What to Cook This Week

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Craig Lee for The New York Times

Sunday, April 5, 2020

What to Cook This Week

Sam Sifton

Good morning. Maybe it’s all the John Burdett I’m reading, or the long hours isolated from others, the invisible threat at the gas pump or supermarket or some combination thereof, but while I’m cooking these days I’ve been thinking a lot about the Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa, and about a line of his that’s about living in a world of suffering.

“Real fearlessness is the product of tenderness,” he wrote. “It comes from letting the world tickle your heart, your raw and beautiful heart. You are willing to open up, without resistance or shyness, and face the world. You are willing to share your heart with others.”

Remotely, of course, or socially distanced in gloves and mask! That is my play here these days, anyway: typing tense and nervous in my chair and working at the stove alike. And it seems to be working, at least for me. Maybe you could try it as well, in your interactions with others and of course in the cooking you share with those with whom you are bound? I think it helps. As they say in the filet mignon trade, nothing wrong with tenderness.

But you were just looking for a recipe for scalloped potatoes! You were looking for chicken cutlets, for sangria, for Salisbury steak, which Tamar Adler sent to finishing school to become steak haché. That’s cool. We’re prepared for that too. Here’s our recipe for red beans and rice. For a classic lasagna (above). For London broil. All our friends.

So cook some of those this week if you can, with Rice Krispies treats for dessert, with chocolate and pretzels folded into the mix. Make seaweed salad and Moroccan shakshuka and pork gyros if you prefer. Try on some sheet-pan chicken fajitas. Give these Cheddar beer bread rolls a chance.

And take a spin through our recipe collections at NYT Cooking and see if something else strikes your fancy. We’ve made a lot more of our recipes than usual free for the taking even if you haven’t subscribed to our site and apps. (Naturally we’d be happy if you did subscribe, though, to support our work.)

See what we’re up to on Instagram while you’re at it, and on our YouTube channel as well. You can find the news we report for The Times on Twitter. We’ve got a fine community group going on Facebook. Come join the cooks. And, please, if anything goes wrong while you’re cooking or with your account, please reach out directly: cookingcare@nytimes.com. Someone will get back to you.

Now, it’s not about home cooking at all, but I still think you should read David Marchese’s interview with the chef David Chang, about the dreadful straits in which the nation’s independent restaurants find themselves. It’s in The New York Times Magazine.

Also off topic, this is Moses Sumney: “Cut Me,” art in video and song, spare and haunting and beautiful.

Here’s Sir Patrick Stewart, reading a Shakespeare sonnet a day, on Twitter.

Finally, come visit me At Home, a new collection page at The Times devoted to our reporters and critics’ best ideas for what you can get up to in the privacy of your own home, culturally speaking, while maintaining social isolation from others. It’s a lot of good viewing and reading and playing and listening and advice, and I hope you like it very much. You’ll let me know! I’ll be back on Monday.