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      French-American Friendship in Four Courses

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      Under Emmanuel Macron, “culinary diplomacy” is back on the menu, with a lavish dinner fortifying an old alliance at a tense historical moment.Beneath the crystal chandeliers of the gilded reception hall of the Élysée Palace, opened in 1889 with a party for 8,000 people, President Emmanuel Macron of France hosted President Biden on Saturday night at a state dinner intended to celebrate a very old alliance and demonstrate that the bond is greater than its intermittent frictions.Mr. Biden, addressing the French leader as “Emmanuel,” rose from a long table adorned with a bouquet of pink peonies and roses to say that “France was our first ally, and that is not insignificant.” He cited a book titled “The Pocket Guide to France” that he said was distributed to the American forces who, eight decades ago, fought their way up the Normandy bluffs through a hail of Nazi gunfire to wrest Europe from tyranny.“No bragging,” Mr. Biden quoted the guide as saying, “the French don’t like that!” The book urged U.S. solders to be generous — “it won’t hurt you” — and said the French “happen to speak democracy in a different language, but we are all in the same boat.”That “same boat” of 1944 has repeatedly been invoked during Mr. Biden’s five-day visit to France as still existing today in the form of joint French and U.S. support for Ukraine in a battle against Russia defined as pivotal for the defense of European liberty. “We stand together when the going gets tough,” Mr. Biden said.The going was scarcely that at a sumptuous dinner served at tables set between the fluted columns of a room conceived a century after the French Revolution to project the glory of the Republic.Beneath golden caryatids and a painted ceiling medallion reading “The Republic safeguarding peace,” battalions of liveried waiters in white bow ties, bearing silver trays, served with impeccable precision a four-course meal accompanied by champagne and a 2006 Château Margaux that had taken 18 years to achieve perfection.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Recipe for Perfect Broiled Shrimp Every Time

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      Cooking the tiny crustaceans on a sheet pan can be tricky. This vibrant dish, full of golden-edged zucchini, from Melissa Clark changes that.Some sheet-pan meals are so simple you could almost cook them in your sleep. Throw some chicken legs and sturdy root vegetables on a pan, sprinkle with salt and maybe herbs or spices, then drizzle with oil and stick it all in a hot oven. About 40 minutes later, the dark meat is reliably juicy, the vegetables golden and bathed in rendered chicken fat, and both take about the same amount of time. It’s an adaptable meal that would be hard to get wrong.Recipe: Roasted Zucchini and Shrimp With Za’atar YogurtOthers take more finesse. This combination of shrimp and zucchini is one of them.I could just picture it, a pan full of golden-edged, green-skinned zucchini dotted with crescents of tender, coral-hued shrimp and seasoned liberally with za’atar and lemon zest. A garlicky, creamy yogurt sauce spiked with even more za’atar would add a tangy, zippy flourish right at the end.But first, I had to work out the timing of shellfish versus the vegetables.The sticking point is that, unlike forgiving chicken legs and roots, which have a relatively wide window of doneness, shrimp and zucchini can be finicky. Leave shrimp in the oven for even a minute too long, and they will go from succulent and plump to rubber ball bouncy. Zucchini, on the other hand, with its high moisture content, needs plenty of roasting time for the juices to condense, then caramelize. How to get them to cook on the same sheet pan in the easiest possible way?In my first round of testing, I started with the zucchini in the oven, letting it roast until sufficiently browned, which takes about 35 minutes. Then, I added the shrimp for another couple of minutes. This worked pretty well, but not consistently enough. Sometimes the shrimp at the edges of the pan had curled and toughened by the time the ones in the middle cooked through.Switching to the broiler after adding the shrimp made all the difference. The heat from above seared them quickly and evenly until they were all perfectly cooked, and it also amped up the golden color of the zucchini, making it richer and more intense. It was well worth the extra step.Although this recipe does involve more moves than, say, sleepwalk chicken and vegetables, it’s still blissfully easy. And those few moments of paying attention are amply rewarded with a delightful meal to satisfy your sheet-pan dinner dreams.Follow New York Times Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest. Get regular updates from New York Times Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice. More

