Latest news with #GenevieveKo
New York Times
07-05-2025
- General
- New York Times
Empty Nesting Is Hard. This Carrot Cake Is Anything But.
For years, Genevieve Ko would make this dessert for her kids. Now that they're grown, she's streamlined it for them — and you. The whole point of carrot cake is to enjoy layers of tangy cream cheese frosting. Julia Gartland for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Samantha Seneviratne. By Genevieve Ko Genevieve Ko has baked more than 60 birthday cakes for her kids, including one shaped like a pirate ship. Published May 7, 2025 Updated May 7, 2025 On my first day as a line cook in a pastry kitchen, I was tasked with turning lemons into little bowls for housemade sorbet. I angled a sharp paring knife from the edge of a lemon half toward its center, then circled the knife to slice out a cone of seedy yellow flesh. Cupping that emptied half, I scooped out what remained with a metal spoon. Once the glassy sheets of membranes were gone, I had to keep going, gently running the spoon against the pith to create the thinnest possible shell without tearing the peel. That continuous scraping, the gentle pressure to excavate everything inside: That's what empty nesting has felt like. Somewhere behind my rib cage, some core is being hollowed out, and the rasping feels especially close on occasions like Mother's Day. When they were young, my kids felt pressure from relatives, teachers and the America around them to uphold the breakfast-in-bed tradition that started in the 1930s, about 15 years after Mother's Day was declared a national holiday. Aside from the fact that I'm not a breakfast eater, I'm also uninterested in doing twice as many dishes and washing syrup stains out of the duvet cover. I'm not alone — according to a 2017 Zagat poll, only 4 percent of mothers actually want breakfast in bed. But I may be alone in wanting to spend the day cooking. When I was just a year out of college, I realized that I could turn a lifelong love of food into a career and began apprenticing with chefs and a food writer. But, shortly after, I found out I was pregnant with twins, a decade before I'd planned to have kids. For years, on the holiday honoring motherhood, I tried to reclaim the childless trajectory I lost, air-drying duck to roast, slow-simmering fruit into preserves, in a peaceful kitchen. It felt like a selfish act twisted with the perpetual selflessness of nurturing. For the twins' first birthday, I created my first original baking recipe, a layered cake crammed with grated carrot and sweetened more with applesauce than sugar since it was going to be their inaugural taste of the stuff. They shoved handfuls into their mouths, howled with happiness, and it was then that I understood the joy of motherhood. The simplest way to frost carrot cake is to leave the sides unadorned, but they can be slathered with icing as well. Julia Gartland for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Samantha Seneviratne. Through the years of chasing toddlers with a newborn slung to my chest, playing their favorite yet impossibly boring board game (Life), driving to school, practices and play dates, I spent Mother's Day laboring alone over the long, hard dishes I loved but couldn't make for work or home. Now that they're all in college, all I want is to feed them again, to be crowded against the counter, hearing them laugh and bicker, wiping up mysterious sticky patches. But no one is clinging to my legs anymore, and, apparently, my long 'welcome home' hugs come off as pretty desperate. So I try to play it cool, not showing too much excitement when my youngest described craving carrot cake for the cream cheese frosting because, isn't that the best part? That's when I knew I'd taught them well and when I started plotting out a recipe that maximizes the frosting-to-cake ratio by baking the batter in a single half-sheet pan. Doing so eliminates the need for multiple cake pans and trying to slice tall rounds into flat layers. Instead, the big rectangle is easily cut into three smaller ones for easy stacking and an impressive tier with plenty of creamy frosting in every forkful. When my (taller-than-me) youngest tasted the frosting and suggested more lemon juice and salt to amplify its tanginess, I tried to not visibly tear up with pride. I was happy, really I was, when they couldn't stay to eat the cake but had just enough time to bring it to their classmates who 'destroyed it.' It's as it should be. And as the older two graduate from college, now only a few years younger than I was when they were born, I feed them by giving them starter recipes, like this cake, to prepare on their own. Texting recipe links and receiving photos of finished dishes in return don't fill the home's new hush, but learning to experience that as progress is its own celebration of motherhood. Follow New York Times Cooking on Instagram , Facebook , YouTube , TikTok and Pinterest . Get regular updates from New York Times Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice .
