Good morning. It can be hard, on these days filled with dark and terrible news, to imagine that cooking can do anything more than provide base sustenance. You’re making a chocolate sheet cake? You’re rolling out pasta? What is the point of that?
The point is to celebrate humanity even when others seek to destroy it, to find joy amid sadness and above all to show love, the emotion we need to embrace most of all when conflict soars. You might find it in a simple roast chicken, a plate of spaghetti and meatballs or a tureen of dal makkhani. Tonight, you could look for it in a bowl of youvarlakia avgolemono, lemony Greek meatball soup (above). Bring any of those to the table and see: In service we find relief.
As for what to cook for the rest of the week …
Monday
I like this broccoli salad with Cheddar and warm bacon vinaigrette, soft and crunchy all at once, which our Margaux Laskey adapted from the recipe the chef Ashley Christensen put in her excellent cookbook “Poole’s: Recipes and Stories From a Modern Diner.”
Wednesday
Another new one from Kay, perfect for the middle of the week: salmon hand rolls, the fish glazed with a version of the thick soy-based sauce that usually anoints grilled eel, and wrapped in seaweed with rice, cucumbers and avocado.
Friday
And then you can round out the week with Meera Sodha’s excellent chicken curry. It’s exceptional accompanied by her aunt’s recipe for naan and, if only I’d made it on Sunday, this chutney.
There are thousands and thousands more recipes to make this week waiting for you on New York Times Cooking — and more inspiration on our social media channels: TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. You do, yes, need a subscription to access them. Subscriptions support our work and allow it to continue. Thank you for yours. (If you haven’t taken one out yet, I hope you will subscribe today.)
And if anything goes wrong along the way, please reach out to us for help: cookingcare@nytimes.com. Someone will get back to you. You can also write to me directly: foodeditor@nytimes.com. I read every letter sent.
Now, it’s nothing to do with baking muffins or blanching asparagus, but I think you ought to read Will Stephenson’s “Letter From Miami” in Harper’s, about hanging out with the Bitcoin crowd in South Florida.
It’s the actor Donal Logue’s birthday. He’s 56. This is the website for the truck driving school he runs in Oregon.
Do read Nora Hikari’s “Love Poem to Line Breaks,” in Gulf Coast.
Finally, here’s Ligaya Mishan in T Magazine, writing about people who write about food. See what you make of that. And I’ll be back on Monday.
