For her birthday, my friend Audrey wanted one thing: a lentil soup from Yerevan Market and Cafe, an Armenian spot in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Ethereal yet somehow earthy, it was unlike any lentil soup we’d ever had — orange and slightly tangy. We were left curious about its flavor. It turned…
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When cooking fresh sweet corn for one, nothing beats the microwave: A single ear, in its husk, goes in at full power for three minutes. The husk traps steam, giving the kernels such an intense corn flavor and juiciness that butter becomes nearly superfluous (nearly). But for a crowd? You have more options. Take, for…
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MALIHABAD, India — Theirs is a friendship of over half a century, the old man and his mango tree. His days, spent with a monk-like contentment knowing that each could be his last, are now largely reduced to the tree’s shade and the tree’s care. The tree, at least 120 years old, was there long…
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Around Valentine’s Day last year, Jenna Bush Hager, a host of NBC’s “Today with Hoda & Jenna,” embarked on a mission: to help her friend and colleague Elizabeth Harrington Leist, who goes by Libby, find romance. “Jenna was reporting on love in the pandemic and how people were finding each other,” Ms. Leist, the senior…
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Ms. Collura, who graduated from Quinnipiac University and received a master’s degree in accounting from Pace University, now works as an accountant in the New York office of RSM US LLP, a public accounting firm. Mr. Durkin, a graduate of Fordham, where he also earned a master’s degree in accounting, is now a vice president…
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“Why aren’t you eating?” my mother said to me, her Yonkers accent blaring into the otherwise hushed Chinese restaurant. A 77-year-old Italian-American hairdresser who believed that almost all problems could be solved with a pile of spaghetti and meatballs, she viewed my lack of appetite as a warning flare. “I’m fine,” I said. “My sesame…
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For their first date, Stephanie Schulter and Halle Anne Bauer jumped into the Atlantic together in 17-degree weather. It was Jan. 1, 2018, and they were participating in the New Year’s Day plunge hosted by the Coney Island Polar Bear Club. Ms. Schulter, a native of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, had been attending the event for years…
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Caroline Cornell and Daniel Patrick Logan weren’t technically off the grid when they found romance on the Lost Coast of Northern California, the state’s most remote oceanfront area, in the summer of 2014. But the routes each had taken to get there could definitely be described as off the beaten path. The two first met…
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Erin Courtney Bellsey has always loved playing matchmaker. By her count, she has paired dozens of couples, two of which are now engaged. In October 2019, a friend flipped the script on Ms. Bellsey, asking if she’d be interested in being set up. Around that time, Charles Mellon Leonard was asked the same question by…
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Late on a September evening in 2010, as Luke Neville Kalat was preparing to head home from a dance party at Bowlmor Lanes near Manhattan’s Union Square, he noticed a man staring at him from across the room. That man was Justin Claude Conner. Mr. Kalat flashed him a smile, and Mr. Conner walked over…
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