Welcoming Brighter Days on Yalda With Pomegranates
Iranians celebrate Shab-e Yalda, the winter solstice, surrounded by symbolic foods.

Foods for Yalda include, clockwise from top: pomegranates; hogweed to sprinkle on pomegranate seeds; baslogh (soft and chewy rosewater-infused walnut sweets); ajeel (mixed nuts, seeds and dried fruit); rice cookies and watermelon.
By NAZ DERAVIAN

This Seafood Stew Is Endlessly Riffable
No matter what ingredients you use, this bold, briny stew from David Tanis sings alongside a radicchio-fennel salad and a grapefruit granita.

This adaptable stew takes well to a range of seafood.
By DAVID TANIS

The Secret to This Glazed Holiday Ham? Root Beer.
The sarsaparilla flavor lends the meat a woodsy mintiness, which sings when it’s paired with aromatics like bay leaves and shallots.

By ERIC KIM

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7 gluten-free cookie recipes for your holiday spread

By Kari Sonde

12 colorful holiday cookie recipes to illuminate the season

By Becky Krystal https://www.youtube.com/embed/40uw6VkWpaI

In the Mountain West, the ‘Dirty’ Soda Rush Is On
With locations now numbering in the hundreds, regional soda-shop chains are spreading far beyond Utah, where they first found popularity.
By VICTORIA PETERSEN

Who Owns a Recipe? A Plagiarism Claim Has Cookbook Authors Asking.
U.S. copyright law protects all kinds of creative material, but recipe creators are mostly powerless in an age and a business that are all about sharing.
By PRIYA KRISHNA

FOOD MATTERS
The Humble Beginnings of Today’s Culinary Delicacies
Many of our most revered dishes were perfected by those in need, then co-opted by the affluent. Is that populism at play, or just the abuse of power?
By LIGAYA MISHAN, PATRICIA HEAL and MARTIN BOURNE

Substack Expands Food Newsletters With Ruth Reichl and Others
The former restaurant critic and Gourmet editor is joining a cadre of chefs and authors enlisted to expand the platform’s culinary content.
By KIM SEVERSON

Feta Pasta and Other Winners
Whether you need simple recipes or are in marathon cooking mode, we have options.
By EMILY WEINSTEIN

24 Days of Cookies
These recipes from New York Times Cooking are sure to make your holidays bright.

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EAT
A Cookie as Big as the Ritz
This festive cookie cake is a cross an American chocolate-chip cookie and an elegant Parisian treat.

By DORIE GREENSPAN

Sylvia Weinstock, the ‘da Vinci of Wedding Cakes,’ Dies at 91
She produced floral-draped architectural works in the shape of rose-studded topiaries, baskets of speckled lilies and bouquets of anemones.

Sylvia Weinstock at a wine and food festival in Miami in 2014. Her clientele included Whitney Houston, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, LeBron James, Robert De Niro, Oprah Winfrey, Martha Stewart and various Kennedys and Kardashians.
By Katharine Q. Seelye

TRILOBITES
A Tool Kit to Help Scientists Find the Ultimate Chickpea
A major plant genome sequencing effort may offer a path to breeding more climate-resilient chickpeas, while also revealing clues to the legume’s origins.
By VERONIQUE GREENWOOD

For Those Who Feel Rejected by Family, Friendsgiving Can Be a Lifeline
For many L.G.B.T.Q. Americans, especially those with immigrant roots, traditional notions of Thanksgiving and family may not apply. The holiday offers another way to celebrate.

The chef Arnold Myint, in his Nashville home, making preparations for a Friendsgiving dinner.
By Eric Kim

CRITIC’S NOTEBOOK
A Thanksgiving History Lesson in a Handful of Corn
The cornmeal that has become a staple of the holiday table reflects millenniums of work by Native Americans — a legacy that Indigenous people are trying to keep alive.

The Native people who came to the Pilgrims’ harvest feast in 1621 were Wampanoags, and the corn served was Wampanoag corn.
By Pete Wells

These Pie and Cake Servers Have Style
Two utensils available at the Museum of Modern Art make dessert presentation a breeze.

Tola Spatula, $30 ($27 for members); One-Handed Cake Server (after Dec. 10), $12, ($10.80 for members), store.moma.org.
By FLORENCE FABRICANT

Yotam Ottolenghi’s Rules for Brunch
When it comes to planning a festive meal, the chef has certain specifications. This custardy butternut squash meets them all.