New York Times
18-04-2025
- Lifestyle
- New York Times
Easter With a Chance of Meatballs
Good morning. We were driving under slate gray skies through a landscape of dun fields and naked trees when, suddenly, the sun broke through and there was color everywhere: spring, sprung. It felt like a kind of miracle, as if we were present for the exact moment when the natural world was awakening from wintertime slumber to push upward into green, into yellow, into life. Of course this made me think about dinner. (Everything makes me think about dinner.) My thought process was simplistic word association. Spring, rebirth, lamb. And a specific lamb at that: this recipe for lamb meatballs with spiced tomato sauce (above) that I dug out of the Los Angeles chef Suzanne Goin's indispensable cookbook, 'Sunday Suppers at Lucques,' a long time ago, and return to time and again. It's a simple meal of crisp meatballs floating in a fragrant tomato gravy of North African origins, run through with orange juice and warm spices, anointed with feta and mint. It pairs well with pita and couscous. The labor's serial and not at all difficult, which makes it perfect cooking for a Saturday afternoon. Fire up the radio while you cook. The Yankees play the Rays in Tampa just after 4 p.m. Featured Recipe View Recipe → Will there be glazed ham on the table on Sunday, with scalloped potatoes and loads of asparagus? There sure could be. That's an Easter tradition where I stay. But you might consider this new recipe from Genevieve Ko for lemon butter salmon with dill instead, topped with quick-pickled cucumbers and mustard seeds. Take a look at Sue Li's recipe for a carrot tart with ricotta and feta, too. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
10-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
A Broccoli Pasta That Doesn't Feel Like a Broccoli Pasta
I have a group chat going with some friends that's usually focused on knitting, but the topic often turns to recipes. (Which makes sense: What is cooking but arts and crafts with food?) This broccoli-walnut pesto pasta by Genevieve Ko entered the chat to much fanfare, and rightfully so. It's fast, a cinch to make and surprisingly complex in flavor: The mix of softly bitter walnuts, refreshing mint and punchy lemon and garlic really sings. Mostly, we love how this recipe turns that everyday crucifer into a luscious, I-can't-believe-it's-broccoli sauce. I should note, too, that a member of this chat is a principal dancer with the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle. So if you're wondering if this pasta good enough for an elite professional athlete, the answer is yes. Featured Recipe View Recipe → I'll also pass you Christian Reynoso's creamy coconut-lime rice with peanuts, another recipe that my ballerina bud has on repeat. I don't think she's the only one — check out those five stars and nearly 2,000 ratings. There are some impressively large chicken legs in my fridge, and, after I split them into drumsticks and thighs, they're destined to become sheet-pan gochujang chicken with roasted vegetables. Yewande Komolafe's recipe checks all the boxes: spicy, sweet, salty, easy, versatile. She calls for a mix of squash and turnips, but, as she notes, you can swap in an equal amount of root vegetables, cauliflower, broccoli, whatever you like. (I keep the turnips; I'll take any excuse to bring home a bunch of shiny white harukeis.) And, as always, there are beans in my pantry. Melissa Clark's fast vegetarian skillet chili — a New York Times Cooking classic — needs two 15-ounce cans of beans, dealer's choice. (Kidney and black beans for me, please.) Fun fact: If you put Jocelyn Delk Adams's sweet potato cornbread in the oven right as you start your chili, both should be done around the same time. Lastly, I know we still have Friday to finagle, but I'm already daydreaming about what my weekend cooking project will be. Mark Bittman's gravlax is a strong contender, a tiny bit of Saturday prep for gorgeous sheets of Sunday salmon. And this malva pudding, a recipe by Eric Adjepong, adapted by Genevieve, is an absolute yes. I can't resist any sort of soaked cake and I've already checked namoura and Persian love cake off my list. Now I must make this tender, apricot-flavored cake, drenched as it is with buttery sweetened cream.
New York Times
26-02-2025
- General
- New York Times
Eggless Versions of Eggful Recipes
It's a tough time for egg lovers. With avian flu limiting supplies in supermarkets all over the country, chicken egg prices are rising to luxury food levels — how soon till they show up on tasting menus as 'chicken caviar?' And that's if you can even find them. Some store shelves are bare, a sad situation for ovivores that could continue for a while. But we here at New York Times Cooking are all about solutions. Genevieve Ko has created a terrific guide to egg substitutes to get you through egg-based projects like baking. And in today's email I'm focusing on eggless versions of traditionally eggful recipes. Most meatball recipes call for eggs to bind the ground meat. Yet Kay Chun skips them entirely in her tender chicken miso meatballs. Her dish calls for a mash of crumbled Ritz crackers moistened with milk and spiked with garlic and miso, which helps the ground chicken keep its shape beautifully and bake up into golden, flavorful morsels. Kay suggests serving these with a quick dipping sauce of soy mixed with vinegar and some chopped scallions. I like to add a little grated ginger, too, for an added kick. Featured Recipe View Recipe → Sarah DiGregorio replaces runny eggs with seafood in her shrimp in purgatory. A clever take on an Italian classic, it's perfect for when you're craving a spicy, garlicky, tomato-filled dish that can be pulled together in under half an hour. Filled with roasted red peppers and capers, Sarah's version of the 'purgatory' sauce is an especially tangy contrast next to the sweetness of the shrimp. Serve it with toasted bread for a speedy dinner or a heavenly, egg-free breakfast. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
20-02-2025
- General
- New York Times
Hainan Chicken Rice Might Just Be My Favorite Chicken Dish
Do you have a dish you love so much that you collect recipes for it? Something that you always want to eat, that always sounds good. So good that you look for different versions, noting their similarities and differences, trying them all to see which one you like best, which version is the ideal version for that day, for your energy level, for what you have in the fridge and pantry. I have several gotta-cook-'em-all dishes, and they're all chicken-and-rice-based: chicken adobo, Japanese-style chicken curry and, my current muse, Hainan chicken rice. Unlike adobo or curry, which essentially simmer away after a meager amount of prep, Hainan chicken rice can involve a lot of steps. None of them are difficult, but they can eat up an afternoon, making it the perfect thing for a winter weekend. The yield is fantastic: perfect, succulent chicken that's had an aromatic soak with ginger, scallions and garlic; soothing chicken soup; rice that's been cooked in some of said soup with pandan leaves; and a sparkly ginger-scallion sauce. Hainan chicken rice is maybe my favorite chicken dish — nourishing but not heavy, comforting but not cloying. And the elements branch out into helpful leftovers. The rice becomes fried rice, of course; the chicken goes into any number of applications; the soup is stock for stew (or curry!); and the ginger-scallion sauce is tossed with noodles for a stellar lunch. All of which is to say: I'm very excited to add Kevin Pang's recipe to my collection. Featured Recipe View Recipe → Before we move on, I want to call out Genevieve Ko's ginger scallion chicken and rice and Sue Li's chicken and rice with scallion-ginger sauce as excellent Hainan chicken rice shortcuts. They both feature gently cooked chicken with fragrant rice and a ginger-scallion situation, but with total cook times that wouldn't feel insane on a Wednesday. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
