4 Ways to Make Better Soup Fast
By Ali Slagle
Ali Slagle is a recipe developer and regular contributor to NYT Cooking who specializes in low-effort, high-reward recipes. She is also the author of the cookbook 'I Dream of Dinner (so You Don't Have To).' Published Feb. 27, 2025 Updated Feb. 27, 2025
The steam, smells and stirs of a long-simmered soup can be therapeutic, sure, but so can a warm bowl of soup that's on the table as soon as possible.
Making soup doesn't need to take hours to be soothing and fortifying, as these recipes for classic soups, stews and other brothy numbers prove. Each employs a smart trick that delivers deep flavors in fewer than 40 minutes. You'll still cozy up to something delicious and fill your house with good aromas. It'll just be sooner rather than later. Sizzling sturdy vegetables and blooming spices in fat creates an aromatic before any liquid hits the pot. David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Maggie Ruggiero.
To build a sturdy foundation, sizzle big-impact ingredients like chopped vegetables, cured meats, dried spices or pastes in fat before adding any liquid.
This step rids the ingredients of flavorless liquid, wakes up slumbering spices and intensifies the savoriness of vegetables and proteins. For example, in this vegan chili, Jocelyn Ramirez builds an intense base by browning chopped mushrooms, onion, hot and sweet peppers, and garlic. Then, she adds a mix of dried spices and chiles. In the jar, their scent is muted. But after they bloom in the hot oil, it fills the room. That mix's full might puts the chile in this chili.
Bloom a few choice ingredients to not muddy the waters. This version of shiro, a silky chickpea stew beloved in Ethiopia and Eritrea, starts by simmering 10 cloves of garlic, an onion and two whole tablespoons of berbere, a red chile-based spice blend, in a shallow pool of oil. That fat then becomes infused with their flavors and carries them through the broth.
Remember that the fat contributes flavor, too. Butter or olive oil are often go-tos, but to create the toasty nuttiness essential to panang curry, Naz Deravian warms Thai red curry paste, chopped peanuts and spices in thick coconut cream. Once the liquid from the cream evaporates, the aromatics sizzle in the remaining coconut oil, staining it bright red. The fat then carries their essence throughout the curry, much farther than they could have traveled on their own.
Black Bean Chili With Mushrooms | Shiro (Ground-Chickpea Stew) | Panang Curry You need only water to start your journey to soup. But staples like broth or stock, brines, dairy and other flavorful liquids get you to bolder soups, faster. Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.
Samin Nosrat, the chef and author of 'Salt Acid Fat Heat,' wrote that 'if you have water around, you can have soup.' Water is essential, but pantry and fridge staples like broths, stocks, dairy, wine, pickle brines and canned tomatoes offer far more flavor — and faster.
Broth and stock can be the backbone to any soup. Keep frozen homemade broth, store-bought box broth or bouillon on hand. Chicken, beef and mushroom are all great, as is dashi, either homemade from seaweed and bonito flakes or from instant granules. It contributes enough savoriness to keep a breakfast udon soup satisfying but not so rich that you'll want to crawl back under the covers.
Milk of the dairy or coconut variety can add silkiness without heft. Milk provides a sweet backdrop to the cheese, eggs and bread in Colombian changua. Moqueca, a Brazilian seafood stew, is buoyant thanks to juicy tomatoes and peppers and the sea spray that seeps from cod and prawns, while coconut milk gives it lusciousness and a floral undertone.
Breakfast Udon | Changua (Colombian Bread and Egg Soup) | Moqueca (Brazilian Seafood Stew) In lieu of more time, ingredients like potatoes, rice, bread and beans can add body to broths. Evan Sung for The New York Times
A soup that hasn't simmered long enough might be so thin, it drips and dribbles like water. For one that's just thick enough, you could reduce the liquid for longer. Or, quicker yet, pick a recipe that incorporates a starchy ingredient, such as bread, potatoes, pasta, beans, lentils, nuts, tortillas or rice. As they cook, they'll add body to the soup.
