Good morning. Happy Mother’s Day to all who serve.
Mine loathed the holiday. She called it a conspiracy of the Hallmark-florist industrial complex. Still, I think she was always secretly thrilled when one of us children cobbled together something delicious for her to eat or gave her a hand-crayoned card.
Which is to say: Reach out to the moms today and raise their status high. Cook one of them Belgian waffles (above) for breakfast, with salted butter, maple syrup and a bowl of fruit salad on the side. Maybe with a mimosa or a whipped coffee? It would probably be better to acknowledge both the physical and emotional labor required of motherhood more than once a year, so let today be a refresher rather than an annual marker. Get into the habit of giving thanks and see what happens.
Featured Recipe
Belgian Waffles
As for dinner? Maybe fish pie, one of my mother’s favorite meals — and one of her grandchildren’s greatest fears. There’s something about selflessness to be learned from serving food that’s meant for only one person at the table. Look at the smile on her face. (You need only do the fish pie once a year.)
As for the rest of the week. …
Monday
The trailer for the eventual Eric Kim biopic will heavily feature his incredible recipe of gochujang buttered noodles, with its dark-red butter sauce smoothed out with honey and sherry vinegar, a New York Times Cooking fan favorite since it first emerged on the scene in 2023. A terrific video accompanies the recipe, so you can cook it alongside us if you like.
Tuesday
My recipe for beef and broccoli emerged from a number of conversations with the chef Jonathan Wu, whose mother often made the dish for him when he was small. After a great deal of testing, her recipe became mine, at least once I took the chef Dale Talde’s advice and added a pat of butter to the sauce at the end. Wow, that was smart.
Wednesday
There’s something incredibly luxurious about Anna Francese Gass’s recipe for artichoke carbonara. Guanciale, Pecorino Romano and egg yolks make a velvety, salty blanket for the pasta, while the artichoke hearts provide heft and the slightest hint of acidity. So great.
Thursday
Yotam Ottolenghi’s new recipe for charred asparagus lettuce cups makes salad into hand food, just the thing to accompany a simple platter of yogurt-marinated roast chicken. One taste of that dressing and you’ll be making this one regularly all summer long.
Friday
And then you can round out the week with Ali Slagle’s bananas-good recipe for mushroom smash burgers, which delivers arguably the best veggie burger there is. Serve exactly as if the patty were beef, with melted cheese, lettuce, tomato, raw sliced onion and a healthy smear of mayonnaise. (On which subject, the chef Mason Hereford of Turkey and the Wolf in New Orleans has brought me around. As he says, “Duke’s or bust.”)
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Now, it’s nothing to do with Scotch eggs or Scoville units, but I enjoyed Brock Colyar, in New York Magazine, on the rise of a new generation of women in Manhattan: the West Village Girls, in their white tanks, light-wash jeans and Adidas Sambas. (“The boys they consort with,” Colyar reports, “tend to be of the fratty variety.”)
Likewise, Molly Young’s latest “Read Like the Wind” newsletter for The Times, recommending two books to read instead of meditating.
In the Bitter Southerner, Sarah Golibart Gorman has a lovely meditation on family and the joys of black drum, a fish I’ve caught but never eaten. There’s a great quote in the story about that: “Nobody eats drum north of the Maryland line or south of Virginia Beach, hardly.” This summer, I’m going to put the lie to that.
Finally, here’s 2Pac to send us off with a soundtrack for the day, “Dear Mama.” You are appreciated! 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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