The no-yeast-required cooking edition

W42ST Daily 4/27/2020

I seared some salmon last night. Got the skin beautiful and crispy. Roasted some broccoli, with a little lemon juice and almonds. Apart from the small matter of setting off the smoke alarm and waking up my hungover roommate, it was an unprecedented success (I like using the word unprecedented to describe good news for a change).

You can probably only truly comprehend the gravity of this statement when you know that, apart from scrambling some eggs, I haven’t properly cooked for more than five years. Dinner is literally carrots and hummus. I don’t even make a cocktail that needs more than two ingredients.

The anniversary of my break-up with the kitchen, not entirely coincidentally, coincides with my arrival in New York. But to pinpoint the precise moment I fell out of love with cooking, you have to go much further back in time.

My children were young – I’m going to guess around the 10/12/14 mark. I’d spent hours making an elaborate fish pie. I was pretty pleased with myself. I won’t go into details, but the resounding gagging noises and general mocking of my talents around the table, followed by the emergency heating up of a frozen pizza, concluded my adventure with culinary experimentation. It was, I decided, a thankless task.

Could Coronavirus have done what no amount of family apologies, TV food shows, or hungry boyfriends could do? Could it have tempted me back to the stove?

Watch this space, friends. Watch this space … (and thanks to Howie from On The Rocks for the meme!)

SPREAD THE LOVE
We’re all about NOT spreading things around right now. But if you’re enjoying our daily missives – if they’re bringing you a little joy in these dark times and helping you feel connected to your neighbors as social distancing becomes the new normal – tell your friends. They can sign up by clicking on this big yellow blob.

CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE

FROM THE ARCHIVES
If life had continued the way we’d planned, this week we’d be salivating over the publication of our food issue. But it’s now been more than a month since we decided to move from monthly in print, to daily and digital. So, to celebrate my return to the kitchen, I’ve been digging around in the W42ST archives, and it seemed like a good time to revisit this feature from a year ago.

We asked five of our favorite neighborhood chefs make a dish using just five ingredients (we let them have salt, spices, and oil for free). Find out what those creative cooks came up with at w42st.com.

DO THESE THINGS
Wear your PJs to a party
Jim Caruso hosts a stellar line-up of performers tonight, all doing their thang from their living rooms, including country star Ty Herndon, pop singer David Osmond (yes, he IS related to the Osmonds – and an excuse to enjoy this gif of the brothers shimmying with Cher), and Susie Mosher, who’s ‘Changing Table’ tune is currently being covered by EVERYONE! Join the Pajama Cast Part here.

Swap, share, and schmooze
The regular neighborhood hang, hosted by the W45th St Block Association, can’t happen in person tonight. So they’re getting together online. This is a chance to say hi to neighbors, share your stories, and connect (albeit virtually). Find out more here.

Watch a movie
Focus Features is live streaming a movie every Monday night. Tonight’s offering is 2004’s My Summer of Love, starring Emily Blunt and Paddy Considine, which explores the relationship between two women from very different backgrounds, bound together by shared secrets. Start watching here.

NAME GAME
The cast of the show you fell asleep on the sofa watching last night are responsible for finding a cure for Coronavirus. How confident are you?

I’ll go first. Hey everyone, my name’s Ruth, and I strongly believe the people from The Good Place would be successful in their quest, after some bungling but non-fatal errors. How about you?