Rice is an especially gentle addition. The tender grains will fray at the edges, releasing starch as in Melissa Clark's avgolemono-inspired lemony egg soup with escarole, which is so creamy, you might think it has cream. But it's so light that it couldn't.
Red lentils are another good choice, since their starches easily and quickly dislodge into their cooking liquid. That's why Priya Krishna's everyday dal turns stony red lentils, turmeric and just the right amount of water into a soothing porridge in only eight minutes.
And two starches are better than one. In this sopa de fideo y frijoles, thin noodles and puréed beans simmer with chicken broth, canned tomatoes, crisp chorizo and other aromatics for just 12 minutes, but the result has the stewy consistency and deep flavor of a much longer game.
Lemony Egg Soup With Escarole | Everyday Dal | Sopa de Fideo y Frijoles con Chorizo (Fideo and Bean Soup With Chorizo) The difference between a good soup and a great soup often lies in a final hit of acid, be that with a squeeze of lemon, a dollop or sour cream or a splash of vinegar. David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.
A finishing squeeze of lemon or lime, dribble of vinegar, dollop of sour cream or yogurt, or scatter of pickled onions or jalapeños teases out the nuances you so diligently, if expeditiously, created in the pot. Acid also balances richness and enhances the overall flavor. Its addition might even win you a chili cook-off.
Lemon or lime juice beams sunshine onto everything it touches, sweetly lifting and lightening. Millie Peartree's fish curry leans heavily on Jamaican curry powder, which is filled with grounding spices like turmeric and allspice. Wake up those earthy flavors with a final squeeze of lime, as well as fresh scallions and cilantro.
A teaspoon of vinegar can transform a ho-hum soup into so much more. Intensifying chicken broth for wonton soup, for example, might just take a few drops of vinegar, soy sauce and chile oil.
Top bowls with tangy garnishes. While sour cream and Cheddar add creaminess to baked potato soup, they're also sneaky sources of acidity, cutting through the richness of the potatoes, milk and bacon for more balanced bites.
Coconut Fish Curry | Wonton Soup | Baked Potato Soup
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When You Don't Look Like Anything
1950–73: 'Don't Stare' There was ambivalence about performers in my family. Part of this was caused by middle-class-Negro hypervigilance about drawing attention, especially bad attention. I still get nervous when children are out of control in public. Growing up in 1960s Baltimore, my siblings and I did not dare be out of control in public. In our wildest dreams we could not have imagined a meltdown in, say, Hutzler's department store, where colored people were not allowed to try on clothes, or to return items that didn't work out. When my aunt Esther and I went shopping, she'd throw me her sit-up-straight eye. As Baltimore began to be less segregated, she went to exceptionally fancy stores. I remember sitting in a chic, hushed fur salon, straining not to do anything that would draw attention to myself as she tried on a mink stole. My inhibitions weren't only about race; they were also about sin. My maternal grandmother was a Billy Graham–loving evangelical Christian. Grandma's effect was far-reaching. We lived all the way across town, and my parents were not evangelical. Yet we were not allowed to dance on Sunday. I learned very early that one of my behaviors was unacceptable: staring. 'Don't stare.' 'Close your mouth.' Staring was impolite. I should especially refrain from staring at white people. Stop looking at them. They are not interested in you. Why are you so interested in them? But I couldn't help myself: I stared at everyone, of every color, especially everyone who was different from me in some way. But Grandma was also interested in white people. She arranged for my brother Deaver and me to attend a Christian camp in Pennsylvania, where I believe we were the only colored children. Deaver, then 6, had blue eyes and light-tan hair. As we packed for camp, family and friends made much of the fact that people would probably not really know that Deaver was a little colored boy. He'd be okay. They said less about how I would fare. But it turned out all right. I have no bad memories, except for the one about the white girl who tried to wash my hair. The result was, as we Black women say, 'hair all over my head,' and my mother was beside herself about this when she came to pick me up. And yet Grandma's preoccupation with sin didn't keep her from being crazy about Sweetheart, who in many ways was transgressive. Grandma and Sweetheart were about the same age. They had grown up like sisters, though Sweetheart