Good morning. I teamed up this week with the photographer Daniel Krieger to document the last days of the Red Cat, Jimmy Bradley’s terrific restaurant in the Chelsea district of Manhattan, which is closing after dinner service on Dec. 23, after 19 years.
And, of course, I’m using the occasion to bring forth a couple of great old Red Cat recipes The Times has picked up over the years, including one for Bradley’s tempura-fried green beans with spicy-sweet mustard sauce and another for his hepcat stoner-food melty-cheese salad extravaganza, essentially fondue topped with a bacon-flecked potato salad and topped again with endive and arugula. Make that salad for dinner tonight, and you’ll be able to choose horses correctly at the track for at least the next week. (Soundtrack: The Hold Steady, “Chips Ahoy.”)
But perhaps you were looking for Christmas dishes? Priya Krishna brought us a lovely curried goat from Jamaica via Central Islip on Long Island, where Hazel Craig has for decades celebrated the holiday island-style. To go with it, try her callalloo and a sweet potato pudding for dessert.
More ambitiously, we have a spectacular new recipe for a yule log (above) from the incomparable Yotam Ottolenghi. (If that’s too much for you, try his new recipe for an upside-down date cake with cognac marscapone instead.)
You could set up to make Melissa Clark’s new recipe for a cider-roasted pork loin with apples and chiles, which I think would go well with duck-fat potatoes if you have any duck fat on hand. (If not, make them with neutral oil.) Melissa checked in with Eric Asimov for a wine pairing on that one. His answer: a dry Riesling from Alsace.
Less seasonal, perhaps, but very delicious on a chilly December night: Melissa’s new recipe for chiles rellenos, taught to her by the Chicago chef Diana Dávila.
Or maybe stuffed mushrooms with panko and pecorino? Pasta with parsnips and bacon? A velvety plate of orange beef? If there’s one of those holiday party potlucks of Bugles and Sprite coming up for you this week in the conference room with no windows, try to bring a little bit of sophistication to it: Chocolate and peanut butter swirl cookies will do.
There are thousands upon thousands more recipes to cook this week and next awaiting your perusal on NYT Cooking. (Yes, you will need a subscription to access them. We think our work worth paying for and hope you agree.) Come visit us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for more inspiration, or visit me personally on those platforms for not-very-good lifestyle photography and the occasional joke. I’m @samsifton.
And please do write for help, if anything goes wrong along the way, either with what you’re cooking or with the technology we use to power the site and apps. We’re at cookingcare@nytimes.com and eager to help.
Now, it’s nothing to do with figgy pudding or gravlax, but I have been enjoying the Montreal mafia yarn “Bad Blood” on Netflix, mostly because it’s a joy to watch Anthony LaPaglia act.
Have some hard travel ahead of you for the holidays? Michael Connelly’s “Dark Sacred Night” is excellent airplane fare. As is, come to think of it, David Orr’s list of the best poetry of 2018, for The Times.
Finally, Paul Cavalconte turned me on to this amazing cover of “Wichita Lineman” by Freedy Johnston. Let that play me off today, and I’ll see you on Friday.