We did it! “Cooking The New York Times” #1 is now history. Six foodie friends gathered around the table with us on March 4, 2022 to experience a wine dinner with a menu designed completely from recipes published in the “NYT Cooking” App. You can read my article published on 2.18.2022 www.forkandcorkdivine.com “Confessions of a foodie to find out why in the world I picked this dinner theme! In order to spare you from that, here’s a little background condensed from that article.
Like any good foodie my inbox is flooded daily with messages and recipes from cooking websites, food magazines, other foodies, and on and on. One of those that found their way to me quite some time ago was “NYT Cooking”. I used to just scroll right down through them until one day I decided to open and read it. Not surprisingly I found many really interesting and appealing recipes. However, when I actually tried to download a few of those recipes, I discovered that to be easier said than done. And then was the dilemma of needing to sign up for yet another digital service. Sometimes I could download a recipe, but so often I could not unless…………..you guessed it, pay your $5 a month and you too can not only see but print the recipe. I finally succumbed after several years of telling myself that I refuse to pay for one more digital streaming service or app. Now that $5 a month disappears from my bank account like clockwork. Since then my collection of NYT recipes continues to multiply. Yes, I still like them on paper! It seems my cooking is soooo much better from a recipe on paper that just sits there on my countertop for me to read! Because I usually try to have a theme in mind when planning a dinner party, I decided to do some research about the NYT food pages and somewhere along the way my next dinner party theme was borne — quite appropriately titled: “Cooking The New York Times”.
Here’s a little background on The Times. Its a daily newspaper based in New York City since it’s founding in 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones. Today it has a circulation of about 5,496,000 news subscribers and 4,665,000 digital only subscribers. There were 1, 398,000 subscribers for games, cooking and audio as of November 2020. Today it is owned by the New York Times Company, which is publicly traded.
The NYT saw their vision for the future and decided that not only did they have a big enough audience of foodies to merit a standalone cooking section but that they would also PAY to use it! And that is exactly what happened. The app launched in September 2014 featuring 16,000 recipes available at no charge, and just one year after launching the digital “NYT Cooking” (cooking.nytimes.com also available as an IOS app), they had about 120,000 subscribers. And as of June 2017 they charge $5 a month ($40 a year) for access to it! Yes, we foodies are indeed special people because it’s not included in a basic monthly digital subscription to the Times. All of this meant that they had better have a product worthy of the cost. Sam Sifton, the founding editor of “NYT Cooking“, and his team scoured through decades of Times recipes that seemed suitable for more modern times. Guess it was quite a success as about 3 million people now subscribe to its main Cooking newsletter – which does not require a subscription – and comes to your inbox weekly. The recipe library has grown to 20,000+. The Cooking team continues to expand with additional innovations and features. The NYT Cooking YouTube channel had 300,000 subscribers, 2.8 million Instagram followers and overall 600,000 subscribers as of a February 2021 article. The NYT has also published several cookbooks, some of which reside on my shelves. It seems that foodies and cooking are a very big business!
Here are some names you may recognize if you have ever seen the NYT Cooking app and those never ending email posts. Lots of interesting and delicious recipes have come from these folks..
Sam Sifton is the founding editor of NYT Cooking and an assistant managing editor for The Times. He has been the national editor, restaurant critic and culture editor of The Times.
Melissa Clark has been a columnist for the Food section since 2007. She’s written dozens of cookbooks.
Florence Fabricant has been contributing for a long time when she wasn’t writing some 13 cookbooks.
Dorie Greenspan was a columnist for The NYT Magazine (until just recently) and written 13 cookbooks, one of which – “Around My French Table” – is a favorite of mine and has a special place on my cookbook shelves. I would happily cook every recipe in the book and am well on my way! According to Dorie, she is now focusing on her personal newsletter, “xoxo Dorie”. You can be sure I signed up for that one!
Eric Kim is a cooking writer for the Food section with his “Korean American” cookbook recently published and now available on Amazon.com. Eric also hosts on the NYT Cooking You Tube channel.
Genevieve Ko is a senior editor for the Food section and has contributed to more than 20 cookbooks.
J. Kenji López-Alt writes a monthly column for the Food section and is a restaurant chef/owner.
Julia Moskin has been a Food staff reporter since 2004 and was named after Julia Child. She was also part of their 2018 Pulitzer Prize winning team.
Yotam Ottolenghi is a writer and chef/owner of a number of restaurants. He also writes a monthly column for the NYT Food section.
Tejal Rao is the California restaurant critic at The NYT and a recipe columnist for The NYT Magazine.
Kim Severson has been reporting food news since before the phrase “farm-to-table” was invented.
And whose recipes did I select for
“Cooking” from The New York Times foodie team?
Read on to find out and see the pictures.
Here’s my menu of food and wine pairings.
A little amuse bouche:
Julia Reed gave us a recipe for “Hot Cheese Olives”. Julia passed away in September 2020 after contributing more than 100 recipes to The NYT. “Hot Cheese Olives” was an outstanding success! This should be a timeless recipe to add to any appetizer table.
Amanda Hesser provided us with “Roquefort Cheeseballs”. Not only was Amanda at one time the food editor of The NYT Magazine but left the Times in 2008 to become co-founder and CEO of Food52, another foodie digital platform constantly in front of us in our digital media. “Roquefort Cheeseballs” were our second favorite on the appetizer table. A bit too heavy for a first bite! But very tasty. So sorry, Amanda. For some reason I did not get a picture of this dish. When the guests arrive, time sometimes gets away from me.
