If the DVD version of “The Dance,” a live album recorded by Fleetwood Mac in 1997, was playing in the living room of my childhood home, I knew I’d be in for one hell of a meal.
On a Friday or a Saturday, my parents would often kick off the evening with a glass of something bubbly in hand and — with the sounds of Christine McVie’s maracas reverberating through the stereo system — tend to lamb chops on the grill, cod on the stovetop or chicken in the oven.
Whether they were preparing dinner for our family of four or throwing a party for our neighborhood in suburban Atlanta, every meal felt like an occasion worth celebrating. The enthusiasm they expressed in the kitchen was something I internalized at a young age.
While I helped out here and there — my contributions were usually reserved for varenyky- or empanada-making — any interest in cooking skills came much later in life.
I was drawn instead to the rituals my parents practiced, to their displays of hospitality, to what cooking represented: Making a meal was a chance to have a bit of fun. While I emulate many of their habits to this day, right down to the soundtrack (songs by Fleetwood Mac, D-Train, Steely Dan and Shalamar, to name a few), the dishes that hit my table don’t always mirror theirs.
The dinners I grew up eating were often of the meat-and-three variety. That meant a protein served alongside a green salad, a grilled or steamed vegetable and French fries — a nonnegotiable side if red meat was on the menu.
My own home cooking now tends to be a little less meat-centric, with an amalgam of vegetables playing more than a supporting role in the production. That is often the case for many readers of The Veggie, my weekly newsletter for The New York Times. The newsletter is dedicated to delectable vegetarian cooking — but not limited to vegetarian readers.
While all of the recipes featured in The Veggie are meatless (and many are vegan or easily adaptable), I’m admittedly an omnivore. But I don’t see this perspective as a weakness. It’s an opportunity to meet people right where they are. Sixty-three percent of Americans are trying to eat less red meat, after all.
Each week, in an effort to appeal to a range of eaters, I set out to address questions that longtime vegetarians and inexperienced, vegetable-curious cooks alike might ask: What do I do with all of this zucchini? What pasta salad should I bring to a holiday potluck? How do I cook with nutritional yeast? I provide answers, which include a selection of delicious vegetarian recipes suited to home cooks of any experience level.
Since joining The Times’s Food and Cooking desk in 2020 as an editor, I’ve striven to cultivate the sort of encyclopedic knowledge of our recipes that makes answering those questions a breeze. (I joke with friends that my brain’s real estate is divided into three distinct neighborhoods: Drake’s discography, The Times’s Stylebook and the NYT Cooking database.)
I browse our database like someone might browse the RealReal or Facebook Marketplace, eager to unearth forgotten gems. But I often don’t have to dig too deep. The Cooking desk’s output of vegetarian recipes has only increased since we introduced the newsletter two years ago, with Tejal Rao writing it and me as her editor (I stepped in to write after Ms. Rao became a critic at large). Now, when I hear that a colleague is working on a tasty-sounding recipe, I’ll find the draft and make it at home before we’ve published it — the editor’s equivalent of a chef’s treat.
While reader service is my top priority, keeping things fresh is a close second. Nearly 10 months into writing The Veggie, I don’t so much have a routine for compiling the newsletter as I have a life I shamelessly mine for inspiration. To evoke Nora Ephron, “everything is copy,” so a breakup becomes a lesson in minimum-effort sheet-pan dinners; the generosity of a friend’s mother becomes an ode to baking stone fruit; a desire to become a morning person becomes a Monday-through-Sunday breakfast menu.
When my own plot is feeling a little thin, I turn to our readers. Some of the most entertaining email correspondences I’ve received have been a result of my Recipe Matchmaker callouts, in which I ask subscribers to write in with their highly specific requests for recipes. In turn, I pair a request with the perfect dish. (I think often of the woman who wrote for assistance in regaling her younger lover: “Could be savory or sweet.”)
And when all else fails, I have the seasons to fall back on, the most reliable of muses for someone eager to reveal to readers, week after week, just how celebratory cooking with vegetables can be.
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