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      Fast Recipes for Any Forecast

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      Shrimp pasta and dumpling salad for warm evenings; potato soup and sheet-pan sausages for gray days.Here in the northeast, the weather has been all over the place: sunny and summery one day, chilly and bleak the next. This makes a couple of things difficult. First, convincing my tween that she needs a jacket on a 50-degree day when she wore shorts the day before, and second, planning meals in advance.This explains how I ended up feeding my poor, sweaty family steaming bowls of white chicken chili on an 84-degree day, when we all would have preferred something like grilled huli huli chicken tucked alongside a cool cucumber salad. (We happily ate chili leftovers over rice the next day, when the temperature dipped yet again.) Since the weather shows no signs of stabilizing any time soon, here’s a handful of recipes that you can shop for now and cook come rain, sun or (please no) snow.Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.1. Shrimp PastaLidey Heuck subs shrimp for clams in this weeknight riff on vongole rosso, a classic Italian pasta dish of clams, tomatoes, garlic and white wine. You can use fresh or frozen shrimp; just defrost fully and pat dry with a paper towel before adding them in Step 2.View this recipe.Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Lakeside Restaurant Reopens in Paris’s Bois de Boulogne

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      Plus: a Pennsylvania wellness retreat, whimsical wallpaper and more recommendations from T Magazine.Covet ThisA New Wallpaper Collection Inspired by Field FrolickingLeft: Block Shop sells its textiles as well as a selection of books, dishes and jewelry at its shop in Atwater Village, Los Angeles. Right: Block Shop’s Peony wallpaper in Onyx.From left: Laure Joliet for Block Shop; Ye Rin Mok for Block ShopHopie Stockman Hill and Grier Stockman grew up in an old farmhouse in a sylvan pocket of New Jersey. They played in wheat fields, craggy apple orchards and dense forests; built birdhouses and painted murals. The sisters’ childhood, spent merging art with nature, inspired their latest wallpaper collection from Block Shop, their textile, art and design studio, which combines a breezy California aesthetic with Indian printing and weaving techniques. The seven new patterns, which are printed on paper, fiber and grass cloth, include a peony motif that’s a homage to the blooms their mother grew, while also referencing the Austrian Wiener Werkstätte designer Dagobert Peche. “We envisioned an Anne Bancroft-esque grande dame with a sky-high collection of art books, listening to ‘Madama Butterfly’ while harvesting her beets,” says Stockman Hill, the CEO and creative director of the studio. “These are the wallpapers you find in her home.” The Block Shop store, which opened in Los Angeles’s Atwater Village neighborhood this past December, further extends the sisters’ canvas with a harmonious blend of color and texture. A bronze snail door handle greets you on the way in, while the shelves are brimming with Apuglian splatterware dishes, rare books on décor and semi-fine jewelry, as well as the brand’s signature textiles. From $75 per yard, blockshoptextiles.com.Stay HereA Guesthouse in Rome From the Founders of Chez DedeLeft: one of the two bedrooms at Superattico Monserrato, a new short-term rental apartment in Rome owned by the founders of the shop Chez Dede. Right: the living room of the apartment, where a Venini chandelier hangs over a ’60s table from Belgium and Cesca chairs from the ’70s.Daria ReinaThe Rome boutique Chez Dede, founded in 2011 by the design duo Daria Reina and Andrea Ferolla, is filled with antiques and artworks, as well as silk-screened tote bags and limited-edition collaborations: wicker lamps created with Atelier Vime and enameled brass jewelry inspired by playing cards with the Italian jewelry designer Allegra Riva. When the penthouse apartment in the same building as the store came up for rent in 2019, the couple and their team decided to create a suite that would further bring visitors into their world. After they got city permits in early 2023, it took them about a year to renovate the two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment, now named Superattico Monserrato. They put in sliding doors, updated the kitchen with steel counters and glossy black walls and added dozens of theatrical Chez Dede touches: 17th-century carved wooden columns, a wall-size 18th-century tapestry, drawings by the 93-year-old Rome-based artist Isabella Ducrot and bed linens from their own collection. Early this year, Reina and Ferolla began renting the flat to a select few. “It’s really about sharing our lifestyle and our taste,” Reina says — and about imparting their tips for Rome: The Chez Dede team has a space at the front of the apartment, so at any point guests can stick their heads in and ask for favorite vintage shops and cafes. Superattico Monserrato also hosts occasional events: Up next is a trunk show with the designer Sara Beltran of jewelry brand Dezso, on May 9. Email superattico@chezdede.com to book; about $1,900 a night, minimum three nights.Eat HereA Parisian Restaurant With a Tasting Menu Served in the Vegetable GardenChalet des Îles, a longstanding building on an island in Paris’s Bois de Boulogne park, has been renovated and reopened as a new restaurant and bar.© Julien de GasquetFor the past 167 years, Parisians have escaped urban life by taking a short boat ride to Chalet des Îles, a wooden structure on a small island in Bois de Boulogne park. In 1857, Empress Eugénie de Montijo transported a cabin from Switzerland to Paris and set it on the tree-filled island in Lac Inférieur as a draw for city dwellers who needed a dose of nature. Destroyed by fire in 1920, the structure was rebuilt with less-charming concrete. Now, the famous chalet and its restaurant have been completely redesigned by the French architect Nicolas Laisné and will reopen this month. The use of hand-carved, honey-colored timber scales in the cladding on the main facade recalls the original Swiss building. The main dining room and its covered balcony open onto lakeside views, while the bar extends onto a ground-level terrace. A custom white-and-green carpet in the main restaurant reflects the colors of the lake outside, and raw-edge wooden tables nod to the forest. Visitors have the option of dining privately in the chalet’s vegetable garden: The reservation-only experience, titled Les Tables du Potager, features a five-course, plant-focused tasting menu by chef Pierre Chomet. Meals in the dining room feature dishes like asparagus with mimosa eggs and Iberian ham, and shrimp tartare in a pad Thai broth, inspired by Chomet’s six years cooking in Bangkok. The restaurant also plans to serve a brunch buffet on Sundays. Chalet des Îles opens April 24, chalet-des-iles.com.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      At Passover, the Only Constant Is Changing Recipes

