Good morning. One of my favorite meals at La Caridad 78 on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, before it closed in 2020, was pork egg foo young, alongside yellow rice, black beans and a platter of maduros.
I’d eat that for lunch with my friend Michael, dousing the omelets with vinegar and hot sauce, and sometimes we’d break out laughing at the sheer audacity of this midday feast poised to destroy an afternoon meant for hard work. Once, afterward, I paused on my way back to the newsroom to sit on a park bench. I slept there for the better part of an hour.
And now it’s dinner at home! Kay Chun has a terrific new recipe for egg foo young (above) that I’ll dress up with roast pork from the takeout shop and serve with rice augmented with Sazón seasoning, along with Cuban black beans and these lovely fried sweet plantains. This meal approximates my old lunchtime joy with no need to sleep in public. I just clean up the kitchen and pitch into bed.
As for the rest of the week. …
Monday
Hetty Lui McKinnon’s recipe for zucchini tofu udon calls for fuyu, or fermented tofu, but if you can’t lay your hands on any, white miso is a decent substitute. The dish is a marvelous mixture of silk and salt and a lot of pepper, and an easy weeknight win.
Wednesday
In the middle of the week, when all you really want to do is to finish the day and crack open a new book, there is likely no easier nor more delicious dinner to make than Ali Slagle’s kimchi grilled cheese. It’s golden, crisp and gooey, with a hint of fire.
Thursday
I enjoy Colu Henry’s recipe for braised chicken with coconut milk, tomato and ginger as much for the braising liquid as for the fragrant meat. Colu suggests adding a spray of lime juice at the end, and I second the recommendation: It balances the richness of the dish with a flash of welcome acidity.
Friday
And then you can run out the week with my pizza dough and a true pizza party. Forget a plain pie. I’m thinking a no-recipe Mr. Fun-Guy instead, based on the taleggio and mushroom pizza from the Elena team in Montreal (you can find an actual recipe in its cookbook “Salad, Pizza, Wine”). I made a version of its fonduta sauce with shallots, butter, a little flour, cream and melted taleggio, along with some grated nutmeg and crushed red pepper, and then topped the sauce with sautéed wild mushrooms and a bunch of chopped parsley. This was perfection.
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Now, you’d have to tie yourself in knots to make it have anything to do with food, but you should spend time with Dwight Garner’s “Close Read” in The New York Times, in which he trains his eyes on Rita Dove’s wonderful 2004 poem, “American Smooth.”
Here’s Andy Cochrane in Thrillist, chasing trout with only a novel as a guide.
Another poet! The New Yorker ran an excerpt from Safiya Sinclair’s forthcoming memoir, “How to Say Babylon,” that you should read as well. It’s called “Revisiting My Rastafari Childhood.”
Finally, here’s Lindsay Zoladz’s Amplifier newsletter for The Times, with 15 songs to celebrate the absolute terribleness of the 2023 New York Mets. Listen to that, and I’ll return on Friday.
