Good morning. Bay scallops come into season tomorrow, and if the harvest from Long Island doesn’t look promising on account of a warm-water die-off this summer, the baymen in Massachusetts seem hopeful, and their delicious little maritime gummy bears should show up in the cases of your fancier fishmongers sometime this week. Buy them if you can, just a few, because they are an incredible garnish this time of year, scattered raw across a sea-scallop gumbo, for instance, or placed on top of pan-roasted fish. Bay scallops are the sweetest taste of fall.
For dinner tonight, though, here’s a very different idea: chili. Your recipe’s better than mine, no doubt, but that’s the very nature of the dish: everyone thinks so, and they’re right — especially the Louisiana firefighter Jeremy Chauvin, whose chili gumbo won a national firehouse chili cook-off back in 2017.
That said, here’s a lamb and white bean chili, if you want to get funky. Here’s a turkey chili, if you want to move fast — it’s ready in 35 minutes. Here’s a vegetarian chili with cornbread topping, if you want to avoid meat. And here’s Ali Slagle’s recipe for skillet chili and eggs with melted Cheddar (above), if you want to taste the shock of the new. We’ve just posted it.
As for what to cook the rest of this week? On Monday, how about making some spaghetti al limone, sunny and bright?
Tuesday is Election Day, and, if you’re voting after work or at the end of the day, it may run into dinner prep. Vegan mapo tofu makes its way to the table in just a half-hour. I like it with a spoonful of jarred chili crisp added at the very end.
For Wednesday, maybe cumin-roasted salmon with cilantro sauce will answer? Or quick-roasted chicken with tarragon, no-recipe recipe style?
On Thursday, you can make kale soup with potatoes and sausage!
And then you can round out the week on Friday night with something thrilling and outrageous, like this recipe I picked up at Boston College years ago, for a Screaming Eagle cheese-steak sub. Oh, my.
Many, many thousands more recipes to cook this weekend are waiting for you on NYT Cooking, though you’ll need a subscription to access them. (Have a subscription already? Think of those who don’t have one, with Thanksgiving looming! We offer gift subscriptions as well.)
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Now, do yourself a favor. We’re at the top of the Thanksgiving month. Today’s the day, if you’re playing host this year, to start thinking about the guest list, and about whether you’re going to serve the meal as a seated dinner or standing buffet, whether you’re going to call for potluck, whether you’re going to outsource desserts, or wine. You don’t need to do anything about it yet. But you should start to let the thoughts gather, in advance of a plan. (Want to enjoy the feast at a restaurant table this year? Make your reservation today. It’s only going to get harder as November ticks on.)
It’s a far cry from learning about bouillabaisse or lefse, but I still think you’ll like the staccato prose and devastating reporting that Joe Sexton and Nate Schweber brought to this account of a man being taken off life support, in ProPublica, “The Wrong Goodbye.”
Finally, and staying dark, you should listen to this episode of “Reveal,” based on Aaron Glantz’s book “Homewreckers: How a Gang of Wall Street Kingpins, Hedge Fund Magnates, Crooked Banks and Vulture Capitalists Suckered Millions Out of Their Homes and Demolished the American Dream.” See you tomorrow.