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      Joan Nathan, a doyenne of Jewish American cuisine, has long treasured the holiday and witnessed its evolution through food.In 1980, my husband Allan and I hosted our first Passover Seder at our home.There were about eight of us: my husband’s Uncle Henik, who had numbers from Auschwitz on his arm; my Polish in-laws who’d had to flee to the Soviet Union; a few friends; and my daughter, still a toddler, racing around making us all laugh.Recipe: BrisketWe sipped wine from the silver bar mitzvah cup my father had brought from Bavaria, but the rest of the tradition came mostly from my husband’s family. In my more assimilated German family, we would have started the Seder with Manischewitz gefilte fish cut into small pieces with toothpicks and herring in cream sauce. But at this first Seder, where I learned how traditions are adapted, how each family creates their own, and the compromises of marriage, it was my husband’s Polish Jewish traditions: a platter of gefilte fish with carrots in the eyes, sweet Manischewitz.At Passover, the Seder table becomes an altar. Each family’s voyage personalizes the holiday, bringing with it customs and culinary adaptations of recipes. As our world gets more fluid, tradition differentiates each of us, in a good way, from everyone else. And yet, sometimes traditions need freshening up.Once a spring festival of rebirth in the desert, Passover goes back thousands of years and has always been a ganze production, a big deal, as my mother used to say. The original menu, as outlined in the Book of Exodus, consisted of maror, which we know as arugula and later came to represent the bitterness of enslavement; unleavened bread (matzo), round and baked in an open fire; and a whole lamb roasted before dawn. That’s it. No haroseth, no gefilte fish, no chicken soup, no matzo brittle.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      New Zealanders Are Crazy for This Fruit. It’s Not the Kiwi.

