Good morning. Brian Washington is in the New York Times Magazine this weekend with a lovely paean to biscuits, along with a wonderful new recipe for kimchi-cheddar biscuits (above) that would make a lovely brunch tomorrow, with some eggs and sausage if you eat such things.
I hope you make them – or Edna Lewis’ biscuits, or Melissa Clark’s buttermilk biscuits, or any recipe you generally follow. Brian told us why: “A good cookie is a miracle. Its own sacred ritual and hangover cure. No matter how foolproof your recipe is, or how many generations it’s been passed down, the moment a cookie comes out of the oven follows a familiar pattern: anticipation, followed by suspense, before… Reward exhilaration Success is instantly recognizable, weightless in your hands That’s absolutely true.
A big breakfast of cookies means no lunch for me, so I’ll be stoked for dinner. I might make a California-like and roast (or oven-roast) a tri-tip roast if I can find one at the butcher (not always an easy task east of the Rockies – get the fatty, grilled sirloin steak if you can’t). Serve this monster with fried sweet potatoes and a salad of roasted asparagus and scallions, with a strawberry pretzel pie for dessert, and you’ll leave an impression on the family or friends you gather to feed.
On the other hand, this new recipe for quick braised soy tofu with bok choy can be just as exciting, with jasmine rice and steamed ginger custard for dessert.
There are several thousand more recipes to cook this weekend waiting for you at New York Times Cooking. Yes, you need a subscription to access it. Subscriptions are the fuel in our stoves. If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll consider subscribing today. Thanks.
You can email us if you have trouble doing this, or if you have a problem with our technology: cookingcare@nytimes.com. You can write to me if you want to say hello: foodeditor@nytimes.com. I read every message sent.
Now, it’s a far cry from his cookie recipe, and from food in general, but Brian has been busy this week. In addition to his work at The Times, he has a wonderful new short story in The New Yorker called “The Arrivals.”
Where do your recommendations for new books come from? (Other than this newsletter, I mean: I’m currently flipping through the pages of Daniel Nie’s book Don’t Take Names.) Elizabeth A. had Harris has a great piece in the Times about the rise of TikTok as an influential force in the publishing industry. A kind of turbocharged word-of-mouth machine.
Note: All the terns you see on the beach are not always the same terns. Audubon Magazine has put together a good tip sheet to help identify the Big Four.
Finally, and I know I’m late to this, but it’s new to me and fascinating: Benjamin Dreyer, head of copy at Random House and author of “Dreyer’s English,” has published a game with The New York Review of Books. It’s called “Stet!” There are 100 cards with sentences on them. You compete with others to discover linguistic or grammatical errors in each of them. The person who collects the most cards wins. That won’t be me, but I’ll try! I will see you on Sunday.