This meal is seasonal and comforting.
By YOTAM OTTOLENGHI

A Superb Shrimp Stew
Vallery Lomas’s spicy shrimp Creole delivers weekend depth of flavor in a fraction of the time.

By EMILY WEINSTEIN

A GOOD APPETITE
The Crispiest, Lightest Shrimp Cakes
What’s the secret? It’s using pulverized rice cakes as a binder, Melissa Clark writes.

For an untraditional binder, crushed-up rice cakes are mixed in with the shrimp for an ethereal, especially crisp result.
By Melissa Clark

A GOOD APPETITE
Three Hanukkah Desserts That Skip the Fryer
Melissa Clark’s oil-imbued recipes, for lemon curd, chocolate cake and Greek honey cookies, are a sweet way to celebrate the holiday.

This olive oil lemon curd can be served with scones or berries, piled into a Pavlova or mounded into a tart shell.
By Melissa Clark

How to make shortbread – recipe

Felicity Cloake’s festive shortbread would make an ideal gift.
Christmas shortbread as made by our resident perfectionist, with a few choices of festive flavourings
Felicity Cloake

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Elite Wine Group Moves to Expel 6 Members in Sexual Harassment Inquiry
The American chapter of the Court of Master Sommeliers says it investigated 22 members. But at least one woman who came forward feels that’s not enough.
By CHRISTINA MORALES

Peter Buck, Co-Founder of the Subway Sandwich Chain, Dies at 90
The $1,000 loan he gave to a friend’s son was used to start a single sandwich shop. That shop grew into the world’s biggest fast-food chain.

Peter Buck in an undated photograph. The idea behind what became Subway stemmed from his fond memories of an Italian sandwich shop his family had patronized when he was growing up in Maine.
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

NONFICTION
Seven Immigrant Women Who Changed the Way Americans Eat
“Taste Makers,” by Mayukh Sen, features women who, often while confronting sexism and racism in the food industry, introduced Americans to the dishes of their native cultures.

From left, Julie Sahni, Najmieh Batmanglij, Marcella Hazan and Madeleine Kamman. Mayukh Sen’s book “Taste Makers,” a group portrait of these women and three other foreign-born female cooks, is unquestionably timely, an opportunity to reflect on America’s complicated history with immigrants and their food.
By HETTY MCKINNON

EAT
A Crispy Upgrade for Cheese and Crackers
An unpretentious bar snack transformed into something sublime.

By GABRIELLE HAMILTON https://www.youtube.com/embed/qX9Jpg3b90M https://www.youtube.com/embed/YGKOJ48nPVk https://www.youtube.com/embed/rPrfD9_RbCg https://www.youtube.com/embed/sIFlPc-TW94

Fowl’s Day

How to Make Your Thanksgiving Dinner Less Boring
Samin Nosrat will say it: Every year, the meal is a lot of the same. Here are five ways she adds brightness, crunch, freshness and flavor.

Spoon a fried sage salsa verde over your roast turkey for bright, palate-pleasing flavor.
By SAMIN NOSRAT

A Beginner’s Thanksgiving: 7 Recipes That Lighten the Workload
For first-time cooks, or anyone looking to simplify the holiday prep, this special menu minimizes effort and maximizes flavor.

These recipes call for a limited number of essential ingredients, many of which are shared across the menu.
By ERIC KIM

How climate change and extreme weather are crimping America’s pie supply
For Mike’s Pies in Florida, even once supply chain problems resolve, there’s still climate change
By Laura Reiley

12 Wines for Thanksgiving and Beyond
The characteristics that make a bottle great for the holiday work for just about any occasion. These wines not only taste good, they feel good.

By ERIC ASIMOV

The Untold Story of Sushi in America
How a controversial religion from Korea quietly built an empire of raw fish.
By DANIEL FROMSON

This Lemon Pie Captures the Feeling of Home
For years, Yewande Komolafe didn’t feel a connection to the food she was cooking professionally — until she started making Edna Lewis’s recipes.

Edna Lewis’s buttermilk chess pie inspired this lemony version with a black pepper crust.
By YEWANDE KOMOLAFE

Here’s the Secret to the Best Mashed Potatoes for Thanksgiving
You’ve tried boiling, but Genevieve Ko found a better way to make this side dish fluffier — and more flavorful.

A final sprinkle of salt — or a ladle of gravy — can add an extra savory note to mashed potatoes.
By GENEVIEVE KO

The Absolute Best Pumpkin, Apple and Pecan Pies for Thanksgiving
Melissa Clark has spent months perfecting techniques, so you don’t have to.