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      Autumn in New Zealand heralds the arrival of a green, egg-size fruit that falls off trees in such abundance that it is often given to neighbors and colleagues by the bucket or even the wheelbarrow load. Only in cases of extreme desperation do people buy any.The fresh fruit, whose flesh is gritty, jellylike and cream-colored, is used in muffins, cakes, jams and smoothies, and it begins appearing on high-end menus each March — the start of fall in the Southern Hemisphere. Off-season, it is found in food and drink as varied as juices and wine, yogurt and kombucha, and chocolate and popcorn.This ubiquitous fruit is the feijoa (pronounced fee-jo-ah). Known in the United States as the pineapple guava, it was first brought to New Zealand from South America via France and California in the early 1900s.Its tangy taste is hard to describe, even for die-hard fans. But what is easy to pinpoint is that like the kiwi fruit, which originated in China, and the kiwi, a native bird, the feijoa has become for many here a quintessential symbol of New Zealand, or Aotearoa, as the country is known in the Indigenous Maori language.The feijoa is a quintessential symbol of New Zealand.The flesh is gritty, jellylike and cream-colored.Fresh feijoa is used in muffins, cakes, jams, smoothies and cocktails.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Rut-Busting Recipes for Freezer Staples

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      Spicy ground turkey with snap peas, broccoli-walnut pesto pasta and sazón chicken breasts make frozen standbys sing.Hi, all! This is Krysten, filling in for Emily, who’s back next week after a glorious spring break.I love the freezer, a totally unsexy but incredibly useful appliance. Mine is full of all kinds of treasures and foundations for so many meals: shrimp (preferably wild!); ground turkey; boneless, skinless chicken breasts; ice cream. The freezer is a blessing (there are always dinner ingredients on hand) and a curse (the cooking ruts come fast and furious). And while I love a creative challenge, I sometimes find myself staring at bags of frozen broccoli at a total loss. If you, like me, are living this freezer-focused life — or if you’re just a hungry person looking for easy, affordable dishes — these five recipes are a great place to start. And if you’re looking for even more brilliance, Sohla El-Waylly teaches you how to make the most out of frozen fish (without defrosting!) in her latest “Cooking 101” video. (See: Millie Peartree’s coconut curry fish.)Let me know how it goes. Find me on Instagram, where I’m cooking, sewing and hugging my dog.Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Cyd Raftus McDowell.1. Spicy Skillet Ground Turkey and Snap Peas Ground turkey — and any ground meat, really — freezes and defrosts excellently. Melissa Clark puts it to smart use in this larb-inspired recipe. Snap peas and herbs add freshness to this richly flavored dish, which sings over rice.View this recipe.Genevieve Ko’s broccoli-walnut pesto pasta.Romulo Yanes for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Vivian Lui.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Tricia Shimamura, a Political Insider, Spends Her Sundays

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      Tricia Shimamura keeps busy by welcoming immigrants, helping women get into politics and chasing around her two young children on the Upper East Side.Tricia Shimamura spends her days crisscrossing the city as the director of community affairs for Mark Levine, the Manhattan borough president. She helps with everything from street fairs to welcoming new immigrants.It’s a mission that resonates deeply with Ms. Shimamura, 34, who ran for City Council on the Upper East Side in 2021. She is of Japanese and Puerto Rican heritage and would have been the first person of color to represent her district.A licensed social worker, Ms. Shimamura, has served as the deputy chief of staff for Carolyn Maloney — a former Democratic congresswoman from New York — and as Columbia University’s director of government affairs. She sits on the boards of several organizations that work with women to develop leadership skills and run for political office.On Sundays, Ms. Shimamura combines family time with community work, an exhausting and edifying balance. She lives with her husband, Dov Gibor, 44, who is a lawyer, and their two sons, Teddy, 4, and Oliver, 1.“Teddy recently pointed to a picture of the 2017 Women’s March and said, ‘That’s where my mom works,’” Ms. Shimamura said. She added, “It’s very important to me for my kids to see me work.”RISE, SHINE, PLAY My boys are my alarm clock on Sundays. They wake me up around 6:30 a.m. I do a quick check of my email. If I know there’s no work emergency that needs my attention, I’m able to focus more on things at home.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More