Good morning. There are hard-boiled eggs everywhere anointed with dye, and a ham in the fridge holding strong against late-night sandwiches, struggling against its eventual calling as the backbone of an exquisite split-pea soup. (Of course it’s a spiral-cut ham. Have you not been paying attention?)
That’s the view from the land of khakis and moth-eaten sweaters, anyway. In other precincts, some are making stock, crumbling matzo, making soup or matzo breis, savory or sweet. Macaroons abound! This is a short season of leftovers, into which we’ll all feed plenty asparagus, inventing recipes on the fly.
But perhaps you want something entirely new today, something that speaks to the season beyond liturgy, to the pale buds on the branches of the trees along the sidewalk, to the sense that a change is coming, that this week, at last, will show us a world beyond winter. I’m thinking, for you, that this sugar-snap pea salad with radishes, mint and ricotta salata (above) will answer, and how.
You might cook this recipe for three-cup vegetables instead, or this one for cold sesame noodles with crunchy vegetables, which Mark Bittman likes for lunch and I like for dinner, topped with a healthy pop of XO sauce. Springtime spaghetti carbonara? I add bacon, myself, and it’s grand. It’s never the wrong time to cook a Monday-night sandwich of Rhode Island-style sloppy Joes with kale and provolone.
There are close to 20,000 more recipes to cook tonight or on coming days waiting for you on NYT Cooking, at least once you’ve taken out a subscription to our site and apps. I hope you’ll do so, if you haven’t already, so that I may continue to labor in the service of your pleasure. It’s a good deal: You can save recipes to your recipe box (here’s mine); send them to friends, family, enemies, bosses; even learn how to use that pressure cooker someone gave you as a holiday gift.
And if the tab life is where you’re at, you can find even more inspiration on our Instagram, Twitter and Facebook pages. Check us out on YouTube as well. There are exciting things happening there.
And you should ask us for help if you run into trouble with your cooking or with our technology: cookingcare@nytimes.com. We enjoy the assistance!
That ‘aid, reach out to me directly if your issue is existential or your mood is exceptionally sour: foodeditor@nytimes.com. My job is similar to Saint Sebastian’s as depicted by El Greco. (I’m like Cartier Bardi in a ‘rari. I’ll do anything for clout.)
Now, it’s nothing to do with Easter eggs or haroseth, but you will be glad to have read “Duke Ellington, Live at the Aquacade,” by Ryan Black in the Virginia Quarterly Review.