For the best pies, skip the pumpkin, increase the pecans, and precook your apples.
By MELISSA CLARK

For Arab Americans, It’s Not Thanksgiving Without Hashweh
The rice-based stuffing is often a centerpiece of celebrations in the Arab world, and on holiday tables in the United States.

Chicken or lamb filled with hashweh — or “stuffing” in Arabic — is a staple of celebratory meals. But hashweh can also stand on its own at the Thanksgiving table.
By REEM KASSIS

Padma Lakshmi’s Thanksgiving Turkey: Slow Roasted and Richly Sauced
The host of “Taste the Nation” and “Top Chef” isn’t a professional chef herself. That’s why her bird is stress-free and foolproof.

Padma Lakshmi uses a potato masher and fork to smash the fruits and vegetables that roast with her turkey to turn them into gravy.
By Genevieve Ko

Mix and Match the Perfect Sidesgiving
Because vegetarians have always known that sides are the real star.

By TEJAL RAO

A Vegetarian Thanksgiving
Kay Chun’s new recipe for stuffed mushrooms with an escargot-flavored filling evokes the French classic.

By SAM SIFTON

Five-Star, Honey-Glazed Chicken
Yewande Komolafe graced us with this one-pan recipe. Don’t miss it.
By EMILY WEINSTEIN

EAT
The Secret to a Better Green Salad
A chef’s tricks can make even the simplest salads shine.
By ERIC KIM

Tracing Mexico’s Complicated Relationship With Rice
Having arrived in the country via the Spanish Conquest, the grain’s presence poses the question: What’s native, and what isn’t, when it comes to a nation’s culinary history?
By AATISH TASEER and STEFAN RUIZ

For Many Members of the Arab American Diaspora, Mansaf Offers a Taste of Home
The traditional Bedouin dish of bread, rice, lamb and yogurt is a talisman of identity in Jordan — and in various communities in suburban Detroit.

A home-cooked mansaf of bread, rice, lamb and yogurt made by the Bazzi family, who own the Dearborn institution Habib’s Cuisine.
By DIANA ABU-JABER and RENEE COX

In Senegal, a Return to Homegrown Rice
The country has remained mostly dependent on the grain’s importation since colonization in the 1800s. But some locals are trying to change that.

At Phare Des Mamelles, a restaurant in a lighthouse in Dakar, Senegal, grilled thiof (a white grouper fish) is served with cups of tamarind sauce (left), sauce moyo (right), roasted vegetables, limes and riz de la vallée (“rice of the valley”), which is grown in one of the country’s primary areas of cultivation, the Senegal River Valley. Beside the dish are some of its raw ingredients, including (clockwise from bottom) tamarind fruits, tomatoes, a bowl of dried peppers, fresh pepper fruits, onions, miniature eggplants, miniature green bell peppers, baby carrots and potatoes.
By ANGELA FLOURNOY and MANUEL OBADIA-WILLS

The Thrilling Dare of Scorched Rice
When browned on the bottom of the pot by a skilled cook, the grain is transformed into a complex delicacy, one prized by food cultures around the world.
By LIGAYA MISHAN and ANTHONY COTSIFAS

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Seeing the World Through a Grain of Rice
The widely consumed staple is freighted with history, and has as many culinary applications as it does meanings.
By HANYA YANAGIHARA

Marking a Different Thanksgiving Tradition, From West Africa
Liberian Americans have a complicated relationship with their holiday that plays out in the foods they make and the ways they reflect on a proud and difficult history.

Ms. Wreh’s Thanksgiving spread includes a mix of Western and Liberian foods.
By Priya Krishna https://www.youtube.com/embed/3mg52JOs8_Y https://www.youtube.com/embed/Cov8Nc2_Zwc https://www.youtube.com/embed/tkbP6q0H5Z8 https://www.youtube.com/embed/my1q2kZVjOk https://www.youtube.com/embed/EajBNo-rBJY https://www.youtube.com/embed/bDi__5FcebM https://www.youtube.com/embed/MJ9UGzlqxyk https://www.youtube.com/embed/qHaWFtikbLQ

Jonathan Reynolds, Playwright and Food Columnist, Dies at 79
His plays tended to parody American institutions. His food writing tended to be full of humor.

Jonathan Reynolds in 2003 in “Dinner With Demons,” a one-man show in which he cooked a full dinner onstage.
By NEIL GENZLINGER