Good morning. It’s nice to be up before dawn this time of year, the sky lightening into morning nautical twilight, the horizon visible even without a view of the actual sun. There’s possibility everywhere: to see striped bass on the water’s surface, maybe, slurping bait across the tide, or to have a chance encounter with a great horned owl returning from a long evening hunt.
They’re making egg sandwiches at the gas station, taking the first batch of bagels out of the oven at the deli, unloading the food truck at the supermarket. There’s Bruno, idling his boat out of the harbor, bound east and hoping for tuna, while Sharon starts off on a 10-mile run. I ride my bicycle through the neighborhood idly, thinking about breakfast, about lunch, about the dinner I’d like to serve in the late afternoon, so everyone can get to bed early in advance of another busy week.
By the time the sun’s up and heating the asphalt, I’ve got my plans dialed: cut fruit for breakfast with a dollop of yogurt, a hero from Caputo’s for lunch and Sarah Copeland’s sweet and spicy tofu with soba noodles for dinner. Sarah neither shallow-fries the tofu nor marinates it, which makes for a simple preparation, but you can certainly do one or the other, or both, if you like — and on a weekend, unpressed for time, I do like. (I use the dressing as the marinade, then fry the cubed tofu in more oil than she calls for, so it gets super crisp.)
Featured Recipe
Sweet and Spicy Tofu With Soba Noodles
Then, with Sunday sorted, I can turn to the rest of the week. …
Monday
The chef Dale Talde taught me how to make this recipe for orange beef. It rewards the use of very good steak for the beef, and of fast hands at the wok to cook it. Dale once told me to add a pat of butter to a Chinese-ish sauce I was making for another dish, and sometimes I do that with this one, to add a little plushiness to the salty-sweet orange sauce. You might join me.
Tuesday
Recipes don’t come much simpler than this lemon spaghetti with roasted artichokes from Naz Deravian. The sauce is a silky combination of lemon juice, lemon zest, basil and Parmesan, and the roasted artichoke hearts — jarred or frozen — add texture and heft. Weeknight perfection.
Wednesday
I like eggs for dinner in the middle of the week, and most recently in Hetty Lui McKinnon’s recipe for broken egg salad sandwiches. Tearing the cooked eggs by hand is a smart move; the irregular pieces nicely catch the mayonnaise-mustard-pickle mix. Skip the top slice of bread on the sandwich. It’s jauntier that way, more dinner-like.
Thursday
Pati Jinich tracked down the original recipe for the Caesar salad served at Caesar’s in Tijuana, Mexico, and it makes for a stellar meal under an absolute shower of Parmesan. Do I sometimes make like the family restaurant in the mall and serve chicken cutlets on top? Sometimes I do, although I never use breasts, but thighs.
Friday
And then you can head into the weekend with a hot dog party. Don’t eat them plain. We’ve got dozens of recipes for toppings and condiments, or you could follow Eric Kim’s advice and drag them through the garden for a classic Chicago-style frank. Enjoy!
There are many thousands more recipes to cook this week waiting for you on New York Times Cooking. Go see what you find. (You need a subscription, naturally. Subscriptions are the propane in our grills. If you haven’t taken one out yet, would you think about subscribing today? Thanks.)
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Now, it’s nothing to do with purslane or the Maillard reaction, but here’s new fiction from Zadie Smith in The New Yorker, “The Silence.”
Eric Lacitis wrote a story for Pacific NW magazine about a Seattle musician named Miro Jugum, a regular at the city’s open-mic performances, more than 700 of them over the years, during which he never repeated a song. “No Repeat Miro” died a few weeks ago at 67. The story’s the obituary he would have wanted, Jugum’s brother, Petar Jugum, told Lacitis. It’s a life worth reading about.
I liked Lauren Groff, in The New York Times Book Review, on the legacy of Jane Austen’s “Mansfield Park.”
Finally, it’s Heather Nova’s birthday. She’s 58. Here’s “Walk This World,” from 1994. Listen to that while you’re cooking. I’ll be back next week.
Sam Sifton is an assistant managing editor, responsible for culture and lifestyle coverage, and the founding editor of New York Times Cooking.
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