was actually Grandma's niece. Sweetheart had left Baltimore in her 20s, gone to New York, passed as 'Spanish,' become a chorus girl, and was 'kept' (by a man). She left her daughter with Grandma, who already had eight children of her own. Sweetheart then moved to that faraway place with movie stars and Disneyland—California. She was gorgeous, charming, and funny. She sparkled. When she periodically returned to Baltimore, in fur coats and always with a different boyfriend, she was received like royalty. I never said more than the required 'Hello, Auntie' before vanishing into another room. I was intimidated by her glamour. But when I found myself in San Francisco in the early 1970s, I sought her out. I'd left Baltimore in September 1971 with $80 and an overnight bag, looking for the revolution. The revolution was finished on the East Coast, but embers of it still glowed out West. I made my way up the coast from San Diego, stopping in Belmont, California, then a humdrum town not far from the airport where single stewardesses and the like lived in flat apartment buildings with tiny swimming pools. I worked for a year at a drive-in movie theater until I landed a job coordinating tutors at a junior college. My boss and his wife were Black, proud, and beautiful. They looked like they'd stepped out of a Hollywood movie. As activists who'd participated in the upheaval at Berkeley, they emanated late-'60s glamour. Dave never sat behind his desk, choosing instead to perch on a counter, puffing on a cigarillo, musing philosophically or railing against injustice. Jazz played in the background. The point of everything, he told me, was to change the world! He had a plan for me: 'You need to get your Ph.D.!' In what? 'Education!' I continued north to San Francisco. I was on a lark, with no place to live, and no real plan, but San Francisco was a lot more alive than Belmont. It was enchanting! The bay, the fog, the chill, the cable cars! I felt inspired—but to do what, I had no idea. I tried to get a job volunteering as a stage manager at a theater in town, only to learn that it was a union house. But I saw that they offered acting classes, so I decided to try one, just for fun. I auditioned and somehow was accepted. I hadn't realized the place was a serious conservatory—turned out I'd have to go to school all day. Sweetheart and Eddie, her third or fourth husband, picked me up at the Greyhound station. Eddie, Chinese American, was a former chef who spoiled us nightly with delicious meals. His English appeared to be minimal, but it was hard to tell, because Auntie, now 80, and still sparkling, was a nonstop raconteur. The tenant in Auntie's basement apartment had just left, so I took it, for $75 a month. I was the least likely person to wind up in a conservatory to study acting. I had no idea that people actually 'studied' acting in the way that was unfolding in front of me. My classmates pirouetted down the hallways of the school. They sang Broadway tunes as they strode up and down the hills of San Francisco. From the March 2024 issue: How a playwright became one of the most incisive social critics of our time One evening when I came home from acting class, Sweetheart handed me a letter from Grandma, who by then had been overtaken by dementia. 'I hear you want to become an actress,' she had written in a messy scrawl. 'Please don't take off your clothes. Here's five dollars, buy yourself a new dress. Love, Grandma.' Grandma's effect was still far-reaching. Part of me wondered if what I was doing was sinful. I put the $5 in my pocket, and taped the letter inside my journal. If I was the least likely person to end up at that conservatory, the most likely person was a tall woman with a Philadelphia Main Line accent and vocal resonance. She looked like Katharine Hepburn. Everything she did had a sense of urgency. One night she rushed into the café where we'd planned to have a cheap dinner and said: 'Beethoven's Ninth starts in a few minutes at the cathedral! Let's go.' We bolted the five blocks to Grace Cathedral, on Nob Hill. After only the first two words of 'Ode to Joy' — O Freunde —my perpetual sense of non-belongingness was transformed into a sense of oneness. I was one with the chorus. I was one with the music. I was one with it all. The next morning, my forehead was on fire. 'Can a performance give you the flu?' I asked our yoga teacher. She assured me that all was well. I had no disease. My chakras were opening and Beethoven was the cause. 1976: 'You Don't Look Like Anything' The acting class turned into a three-year commitment at the American Conservatory Theater, where I completed an M.F.A. in acting. When you finished conservatory and hit the road, your first stop was an agent's office. I walked into the office of an agent who had a deal to meet the few of us who knew nothing about the business. I'd barely sat down on the couch when she stated perfunctorily: 'I won't be able to send you out.' Long pause. 