02
On anniversaries
8 min
How to mark a year without saying a word about it.
Light the candles you never light. Bring back the wine from the trip you took. Let the plate tell the calendar what it means.
Journal · Vol. I
Love letters,from the table.
Notes on being deeply in love, and the meals that carry it. Read one before you cook.
Categories12 / 12
01
On first dates
6 min
The menu you cook when you are frightened.
Something simple, something with your hands in it, something that leaves room for the conversation to be the main course.
Jun 04, 2026First dates
03
On proposals
11 min
We asked six chefs how they would propose over dinner.
None of them said between courses. All of them said before dessert. Two of them cried while telling us.
04
On tuesdays
5 min
The case for a chef on a random Tuesday.
The most romantic thing you can do is refuse the idea that romance requires an occasion.
05
On grief
7 min
Cooking for someone who is very sad.
Warm bread. A stew. A room quiet enough for them to eat without performing.
06
On staying in
9 min
The private dinner that saved our marriage.
A reader wrote in. We asked her permission. This is her letter, unedited.
07
On beginnings
4 min
On the first course, and what it is really for.
The first course is not there to feed you. It is there to give your hands something to do while you decide whether this is going to work.
08
On timing
5 min
The second glass of wine.
The first glass is politeness. The second glass is intimacy. Almost every good conversation of your life has happened in the second glass.
09
On staying in
6 min
Why we eat at home, when we can afford not to.
Restaurants are for performance. Your kitchen is for confession. A private chef closes the distance between the two.
10
On anniversaries
10 min
Twelve menus for twelve anniversaries.
A menu for each year of a marriage — from the first, when you're still nervous, to the twelfth, when you're finally not.
11
On proposals
8 min
The proposal that almost was not.
A reader nearly cancelled the booking three times. Then his chef sat him down in the kitchen and gave him a small, unforgettable piece of advice.
12
On letters
12 min
Letters from the kitchen: three chefs on the guests they remember.
We asked three chefs to write about a single evening that stayed with them. They wrote longer than we expected.