Soup course:
Yewande Komolafe is a Nigerian born food writer, author and food stylist who joined the NYT as a cooking editor in February 2021. She has 2 cookbooks published or on the way including “My Everyday Lagos Kitchen: Nigerian Classics at Home and in the Diaspora,” and a cookbook inspired by “Waffles + Mochi,” a Netflix children’s show. We will be cooking her recipe for “Spicy Tomato-Coconut Bisque with Shrimp and Mushrooms”.
Yewande’s “Spicy Tomato-Coconut Bisque with Shrimp and Mushrooms” recipe proved to be a superstar! It was so delicious. And paired with that bottle of Schramsberg “Mirabelle” Brut Rose from California’s North Coast was a magnificent pairing. This course was probably my favorite. Schramsberg is a personal favorite of mine ever since we visited their winery in Calistoga, CA and have watched Hugh Davies saber a bottle of sparkling for us at Angelina’s Ristorante.
Salad, Main Fare and Dessert courses:
David Tanis was the one who really got me going on this idea for a special NYT recipe dinner. We will be cooking his “Curly Endive Salad with Mustard Dressing, Egg and Gruyere”, “Pork Chops with Sage, Dates and Parsnips”, “Savory Potato Tart” and last but not least “Tangerine Flan”. David writes the City Kitchen column for the Food section, has had a long professional cooking career (including chef with Alice Waters at Chez Panisse) and authored several cookbooks featuring seasonal home cooking. I can’t wait to feature and cook his recipes!
The salad course was really a winner. I added some romaine (in my opinion a little endive goes a long way) and the radicchio gave a bit of color. The egg slices always seem to be appreciated plus who doesn’t like Gruyere? The Dijon vinaigrette dressing was just the right touch. And the wine? This 2010 Blanc from Chateau Carbonnieux was my first choice for pairing with the salad; however when I searched for it in our wine cellar, it was nowhere to be found. I did the next best thing and planned for another white. But on the day of our dinner, surprise to me! I could not locate my second choice and the Carbonnieux magically appeared! I truly believe it was destiny that this wine be on our table with this salad. And as usual, one must be flexible when cooking and serving!!!!
The pan seared Berkshire bone-in Frenched pork chops were purchased from D’Artagnan.com, an online food company specializing in farm-to-table, artisanal, free-range, grass-fed and everything else you can think of that goes along with excellent proteins and other special products. If I want to serve a meat that I know will be one of the best I can serve, I source from D’Artagnan. Yes, it is expensive but it comes right to my doorstep! I’m sure that Chuck’s culinary skills played a major role in the preparation of these chops, and they were truly superb! He put a bit of dry rub on them, then seared them in a very hot pan cooking until browned followed by finishing in a 350 oven till about 140 degrees. And while the Medjool date sauce might have sounded a bit unusual, it proved to be a perfect accompaniment to the pork. The dates were sautéed with fresh sage leaves in butter, then finished off with black pepper and fresh lemon juice. The parsnips were par-cooked, then finished in some butter with salt and pepper.
And then there was that “Savory Potato Tart”! Yes, I made the pastry crust just like David Tanis said although for a few seconds I did actually consider buying prepared pastry! Horrors!!! If I was going to all of this effort to make it just right, that just could not happen. The tart was filled with Yukon gold potatoes and 1 1/4 cups crème fraiche, so you know it had to be good. And it was! The picture does not do it justice. It all made for quite an impressive dinner plate.
We paired this entree plate with three exceptional red wines:
2018 Mauritson “Charlie Clay” Pinot Noir from the Russian River Valley, California
2017 Four Graces Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley, Oregon
2011 Il Poggione Brunello di Montalcino from Tuscany, Italy
All wonderful pairings for our wine lover foodie friends to enjoy. And enjoy we did!
I cannot forget dessert! Tangerine flan was superb! I had a bit of trouble unmolding it, so my pictures are not the best, but the taste was delicious. Flan is one of my favorite desserts. This version by David Tanis calls for tangerine juice, not orange! You may know as well as I, that tangerine juice is not as easy to find as orange juice, but perseverance pays off and plenty of it ended up in our refrigerator. My flan was made from half-and-half with a rosemary sprig and bay leaves in the custard. Yes, I did remember to remove them after cooking although I have made that mistake before. Check out the picture of my fresh garnish – those are “sumo” oranges usually in season from January until the end of April. For once my timing was just right, and little did I know that a Trader Joe’s shopper made it famous on TikTok. Obviously my daily dose of social media does not extend to TikTok! Sumos originated in Japan in the 1970s and have a signature “top knot” on the top of each piece of fruit. They are larger than standard oranges and they are delicious!
How did our “Cooking The New York Times ” dinner turn out? According to our guests it was an outstanding culinary success. No, I did not do a test run of any of these recipes prior to our dinner. But with all of this NYT talent and the foodie skills in our kitchen, I am happy to say that dinner was a spectacular success. And each course was perfectly paired with an excellent wine. Many thanks to Julia Reed, Amanda Hesser, Yewande Komolafe and David Tanis. Their recipes did not disappoint! Now whenever I am in search of a recipe or just an idea of what to cook, I immediately head to the NYT Cooking App. Almost every day I’m downloading a recipe or two to add to the ever growing pile of “recipes I would really like to cook”! Here’s betting that there will be a sequel in our future! Maybe even an annual event – best of the year! I could even have our guests vote. OK, now I am really getting carried away. But you probably get my point. These are some terrific recipes that can make you shine at your next dinner party.
Linda Rakos
3.29.22