'You will antagonize my clients.' 'Antagonize?' 'You don't look like anything.' Another long pause. 'Will you go as Black or white?' This is when I finally got it, about the staring. Stop looking at them. Why are you so interested in them? They are not interested in you. About 20 years ago, I met a bull rider from Shoshone, Idaho, named Brent Williams. Here's a photo of him, by the great photographer Diana Walker. We was in West Jordan, Utah. And I had this bull shove my face right into the metal chutes. Some buddies drove me to the hospital. Took, like, five hours to sew me up. When they straightened my nose, I had to be at a rodeo that night. I didn't really wanna go under the anesthesia, or however you say that word. So I told 'em just to do it without it. They shove these two rods up your nose, and work their way up, and that straightens your nose all up. Felt like they was shoving it clear through my brains and it was gonna come out the top of my head. And everyone that saw it, they said it should have killed me. Shove my face right into the metal chutes: Over the past two decades, I've said those words thousands of times. But it wasn't until a few months ago that Brent's words knocked on the door of my subconscious and released a memory into full consciousness: 'You don't look like anything.' Long pause. 'Will you go as Black or white?' A Shoshone bull rider gave me the words to express what I'd felt on that agent's couch. The casting couch holds many different kinds of offenses. 1977: New Rhythms, New Intentions A simple A-frame building with a huge wraparound porch in the Sierras near Lake Tahoe, California, was the headquarters of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, a week-long conference where wannabe writers like me enjoyed tutorials with big shots: poets, novelists, screenwriters, directors. The place was peppered with East Coast literati, but the vibe wasn't as pretentious as a certain East Coast theater workshop I'd attended where one of the directors walked around with a cigarette holder and a coat over his shoulders. No need to genuflect to Frank Pierson, who'd won the Best Screenplay Oscar for Dog Day Afternoon and been nominated for another, for Cool Hand Luke. No hush fell when Sam Shepard ambled into the beat-up saloon, and made his way to the pool table. I was in the hang on the wraparound porch when a car full of poet-teachers crossed the field and stopped in front of us. A rail-thin poet-teacher stepped out. He looked like a monk who'd been on a month-long fast. The guy had presence. He gave a public reading. I sat in the front row—nothing between us but a music stand. One of his poems was quite brief but, like Beethoven's 'Ode,' it caused a physical reaction. The next morning, all my muscles were sore, as if I'd just done a massive full-body workout or been beat up. Or was it the flu? At the welcome cocktail party that night, I walked right up to the poet and told him that I'd woken up with aching muscles and that I thought his poem was the cause. His face lit up. 'That's because I wrote that poem as a curse against my ex-wife.' he stated. The power of language comes from its intention. 'Ode to Joy,' with lyrics from Friedrich Schiller's poem, had been full of good intentions. The poet's poem was full of bad intentions. His poem was written to make somebody feel some pain. As I developed my own artistic approach in the years to come, I never forgot this. 1979: Gatekeepers and 'Hostile Circumstances' I'm in my fifth-floor walk-up in New York City. I'm living gig by gig now because I chose to leave a very fine tenure-track position at an excellent university for the sake of my 'art.' Freed from the demands of being junior faculty, I walk dogs. I work as a temp in a JCPenney basement office. I work in the complaint department at KLM Airlines. (The complaint department was crucial to my development as a dramatist. Those letters of complaint were filled with drama and emotion.) One Sunday morning I hear two unusual voices coming out of the radio. By now my study of people's speech and its effect has become for me a lifelong project. Drawn to the rhythmic differences in their vocal patterns, I grab a tape recorder and press 'Record.' Turns out, the interview had originally taken place in 1959. This is a five-minute extract of a 20-minute conversation. Mike Wallace: Our guest was an unknown, unpublished writer until early this year, when her play A Raisin in the Sun came to Broadway. And was voted by the New York Drama Critics as the best play of the year. Better even than plays by Tennessee Williams, Archibald