Dessert

Chocolate is an easy choice for homemade Valentine’s Day desserts and this trio of recipes has something for everyone. Like relationships, they range in commitment: simple hot fudge sundaes get some help from store-bought ice cream; a dramatic soufflé cake takes about an hour but is big enough to serve a group; aspirational Earl Grey crème brûlée for two requires a little patience for a dish that feels luxurious. Recipe: Peanut Butter Hot Fudge Sundaes The simplest — a hot fudge sundae — is also a nostalgic crowd-pleaser. This silky and decadent hot fudge is flavored with a generous scoop of creamy peanut butter, which adds nuttiness and just enough salt to make this sundae feel a little bit grown up. Hot fudge can impress without much work. It comes together in just a few minutes on the stovetop with ingredients you might keep around all of the time, and it’s so much more delicious than anything you can buy in a jar. When it comes time to build your … [Read more...] about 3 New Chocolate Desserts for Everyone You Love

When the Yale literary theorist Paul de Man died in 1983 , he was hailed as a brilliant teacher who had helped turn deconstruction, the critical approach originated by Jacques Derrida, into an insurgent force in American intellectual life. Four years later, though, the discovery that as a young man in Nazi-occupied Belgium de Man had written some 200 literary articles for a collaborationist newspaper — including a 1941 essay musing on the impact on European literature if the Jews were relocated to an isolated colony — landed like a bombshell. De Man’s photograph appeared in Newsweek, juxtaposed with images of Nazis on the march. And critics of deconstruction , inside and outside the academy, pounced, arguing that a school of thought long dismissed as cultish “critical terrorism” was something even more sinister. Those battles may seem like a distant memory. But now, the first full-length biography of de Man threatens to reopen the debate over his legacy, weaving together … [Read more...] about Revisiting a Scholar Unmasked by Scandal

The wine is in plastic cups, the view of flaking paint, vinyl siding, a tin tub of flowers and graffiti 10 feet tall. It is so quiet on the roof, for a moment we wonder if the people working the cash register downstairs have forgotten we’re up here and have gone home. None of us are in a hurry to find out. There are prettier outdoor dining spaces in the city, but few with quite the juxtaposition of serenity and grit as the rooftop at Brooklyn Ball Factory, a Japanese comfort-food joint and coffee shop that opened last fall in East Williamsburg. The single-story building was once a warehouse for beer cans awaiting recycling. Makoto Suzuki, the owner and chef, had the smart idea to take out a skylight and put in a staircase with a glass peak. Climb it at noon and the light stuns; you swell like a hothouse flower. Mr. Suzuki built the roof deck himself, out of plywood, with a high fence that hides the street and doubles as the back of a long bench. His wife, Kanako, has adorned it … [Read more...] about Brooklyn Factory, Japanese Food

On a trip to New York about a decade ago, Benoît Astier de Villatte and Ivan Pericoli stopped at ABC Carpet & Home in Manhattan. The store was among the first to stock ceramics from Astier de Villatte, the line the men co-founded in Paris in 1996. They were admiring how some of their dishes were displayed when a salesclerk told them the pieces were copies of those used by Marie Antoinette. “No, they’re not!” Mr. Pericoli, 52, recalled saying to the clerk, who was unaware that the men who seemed to be browsing had designed the plates. While the plates were not replicas of any belonging to the French queen, their look was informed by tastes of France’s former ruling class, at least loosely. In designing the ceramics, Mr. Pericoli said he and Mr. Astier de Villatte, 60, are inspired by “anything from the past, any period, starting from the Neolithic.” The two, who met after each had graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, drew on their time as students in creating the … [Read more...] about Are You an Astier Person?

Teri Parris Ford felt awful on her Ozempic medication . Two years ago, her doctor had prescribed it to treat Ms. Ford’s pre-diabetes, for which it was effective. Ms. Ford, a 57-year-old art teacher, experienced a drop in her A1C (a measure of average blood sugar) and lost 20 pounds in six months. But Ozempic made her nauseated. On the days that she used the medication, which she injected with a needle in her stomach, she would dry-heave. For a while, Ms. Ford took her doses on weekdays so she wouldn’t waste a weekend being sick. But eventually, she told her doctor she didn’t want to feel queasy so often. They agreed that she could stop the medication. In just two months, Ms. Ford said, she gained all the weight back. On Ozempic, her appetite had practically vanished — a common side effect of the drug, which was first authorized to treat diabetes and is now being used off label for weight loss. She might pick at a few French fries at a lunch with friends, but she never … [Read more...] about Ozempic Can Cause Major Weight Loss. What Happens if You Stop Taking It?