A Hill of Beans

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…

The Food Chain’s Weakest Link: Slaughterhouses

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…

More Melty Cheese

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…

A Day of Delivering Meals and Hope

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — Traffic lights signal to empty streets. Parks are deserted, except for the squirrels. And no one knows for sure whether this city’s famed racecourse will open this year. But on Monday morning, as a hard rain pelted the windows, the main room of the Salvation Army building downtown was bustling with…

Roasted Chicken Makes Everything Better

Nothing says “everything is going to be all right” like a roast chicken dinner. To me, a juicy, crisp-skinned bird is more comforting than mac and cheese or even chicken soup, and a lot more satisfying, especially when I get to devour the glistening, burnished tail. But when there’s no room in the freezer for…