MacLeish, and Eugene O'Neill. And now to our story. One night, Lorraine Hansberry, a girl who had dabbled in writing, made a brash announcement to her husband. She was going to sit down and write an honest and accurate drama about Negroes. John Chapman, the drama critic for the New York Daily News, wrote that he has great respect for your play, but he feels that part of the acclaim may be a sentimental reaction—an admirable 'gesture,' I think is the way that he put it—to the fact that you are a Negro, and one of the few Negroes ever to have written a good Broadway play. Lorraine Hansberry: I've heard this alluded to in other ways—I didn't see Mr. Chapman's piece. I would imagine that if I were given the award because they wanted to give it to a Negro, it'd be the first time in the history of this country that anyone had ever been given anything for being a Negro. I don't think it's a very complimentary assessment of an honest piece of a work. Or of his colleagues' intent. Wallace: Well, let me quote him. He said, 'If one sets aside the one unusual fact that it is a Negro work, A Raisin in the Sun becomes no more than a solid and enjoyable commercial play.' Hansberry: Well, I've heard this said, too. I don't know quite what people mean. If they are trying honestly to analyze a play, dramaturgically, there's no such assessment; you can't say that if you take away the American character of something then it just becomes, you know, something else … The Negro character of these people is intrinsic to the play; it's important to it. If it's a good play, it's good with that. Wallace: Is it fair to say that even in proportion, very few Negroes have distinguished themselves … as playwrights, novelists, and poets? … How come? Hansberry: Whether they've distinguished themselves is kind of difficult to discuss because we always have to keep in mind the circumstances and the framework that Negroes do anything in America—which of course is a hostile circumstance. We've been writing poetry since, you know, the 17th century in this country, been writing plays that simply never see the light of day, because the circumstance, as I say, is hostile. Wallce: But the same is not true in the case of Negro athletes, Negro entertainers. Hansberry: Yes, well— Wallace: I think in proportion there are more of them who become hugely successful. Hansberry: Yes, of course, because one of the features of American racism is that it has a particular place where it allows Negroes to express themselves! We're not very warm to the idea of Negro intellectual exploration of any kind in this country. We presume, or at least the racists do—not me—that it's all right to display physical or musical or other features like that, but don't go writing and don't go trying to suggest that anything cerebral is within our sphere, you see … There're any number of professional playwrights who simply don't get their scripts read by Broadway producers. So I'd be the last person to say that it's because they write poorly. An awful lot of poor scripts get to Broadway and, uh, I don't think that's the reason why theirs don't. Wallace: What is the reason why theirs don't? Hansberry: Racial discrimination in the industry, of course. Daniel Pollack-Pelzner: The theater world has never understood Lorraine Hansberry The relationship between the gatekeepers and those of us who do not fit their picture depends on, to use Miss Hansberry's word, circumstances. In 1993, 34 years after that recording was made, Toni Morrison would win the Nobel Prize. This would change how Black-women writers and intellectuals are regarded, and significantly open up opportunities for them. It did for me. 1979: Chasing That Which Is Not Me While still at acting school, I'd sought new dramatic forms. At that time, the American playwrights who were getting their work produced were white heterosexual-presenting males. Like others across the country, but not so many at my conservatory, I thought that our art form could benefit from fewer stereotypes, and from greater particularity, more physical details in characters who lived on our stages. I also thought the sonic life of the theater could use new rhythms, new intentions—like when bebop emerged on the jazz scene. I drew inspiration from something my grandfather used to say when we were kids: 'If you say a word often enough, it becomes you.' In 1979, I set out with a tape recorder to record unique voices, unique stories, with the intention of becoming American word for word. My tape recorder was soon an appendage. I would interview people around the country, especially in moments of disruption and discord. It was in those moments that people spoke in sometimes-profound ways—as they tried to make sense out of disarray, tried to put together the exploded fragments