Senate Confirms Stephen Hahn to Head F.D.A.

The Senate voted 72 to 18 to confirm Dr. Stephen Hahn as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, as the agency faces pressure to reduce teenage vaping and weighs competing interests on a long-delayed proposal to ban flavored e-cigarettes. Dr. Hahn, chief medical executive at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, was…

A New Chapter for California Syrah

California syrah has been much maligned, often justifiably. The grape arrived in a big way beginning in the 1990s. It was intended to be the next merlot, a wine with an easy, wide appeal. Yet as the popularity of merlot nose-dived, syrah never could replace it. Partly, it was because much California syrah was planted…

The Most Popular Recipes of the Year

Maanchi’s cheese buldak did good business. And so did this cannellini-bean pasta with beurre blanc that Tejal learned from Jack Monroe, the British food writer. That’s 2019, anyway. You may be looking to the months ahead, and toward the shock of the new. I’ll start with a recipe that isn’t a recipe so much as…

The Key to a Perfect Italian-American Sauce

Pimientos is what they’re called in dictionaries, in seed catalogs. But in Brooklyn, they’re known as cherry peppers, just as they are in most places where Italian-Americans gather and eat. Small and pumpkin-shaped, like miniature bell peppers, they can be found in deli cases stuffed with cubes of provolone and wisps of prosciutto, on antipasto…

The Most-Read Food Stories of 2019

Julia Moskin, Melissa Clark and Pete Wells try the new fake meats. The Impossible Burger bested the competition in a blind tasting of six national brands. The taste test replicated the experience of a home cook: Each burger was seared in canola oil and served in a potato bun. People complaining about the health implications…

Top 10 New York Dishes of 2019

This annual list is an exercise in selective memory: The trick is to remember every impressive snack, sandwich, pastry, main course and cocktail I ate over the past year without ever thinking about how much food it all adds up to. It helps to eliminate, right off the bat, anything I consumed in a restaurant…