Thursday Meltdown: the enduring genius of the New York Times Cooking app

About eight million years ago, when I played basketball in senior high, the department head of our secondary school’s athletic department — a gruff, old-school PE teacher, whose personal uniform seemingly consisted of a whistle, an old grey hoodie, and Russell Athletic shorts 365 days a year, regardless of the weather — had a habit of sauntering out of his gym office and barking out self-improvement quotes at us during cone drills, wall sits, and cardio sessions.

Among his favourite authors was Dale Carnegie — you know, the guy who pioneered the modern self-help genre over one hundred years ago (!!!), and wrote classics like, “How To Win Friends And Influence People” and “The Art of Public Speaking”, among others. There was one specific quote of Carnegie’s that this stern coach — who was secretly a kind teddy bear, despite his hard ass persona — used to GLEEFULLY bellow at us during the final minutes of practice, typically (and dare I say, strategically) when we were thisclose to barfing, after endless laps and wind sprints:

“Monotony reveals our limitations.”

It’s a funny thing, you know — the things from our youth that we remember like they were yesterday, and the moments that we completely blocked out. This quote — and the man who used to repeat it over and over — lands in the first category, and has literally stuck with me throughout my life. I’ve thought about it at work, when I’m doing expenses or mindless admin tasks; during the last ten minutes of gruelling spin classes, when the same repetitive standing sprint has me on the verge of sitting down; and ESPECIALLY when I’m trying to answer of one of life’s most vexing questions: “what should we make for dinner tonight?”

The issue of finding the inspiration to make a delicious dinner, NIGHT AFTER NIGHT, is not a new one. Unless you have a personal chef, eat out every night, or spend your life savings on UberEats, the persistent conversation around what to make for dinner plagues even the most ardent planners. Hell, it was even the task that had the Queen of Soul most perplexed:

@femalequotient

Even the Queen of Soul had to face the daily dilemma of what to make for dinner. We can totally relate! 😂 #ArethaFranklin

Making dinner each night, on first examination, doesn’t seem like too arduous a task. But when you factor in meal planning; buying groceries; finding the time and energy to cook; accounting for people’s preferences and allergies; cleaning the kitchen you just seemingly just cleaned ten minutes ago again; trying to source a recipe that is both healthy AND delicious; and most of all, finding the inspiration to cook something new, that feels like you haven’t already made it a million times?! Suddenly completing this simple task becomes more daunting than summiting Mount Everest.

And then there is the repetitive nature of the whole thing. Most tasks — even the most gross and annoying ones — happen no more than three, occasionally four times a week. We’re talking scrubbing the toilet. Sorting out recycling. Emptying the compost. Filling up the car with gas. You know, the menial shit that is part of being an adult. But making dinner? This happens EVERY NIGHT — and while some of these other tasks are more disgusting, or mundane, they also don’t require a shred of ingenuity. And that right there? That’s the crux of the issue. Let’s face it: modern life (AKA end-stage capitalism, party time!) has most of us too exhausted to cook with consistent joie de vivre. And so we end up making the same rotation of 10-12 dishes, or ordering sushi…only to wake the next morning and face the same question AGAIN. As Queen Aretha said:

“Just night after night! What’s it gonna be TONIGHT?” Honestly, Aretha…same. This question is fucking relentless.

About a year ago, my darling husband and I decided that we were going to try and find a way to make this dilemma less complicated. First of all, when you look at what’s going on around the world, and the food insecurity some people face…you remember what a privilege it is to even have this issue in the first place. And so we started to feel like big assholes when were resentful or in complaint about it. Second — we don’t have children (well, except for our cat, who I 100% believe came from my womb…#derangedcatmom), and so if anyone should be able to conquer this issue, it’s two DINKS with consistent time and means at their disposal. And third: we both love cooking, and were bummed that we weren’t making it fun! And so we set out to make it happen.

The first thing we did was to replace some key items in our kitchen, to make cooking a sexy prospect — you know, the same psychology that applies every January, when you buy new runners or tights for the gym in the hopes that it’ll make you wanna sweat more often. We bought a couple of new Japanese knives, some sexy mixing bowls, a new skillet, and a new, fancy cutting board made out of larch wood (it’s amazing…you can find it here, hashtag not sponsored). All of these tools definitely made cooking more fun — but it didn’t solve the drip-drip-drip of choosing a recipe each day.