of assumptions that follow catastrophe. This required chasing that which is not me. It was a chase that would never end. I called the overall project, which now includes about 18 plays (the first 12 never made it to major stages), ' On the Road: A Search for American Character.' It meant embodying the words of people who were very different from me and with whom I did not agree, and absorbing them into my heart. What have I learned after interviewing thousands of Americans? Most do believe 'you can make it if you try.' Even rebellion is a sign of belief in that credo. Why protest for fairness, equality, and dignity if you don't think those things can exist? The Martinican poet and philosopher Édouard Glissant, a close comrade of Frantz Fanon, left revolution behind in favor of what he called the 'poetics of relation.' 'Sometimes,' Glissant wrote, 'by taking up the problems of the Other, it is possible to find oneself.' The not-me and the me are related. In my work, my goal was to get to us. April 12, 2015: 'Just a Glance' Freddie Gray is arrested and beaten. He dies in police custody. The beating is filmed. Riots explode in Baltimore. I interview the man who took the video, Kevin Moore: The screams was what woke me outta my sleep. So I jumped up and threw some clothes on and went out to see what was going on. And then I came out that way, and I'm like, 'Holy shit!' They had him all bent up and he was handcuffed and, like, face down on his stomach. But they had the heels of his feet, like, almost in his back? And he was handcuffed at the time. And they had the knee in the neck, and that pretty much explains the three cracked vertebrae and crushed larynx, 80 percent of his spinal cord being severed and stuff. And then when they picked him up, I had to zoom in to get a closer look at his face. You could see the pain in his face. On Mount Street, [they] pulled him out again! To put leg shackles on him. You put leg shackles on a man that could barely walk to the paddy wagon? Then you toss him in the back of the paddy wagon like a dead animal. You know what I'm saying? Then you don't even put a seat belt on him. So basically, he's handcuffed, shackled, sliding back and forth in a steel cage, basically. I was like, Man, somebody has to see this. You know what I mean? I have to film this. I just basically called every news station that I could and just got the video out there! I asked Moore what triggered the incident. Eye contact. That's how the officers, I guess, wrote the paperwork: that Freddie made eye contact. And he looked suspicious. Oh. 'And that gave us probable cause to' … do whatever. We know the truth, y'know what I'm saying? Just a glance. The eye-contact thing, it's like a trigger. That's all it takes here in Baltimore—just a glance. 'Just a glance.' Don't stare. Why are you so interested in those people? They are not interested in you. 2018: Brokenness and the Promise of Fairness I'm in Montgomery, Alabama, to do my pilgrimage to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice —commonly known as the 'lynching memorial.' While there I am going to interview Bryan Stevenson, its founder. From a distance, the memorial is beautiful and majestic. In close proximity to the columns that constitute the memorial, a story of terror unfolds. There are 800 steel columns, each representing a county. On the columns are etched the names of people who were lynched there. Here's a portion of what Stevenson told me: Some of these were what we call 'public-spectacle lynchings,' where thousands of people came downtown and watched Black men, women, and children being burned alive. Some of these lynchings are as recent as 1949, 1950. I had a case not that long ago where we tried to stop an execution. The man was scheduled to be executed in 30 days. And I learned that he suffered from intellectual disability. Our courts have banned the execution of people with intellectual disability. And so we went to the trial court and said, 'You can't execute him. He's intellectually disabled.' And the trial court said, 'Too late. You should have raised that years ago.' And I went to the state court, and they said, 'Too late.' The appeals court said, 'Too late.' The federal court said, 'Too late.' Every court I went to said, 'Too late.' And we went to the U.S. Supreme Court, and they reviewed our motion, and about an hour before the scheduled execution, the clerk called me and said, 'Yeah, the Supreme Court's going to deny your motion. You're too late.' And I got on the phone with this man and I said, 'I'm so sorry, but I can't stop this execution.' He started to cry. It's literally 50 minutes before the execution, I'm holding the phone, and the man is just sobbing. And then he said, 'Please don't hang up. There's something important I have