The comfort of your own oven

I come across many online food "listicles" that read something like: "15 non-boring one-pan chicken dinners in 30 minutes or less." These lists often imply that 1.) chicken is boring and in need of serious jazzing up 2.) It's realistic to make everything in one pan 3.) you're capable of standing over said pan, flipping, watching, multitasking and finally plopping everything on the table in that same pan in a great rush like a Hibachi chef before a posse of grabbing hands. I'd suspect that not all of us are at our best under these circumstances. I'm typically too slow for it. There's a time and place for seared chicken cutlets, but I've been turning on my oven a lot more lately for chicken thighs. 

For a couple of days

Here I am again, back with something old. From the same place! From the years before computers and the Internet. It's another cake unearthed from a 1970s Times issue compiled into the Essential NYT cookbook. In her introduction about this cake, Amanda Hesser writes, that people seem to think making cake is a big deal, but that back when people cooked more everyday, there were a lot of cakes. "It's cookies that are the real time suck," she writes. I had to laugh. "Cake was a staple that you whipped up every couple of days when the last one vanished to crumbs." Cake is something you leave covered on the counter or kitchen table, for the convenience of slicing. For it to be something that's there.