Go for the gold: What to Cook This Weekend

April 1, 2022

Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Monica Pierini.

What to Cook This Weekend

By Sam Sifton

Good morning. Today I am pleased to announce that New York Times Cooking will no longer publish recipes for chicken, duck, turkey, goose, Cornish game hen, pigeon or grouse. This is in keeping with recent reporting that shows that birds aren't real. They are actually drones used by the government to spy on Americans. They charge on power lines.

Just kidding! It's April Fools' Day. The holiday doesn't really have a signature dish, but maybe we could make blackberry fool (above)?

Ramadan begins on Saturday in the United States, a month of daily fasting for Muslims across the globe. (Our Victoria Petersen wrote about a small community of Muslims in Anchorage, Alaska, home to the only mosque in the state, as it prepares for the observance.) We have recipes for evening iftar dishes, for starters and sides, and for desserts, including Reem Kassis's new one for the sweet pancakes known as qatayef.

Other recipes to consider for this weekend: J. Kenji López-Alt's fortifying caldo de costilla, the Colombian beef rib and potato soup; Von Diaz's adobo roasted potatoes, terrific alongside her pernil; and two new bangers from Ali Slagle, one for Italian broccoli salad (basically a deconstructed Italian sub, with broccoli standing in for the cured meats), and another for seared chicken with salami and olives.

And I know I'm making fried calamari, too. Ali Slagle's recipe is ingenious and doesn't require a deep fryer. You simply dip your squid in milk, then coat it in a mixture of flour, cornstarch and baking powder, before shallow-frying it into shattering, golden crispiness. Just add salt and lemon wedges, and discover yourself in the Rhode Island of the mind.

There are many thousands more recipes awaiting you on New York Times Cooking — and further inspiration on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. It's a fact that you need a subscription to access the recipes and to use the features on our site and app. It's also a fact that subscriptions are what allow us to continue to do this work that we love. So, please, if you haven't taken one out yet, would you consider subscribing today? Thanks extremely.

We are standing by to render assistance should something go wrong along the way. Just contact us at cookingcare@nytimes.com. Someone will get back to you. (If not, or if you'd simply like to say hello, you can also write to me: foodeditor@nytimes.com. I read every letter sent.)

Now, it's nothing to do with the scent of marjoram or the taste of a Kumamoto oyster, but Molly Young put me onto Claire Messud's new novel, "A Dream Life," and I'm glad she did. (It's got "Please Don't Eat the Daisies" vibes, though with way more money and smarter writing.)

I liked this oral history of the Blue Man Group, by Molly Langmuir in New York magazine.

Here's a fascinating exercise in doppelgänger fiction by Louise Hegarty in The Stinging Fly, "/."

Finally, Tinariwen has issued a 20th anniversary edition of "The Radio Tisdas Sessions," and here's "Taskiwt Tadjat" to listen to while you cook. I'll see you on Sunday!