to say to you.' And he tried to say something to me, but in addition to being intellectually disabled, he stuttered when nervous. He was trying to say something, but he couldn't get his words out. Tears were just running down my face. And then he said to me: 'Mr. Stevenson, I want to thank you for representing me. I want to thank you for fighting for me.' The last thing he said to me was, 'Mr. Stevenson, I love you for trying to save my life.' He hung up the phone. They pulled him away. They strapped him to a gurney. They executed him. And I thought: I can't do this anymore. I just can't. Something about it just shattered me. And I was thinking about how broken he was, and I just couldn't understand: Why do we want to kill broken people? What is it about us that when we see brokenness, we get angry? All of my clients are broken people. I represent the broken. Everybody I represent has been broken by poverty or disability or addiction or racism. And then I realized that the system I work in is a broken system. And in that moment something said, You better think about why you do what you do if you're not gonna do it anymore. And it was in that moment that I realized why I do what I do. And it surprised me. I don't do what I do because I've been trained as a lawyer. I don't do what I do because it's about human rights. I don't do what I do because if I don't do it, no one will. I do what I do because I'm broken, too. It's in brokenness that we understand our need for grace, our need for mercy. Brokenness helps us appreciate justice. It's in brokenness that we begin to crave redemption. That we understand the power of recovery. It's the broken among us that actually can teach us what it means to be human. Because if you don't understand the ways in which you can be broken by poverty or neglect or abuse or violence or suffering or bigotry, then you don't recognize the urgency in overcoming poverty and abuse and neglect and bigotry. I even feel broken by this history. When I was a little boy, everybody had to get their polio shot. I was, like, 5. Black people had to go through the back door. So we line up out back. They gave all the shots to the white kids before they gave shots to the Black kids. They had little sugar cubes they were giving the white kids, and by the time they got to the Black kids, they ran out of sugar cubes. The nurses were tired. And they just had lost their capacity to be kind to these little children. And so they were grabbing these Black kids and giving them these needles. And my sister was in front of me, and when she was next, she was so terrified, she looked to my mother, and she said, 'Please, Mom. Please, please don't let them do this.' And they grabbed my sister, and they pulled her aside, and took the needle, and they jabbed it into her arm. And they pulled me aside, and they were about to jab me. And then all of a sudden I heard glass breaking: And my sweet, loving mother had gone over to a wall, picked up a table of beakers and glasses, and was slamming them against the wall. And she was screaming: 'This is not right! This is not right! Y'all should not have kept us out there all day! This is not right!' And the doctor came running in and said, 'Call the police.' And two Black ministers came running over and said, 'Please, doctor. Please, sir. Please don't call the police. We're sorry. We're gonna get her out of here.' One of the ministers fell to his knees. Was, like, just begging: 'Please, please. Please give the other kids their shot.' And he persuaded them not to call the police, and to give the other Black kids their shots. And so I got my polio shot. They didn't arrest my mom, which I was happy about. But you can't have a memory like that without it creating a kind of injury. A consciousness of hurt. That's what I mean when I say I'm broken, right? That consciousness of hurt creates a kind of anxiety that requires a response. I just think a lot of us were taught that you just have to find a way to silently live with your brokenness, with this injury, with that memory. And I don't think that's the way forward. I'm looking for ways to not be silent. Stevenson believes in the promise of treating humans with dignity, as expressed by a law that should keep an intellectually disabled human from being executed. Stevenson believed in that promise all the way up to 50 minutes before the scheduled execution, when the Supreme Court denied his final appeal. Which is when he realized that he works with broken people in broken systems where promises are broken. From the June 2024 issue: The lynching that sent my family north Stevenson's mother believed in the promise that she and her children should be treated equally. That's why she screamed, 'This is not right! This is not right!' When that promise was broken, his mother indicted the system. The preacher believed in the promise, which is why he got down on his knees and begged the doctor not to call the police and to give the other kids their shot. He surely knew that this promise was not yet realized in 1960s Delaware, where this scene took place—but he would not have begged if he did not believe that the promise of fairness was in sight. 