Good morning. If there’s a better scent in the world than Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese sauce (above), I’m unaware of it.
Well, apart from fresh-baked apple pie, that is. And wooden boats, spit-roasted lamb, fresh-cut hay and Jamaican black cake. But Bolognese is pretty great: that milk-calmed tomato over a bass line of beef, with a whisper of nutmeg warmth and a low hum of buttery onion. It’s just the thing for a Sunday afternoon of winter cooking, grandma-style, in advance of a family dinner.
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Marcella Hazan’s Bolognese Sauce
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I serve the sauce with tagliatelle and a staggering amount of grated Parmesan, but it’s also very good in a lasagna, like this great one that Julia Moskin picked up from Frank Prisinzano of the restaurant Frank in Manhattan.
Perhaps one of those could be your dinner tonight. As for the rest of the week …
Monday
I love Kay Chun’s recipe for a vegetarian take on Japanese katsu, usually made with chicken or pork. She replaces the meat with slabs of tofu and serves the crisp results over cauliflower-studded quinoa, with a bright lemon-tahini sauce. That’s nice.
Wednesday
There’s a minimalist beauty to Mark Bittman’s recipe for roast chicken, which employs just four ingredients and a preheated cast-iron pan to deliver a stunner of a meal, with tender white meat, juicy dark meat and crisp, salty skin. Maybe some puréed potatoes to go with, and a small green salad? Hopefully you’ll have leftovers …
Thursday
… because leftover roast chicken makes for a terrific weeknight meal. Lidey Heuck’s recipe for avocado green goddess chicken salad is tangy, vinegary and luxuriously creamy without the addition of any dairy or mayonnaise. You could make a sandwich with it, but I like it best with Saltines.
Friday
And then you can welcome the weekend with Hetty Lui McKinnon’s ace recipe for soy sauce noodles with cabbage and fried eggs, a riff on the Cantonese classic. The cabbage adds heft, crunch and a faint sweetness against the soy. It’s ridiculously good.
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Now, it’s nothing to do with purslane or lavender, but Ben Ratliff took to The New York Review of Books to write about Miles Davis going electric, and it’s electric, Ratty at his finest.
Here’s Brendan Borrell in Hakai Magazine, on Pacific oysters.
The Los Angeles Times’s oral history of the Hundreds is worth a click even if you have no idea what the Hundreds is, or was. You’ll learn.
Finally, check out Black Francis singing with The Dandy Warhols on “Danzig With Myself.” I don’t think that I have any questions. I’ll be back on Friday.