Listen, like most of you, we own a million cookbooks, authored by your usual culinary suspects — Sophia Roe, Yotam Ottolenghi & Sami Tammimi, Anthony Bourdain, Matty Matheson, Vikram Vij, Chrissy Teigen (seriously, her comfort food recipes are amazing), Alison Roman, it goes on. But as amazing as the recipes are in these cookbooks — and we do reach for them — cookbooks just don’t solve the “nightly dinner” question, and we quickly realized this. That’s where the New York Times Cooking app came in.

We’ve had the NYT Cooking app forever, and used to reference it on occasion — but when we embarked upon on our, “seriously, let’s make cooking FUN AGAIN, what the hell is wrong with us” commitment last year, we knew we needed to make it achievable. Well, I don’t know if it’s our phones listening to us, or someone just wrote the New York Times with an SOS that people were over it…but since the pandemic, the NYT’s cooking & food editorial team has literally been sharing recipes specifically designed for people who are WHELMED. Their aim to help us strugglers isn’t subtle at all — each week, in their weekly emails, they literally describe recipes that sound as simple as making a box of Annie’s. Here are some of the headlines from emails over the last couple of months:

• A use-what-you-have frittata that won’t use every dish and make your kitchen a mess

• The Veggie: Sheet-pan recipes for sad days

• What to cook after you’ve cooked everything

• This would be Garfield’s favorite soup

• Cheap and cozy one-pot soups, because the holidays wore us out

• A simple lemony pasta for catching your breath

• Corn and Coconut Soup, but make it lazy

Um, New York Times writers…have you been listening in on our therapy sessions? How did you know we were all THIS TIRED? Or maybe it’s just that the authors are as tired as we are?! Well, at any rate, all I can say is thank you — because for the first time in my adult life, making dinner is actually something I look forward to.

A couple of years ago, the NYT Cooking team introduced a series called “Five Weeknight Dishes”, specifically comprising of easy-to-make, delicious meals that are actually attainable for someone who is tired/over it/all of the above. The dishes in this series are delicious, and legitimately easy to make, even for beginners — and best of all, they account of items you’ll likely already have in your kitchen, from other recipes planned for the week. Here was a recent favourite — Roasted Honey Nut Squash and Chickpeas With Hot Honey, by their brilliant Food Editor, Melissa Clark:

The app itself is simple, but GENIUS. You can save recipes, and organize them by categories; create a grocery list, right in the app; read notes other from other app subscribers, with their suggestions for recipe tweaks and amendments; and best of all, share the app with your family members, to make organizing food prep easy. The photos are gorgeous, and the range of recipes available is exceptional — and ever since their pandemic-era debacle with star contributor Alison Roman (who has now departed the NYT team), the recipes have gotten more and more diverse and interesting. And best of all, you can share recipes with the push of a button, if someone likes a dish you made, or you want to share it with a family member at the grocery store. It’s so simple, but SO effective, at making cooking easy.

I have thought about cancelling this app a few times, specifically because the New York Times paper has become increasingly mediocre over the last few years (their recent milquetoast neoliberal coverage of events in the Congo, Sudan, and Palestine is a perfect example). But then I think about the fact that this little app — simple, straightforward, but oh-so-effective — has LITERALLY solved the “what to cook for dinner” conundrum, and I just can’t. Maybe one day I’ll be able to pull the trigger…but for now, I’ll keep making sheet pan dinners, instant pot recipes, and casseroles that the NYT’s editorial team know are just enough to be GOOD, without making a burned out generation open their DoorDash app.

Have you every tried this app? Love it, hate it, feel indifferent about it? Message me and tell me alllll about it — my DMs at @midlifemeltie on IG are wide open!

Tomorrow, you’ll see another “bonus” newsletter from me, because A) I’ve had technically difficulties during the launch of this dang newsletter, and I owe you one, and B) I still wanna blab on about Brené Brown’s spiritual mediocrity (ugh), Bey’s new haircare line, the need for aid in Gaza, and most of all, the most INCREDIBLE viral TikTok story that I just need to talk about. See you bright and early tomorrow a.m.

Chat soon,
Lex