Good morning. You might chase fish on the West Branch of the Delaware this weekend, surf the break at Samo 20, hit the trail at Devil’s Lake, see if you can’t get tickets to Garth Brooks or wait for an hour for a table at St. Anselm on Saturday night. Me, I’m going to look at my grills, see what’s working and what’s not, then head to the big-box hardware store to swap in some parts, maybe pick up a couple of tools along the way.

Stuff goes wrong over the winter. Grates that were O.K. in November are suddenly rusted through here at the end of April. Gas lines, for those who grill over propane, may have rotted out. There’s trouble with the firebox on the smoker that you use with split maple, and trouble with the augur that runs fuel through to the smoker that burns pelletized sawdust: mesquite, hickory, apple. Maybe your Big Green Egg needs a new heat gasket. Maybe you left the rotisserie on the Weber, and now it’s shot. This is the weekend to fix things. This is the weekend to begin, once more, to grill.

I’m here to help. Here’s my guide for those who doubt themselves in the presence of fire: How to Grill. Here’s my recipe for barbecued chicken (above). Here’s Tejal Rao’s recipe for grilled oysters with hot sauce butter. And here’s Gabrielle Hamilton’s recipe for smoky pork shoulder with chile paste, which — no joke — the presidential candidate Kamala Harris recently told me was her favorite recipe on NYT Cooking save Melissa Clark’s recipe for feta-brined chicken. Make one of those this weekend, why don’t you?

I hear the wails of apartment dwellers, pastry mavens, all those who loathe cooking outside save for a couple of times midsummer: a few hot dogs; a few ears of corn!

For them, then, for you: this ace new recipe from Charlotte Druckman, for strawberry cake with Marsala and cinnamon; and this terrific recipe for steak-and-potato stew, which Rachel Wharton secured from Adán Medrano, the Houston-based chef and author of “Truly Texas Mexican: A Native Culinary Heritage in Recipes.” You could make both of those tomorrow and have a very fine weekend indeed.

Otherwise, how about a warm kale salad with coconut and tomato? It’s from the British cook Anna Jones, and it tastes to me just like a Laura Marling record sounds.

Or maybe you could make Samin Nosrat’s mango pie? It tastes to me the way a hug from Samin feels.

Thousands more recipes to think about making are waiting for you in the digital offices of NYT Cooking, right on the other side of the paywall we have constructed so that we can keep doing this, and our children can get new shoes when they outgrow their old ones. Please, if you haven’t already, take out a subscription. Each of us here thanks you.

You’ll find great cooking inspiration as well on our Instagram, Twitter and Facebook pages.

We’re on YouTube, too. Check out our new video recipe for chocolate chip cookies. Like and subscribe, you guys!

And please do ask for help if you run into trouble with our recipes or your subscription: [email protected]. We’ll run down your problems like we’re rodeo cowboys roping cows for pay.

Now, respect where it’s due: Bon Appétit’s “Red Sauce America” is a very good package.

Georgian cuisine is the Next Big Thing, reports The New Yorker, at the top of an excellent Lauren Collins piece on “The Culinary Muse of the Caucasus.”

Finally, it doesn’t have one word to do with meatballs or sriracha, but if you haven’t been reading John Strausbaugh your whole adult life, you oughta start catching up. Here he is on the start of the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City, 80 years ago next week, in The Chiseler. See you on Sunday.

Source: Read Full Article