jtrent238 test blog: What to Cook This Weekend

August 19, 2022

Chris Simpson for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Sophia Pappas.

What to Cook This Weekend

By Sam Sifton

Good morning. Eric Kim is in The New York Times Magazine this weekend with an excellent column about the perfection of late-summer pasta al pomodoro and a terrific recipe (above) to go along with it. The recipe is based on his memories of a meal he ate in Como, in northern Italy, and advice he received from the food stylist Susan Spungen, who made a beautiful plate of pasta al pomodoro for the 2010 film "Eat, Pray, Love." Julia Roberts's character eats a plate of it in a pivotal scene.

Wouldn't that be a terrific dinner this evening? If you get it just right, you won't even want to add Parmesan or basil. As Eric wrote, "a well-executed spaghetti al pomodoro is the apotheosis of the fruit, the purest distillation of summer umami."

For breakfast on Saturday, how about a platter of cinnamon crumb cake muffins, to serve warm alongside iced, milky cold-brew coffee? And an extra-crispy BLT for lunch?

I like this halal cart-inspired roasted chicken for dinner, which combines spiced chicken thighs with a yogurt-based white sauce, shredded iceberg lettuce and chopped tomatoes. (Mix two parts of your favorite hot sauce with one part ketchup for a spicy red sauce to counter the savory white.)

And I love this coffee-praline crunch ice cream cake for dessert, an investment of time and energy that pays off handsomely.

Could you manage Swiss rosti with smoked salmon and poached egg for a late Sunday breakfast? I might just poach eggs and eat them on English muffins.

Or I could griddle pancakes for the children, before setting up my pressure cooker to make beef pho for dinner.

But if pho's not going to happen, there's this super recipe for smoked almond pesto spaghetti with peas and parsley. Or you could make a big pot of coconut rice with shrimp and corn. Finish off that ice cream cake for dessert, or have a plum and graham cracker crumble instead.

There are many thousands more recipes to cook this weekend waiting for you on New York Times Cooking — and you can find additional inspiration on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Yes, you need a subscription to access the recipes. Subscriptions support our work and allow it to continue. If you haven't yet taken one out yet, would you please consider subscribing today? Thanks from all of us.

Write if you run into trouble while you're subscribing, or while you're using our technology: cookingcare@nytimes.com. Someone will get back to you. And you can always write to me if you're moved to say hello or to complain about something: foodeditor@nytimes.com. I read every letter sent.

Now, it's a few days driving from anything to do with latkes or millet, but it's August, so the New York media-industrial complex is filled with dispatches from Maine. Here's a fine one in Harper's Magazine, by Rafil Kroll-Zaidi, about the island community of Islesboro, in Waldo County.

Holy cow, this Nate Freeman profile of the restaurateur and chef Mario Carbone in Vanity Fair.

Plan ahead: The New York Times Food Festival is coming to Damrosch Park in New York on Saturday, Oct. 8. Hope you'll join us!

Finally, let's have the Yeah Yeah Yeahs play us off. Here's the band's new single, "Burning." Listen to that nice and loud, and I'll see you on Sunday.

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