Go for the gold: What to Cook Right Now

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Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

Monday, June 15, 2020

What to Cook Right Now

Sam Sifton

Good morning. You know that sense of satisfaction you get, cooking good food? Not just in making a recipe you found and having it come out edible, but in making it well, making it delicious, making it nice? Imagine how you’ll feel when you’re done with this coconut pecan cake (above) that the pastry chef Dolester Miles makes at Chez Fonfon and Bottega, and occasionally at Highlands Bar and Grill, Frank and Pardis Stitt’s restaurants in Birmingham, Ala.

Work slowly, and attend to the tips Kim Severson offers at the top of the recipe (take a spin through the notes below it as well), and you’ll end up with a cake to astonish yourself and those to whom you serve it. And on a Monday night to boot! (Take it easy for dinner. Make some quesadillas, call it good.)

That’s what to cook right now. But we have plenty other ideas for things to make and be proud of in coming days. You could make portobello patty melts, for instance. You could make one-pan chicken thighs with coconut creamed corn.

You could set yourself up for a picnic, even if that just means eating on the stoop or eating on the floor in the living room or eating with a window open to the breeze. Maybe chicken salad? Pasta and zucchini salad? Definitely cucumber, melon and watermelon salad. All the salads.

Thousands and thousands more recipes to cook this week await you on NYT Cooking, along with a lot of instruction (it’s not too late to learn how to make sourdough bread). A lot more of them than usual are free to use even if you aren’t a subscriber to our site and apps. But it would be great if you subscribed all the same. Subscriptions are what allow us to continue doing this work that we love.

And if anything goes wrong along the way, don’t hesitate to get in touch. We’re at cookingcare@nytimes.com. We will get back to you.

Now, it’s nothing to do with poached salmon or bouillabaisse, but we’re most of us looking for new things to read. Maybe that ought to be 2019’s “Ordinary Girls: A Memoir,” by Jaquira Díaz.

Watch if you haven’t: Dave Chappelle’s “8:46” on YouTube (produced by Netflix). Here is some context, from Melena Ryzik in The Times.

Listen. Our pop critics assess a lot of new tracks.

Finally, here’s Marisa Tomei’s “Grub Street Diet” and it’s pretty grand. I’ll be back on Wednesday.