels right and necessary to indulge in small ways, like…
Born out of a scarcity of fresh eggs, chocolate mayonnaise cake was one of those Depression-era recipes that sounds a lot stranger than it tastes. After all, cakes rely on eggs and fat for tenderness and richness, and mayo is made of exactly those things, plus some salt and vinegar to give it tang. But…