The Recipe Culture: The New York Times

Dear Ms. Liberty,

A few years ago, I cut back on my magazine subscriptions, especially hard-copy magazines. When it came to my online subscriptions, the one I couldn't get rid of was The New York Times, and especially its Cooking section. 

There are many reasons I find NYT's cooking page so endearing. Besides the quality of the recipes and the use of fresh ingredients, the readers' comments are entertaining and sometimes frustrating. I have a love-hate relationship with the comments. 

We're talking about the NYT - a newspaper that is 170 years old, with stats showing 72% of the paper’s readers have at least a university degree, and the average NYT reader is well-informed and politically opinionated, except some of their readers leave their kitchen logic stuffed into an old Tupperware container kept at the back of a hard-to-reach bottom cupboard. Need an example of some of the comments?

The recipe called for whole wheat flour and yeast, and I am gluten intolerant. I only had rice flour, and I was out of yeast, so I used baking powder. The bread was hard and flat. This bread recipe sucks! Do better, New York Times!

There was too much vinegar, so how come when I read the recipe a second time, there was no vinegar listed in the ingredients? When did you change it?

The crust recipe listed a whole stick of butter. No recipe is worth wasting a whole stick of butter, so I cut it to half a stick. I will never try this crust recipe again. It was too dry!  

Do not make this recipe after drinking copious amounts of gin. 

Okay, back to my original point... Sometimes the NYT Cooking column surprises readers by posting an age-old favorite recipe that I, and probably other readers, have forgotten but welcome the reminder of, like Hot Chicken Salad from the 1950s-1960s, a favorite for those "lady luncheons." 

For sure, this Queso recipe brought back memories from the 1980s. It was a Saturday-night favorite when the family got together, rented VHS movies, or had Super Bowl gatherings or

college tailgate parties (long extension cords). I was fond of the "fondue pot will travel." 

And of course, there is always room for dessert, with an easy recipe for Apricot, Cherry, and Almond Galette that looks exotic and like it came from a French patisserie. 

Even though a queso recipe may contain American cheese products, it still tastes good; and when someone questions the recipe, all you have to say is, "Well, it came from The New York Times." 

Happy Cooking, 

C~

P.S. Oh, and I also love the NYT for its Wirecutter section and for collecting genius badges, pangrams and Queen Bee badges from The Spelling Bee game.