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July 24, 2025 
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Good morning! Today we have for you:
- Angel hair pasta, vindicated
- A golden, herby roast chicken from the South of France
- Plus, we have the recipe for the Hellbender pancakes
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| Dan Pelosi's angel hair pasta. Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. |
A pasta mea culpa
Dear angel hair pasta: I’m sorry.
For years — decades? — I completely avoided you, never bringing you home from the store to join the linguine and rigatoni in my pantry. I scoffed at you: Too thin! Too light! Too precious a name!
But now I understand that I was wrong, and that your perceived faults are actually benefits. You cook in a flash, meaning I can spend less time with a bubbling, steaming pot of boiling water on boiling-hot summer days. Your lack of heft lets the other ingredients in the dish shine. You’re not so different from somen, a thin Japanese wheat noodle great for effortless slurping, and I’ve never scorned somen.
So here’s the plan: I’ll make it up to you, angel hair pasta, with this beautiful recipe from Dan Pelosi that combines your thin, twirly strands with olive oil, butter, garlic, herbs and juicy cherry tomatoes. And I will make this on repeat, because the tomatoes are so good right now, and this is exactly the sort of easy dish I want to make and eat while the days are still long and the sleeves are still short.
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Summertime, and the pasta’s easy |
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Today’s specials
Roasted chicken Provençal: Cook for the vacation you want. I don’t have plans to be in the south of France anytime soon, but this five-star Steven Stolman recipe, adapted by Sam Sifton, will get me there in spirit. “It is a perfect dinner-party meal,” Sam writes. “Chicken thighs or legs dusted in flour and roasted with shallots, lemons and garlic in a bath of vermouth and under a shower of herbes de Provence.” Baguette and chilled rosé not optional.
Bánh mì salad: I love the “will it salad” canon; notable entries include this chicken gyro chopped salad and pizza salad. I’m going to make this Christian Reynoso recipe with canned sardines swapped in for the ham, simply because I once had a sardine bánh mì that I’m still thinking about.
Smashed beef kebab with cucumber yogurt: In case you have not yet made this Zaynab Issa dish, our most popular new recipe of 2025 (so far), please consider this your kind invitation to do so.
And before you go
There are two things, and only two things, that will get me out of bed willingly and promptly on the weekend: a flight to catch, and pancakes. So I am very excited that we have the recipe for these masa pancakes from Hellbender in Ridgewood, Queens. The masa gives them lovely crisp surfaces and edges, and some yogurt in the batter makes them fluffy. Watch Samantha Seneviratne make these so-good pancakes by clicking here or on the image below:
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| Is anyone else’s mouth watering right now? Natasha Janardan/The New York Times |
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