Good morning. I’m ordering my Easter ham this weekend, following the advice my colleague Julia Moskin handed down in The Times a decade ago. But what I plan to do with it this year is slightly different than usual. (There are lots of ways to cook ham.) Instead of using Julia’s recipe for a braised-then-baked ham, adapted from Julia Child, I’m going to take Eric Kim’s counsel and make a retro-style pineapple ham (above), salty and rich beneath its tangy glaze.
Ham and pineapple play well together, as Eric writes. They play so well together, in fact, that I’m not going to wait until Easter. This weekend I’m going to get a ham steak and court controversy with some of you, making Eric’s recipe for ham and pineapple pizza. It’s a combination that was invented in Canada in the 1960s, a taste I first had three decades later at the No Name Pub, on Big Pine Key in Florida, and one I’ve revered ever since: salty, sweet and creamy all at once, sublime beneath a dusting of red pepper flakes. It’s the definition of an American pizza.
Disagree? Fight me. I’ll see you in Weehawken at dawn.
That said, ham is not for everyone. This could be a great weekend for kimchi soondubu jjigae, for lamb biryani, for salmon roasted in butter or for a luncheon fattoush. (And we have lots of recipes for Ramadan and Lent.)
I’d very much like to bake Millie Peartree’s Louisiana crunch cake, too. Not to mention Melissa Clark’s one for a St. Louis gooey butter cake.
And I’d like to continue tinkering with my no-recipe recipe for A Great Sandwich: mortadella on warm focaccia with a smear of mayonnaise and pickled jalapeños. The trick is in draping the mortadella over the bottom piece of bread in waves, so it more closely resembles an artful pile of fresh laundry than a shingled roof. Tuck the slices of jalapeño into those waves as if they were miniature surfers, then top with the second piece of bread. Win the weekend.
There are thousands and thousands more recipes to consider cooking this weekend at New York Times Cooking. Yes, you need a subscription to read them. Subscriptions support our work and allow it to continue. If you haven’t done so already, I hope you will subscribe today — we’re offering a special rate for the complete Times experience, which includes Cooking, during our All Access sale, ending soon. Thanks.
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Now, it’s many miles from anything to do with rhubarb or mace, but have you seen the 2022 film “Triangle of Sadness,” from the Swedish director Ruben Ostlund? It’s silly, what A.O. Scott called in The Times “a shaggy-dog art-house reboot of ‘Gilligan’s Island.’” Super dark, very funny.
In case you missed it in The Times last week, here is Eli Saslow’s empathetic, terrifying and deeply moving dispatch from a homeless encampment surrounding a sandwich shop in Phoenix.
Finally, there’s more new Feist: The song “Borrow Trouble” from her forthcoming album, “Multitudes,” out in April. Listen to that this weekend, and cook something great. I’ll see you on Sunday.