2025: Errantry and Hope It's around broken promises that we have a chance at restoring, changing, improving. But of course we need a deep belief in the promise to do that. I am particularly interested in what happens to language when a promise is broken. Sometimes the shards make something intoxicating. Such an assemblage of broken shards can be found Atopolis: for Édouard Glissant, an extraordinary 2014 painting by the late African American artist Jack Whitten, which is being exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art through August 2. Glissant, the Martinican poet and philosopher whose 'poetics of relation' I mentioned earlier, said: 'The thought of errantry is not apolitical nor is it inconsistent with the will to identity, which is, after all, nothing other than the search for a freedom within particular surroundings. One who is errant (who is no longer traveler, discoverer, or conqueror) strives to know the totality of the world yet already knows he will never accomplish this—and knows that is precisely where the threatened beauty of the world resides.' Whitten wrote the following about Atopolis: Elsewhere, Whitten wrote: 'Ever since white imperialist entrepreneurs forced us into slavery, Black identity has been linked to our not having a 'sense of place.' This 'sense of place' for us had to be created through hard work involving all of our faculties of being.' In America, that hard work has been done with courage by individuals who have, to some extent, found 'us' through: 1. Unique meetings of their 'me'-ness and their 'not me'–ness. (Sometimes there was bloodshed around that meeting.) 2. Recognizing when good intentions become bad intentions. 3. Practicing hospitality. 4. Manifesting grace. 5. Understanding that, as Senator Cory Booker once told me: 'Black folks have to resurrect hope every day.' Amazing Grace In 2015, I interviewed the late Congressman John Lewis, and then portrayed him in my play and film Notes From the Field. I been going back to Selma every year since 1965, to commemorate the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, that took place on March 7, 1965. But we usually stop in Birmingham for a day. And then we go to Montgomery for a day. And then we go to Selma. On one trip to Montgomery, we stopped at First Baptist Church, the church that was pastored by the Reverend Ralph Abernathy. It's the same church where I met Dr. Martin Luther King and the Reverend Abernathy, in the spring of 1958. A young police officer—the chief—came to the church to speak on behalf of the mayor, who was not available. The church was full. Black. White. Latino. Asian American. Members of Congress. Staffers. Family members, children, and grandchildren. 'What happened in Montgomery 52 years ago durin' the Freedom Rides was not right,' the chief said. 'The police department didn't show up. They allowed an angry mob to come and beat you,' and he said, 'Congressman? I'm sorry for what happened. I want to apologize. This is not the Montgomery that we want Montgomery to be. This is not the police department that I want to be the chief of. Before any officers are hired,' he said, 'they go through trainin'. They have to study the life of Rosa Parks. The life of Martin Luther King Jr. They have to visit the historic sites of the movement. They have to know what happened in Birmingham, and what happened in Montgomery, and what happened in Selma.' He said, 'I want you to forgive us.' He said, 'To show the respect that I have for you and for the movement, I want to take off my badge and give it to you.' And the church was so quiet. No one sayin' a word. And I stood up to accept the badge. And I started cryin'. And everybody in the church started cryin'. And I said, 'Officer. Chief. I cannot accept your badge. I'm not worthy to accept your badge. [ Long pause.] Don't you need it?' He said, 'Congressman Lewis, I can get another one. I want you to have my badge!' And I took it. And I will hold on to it forever. But he hugged me. I hugged him. I cried some more. And you had Democrats and Republicans in the church. Cryin '. And his young deputy assistant—a young African American—was sittin' down. He couldn't stand. He cried so much, like a baby, really. It was the first time that a police chief in any city where I visited, or where I got arrested or beaten durin' the '60s, ever apologized. It was a moment of grace. It was a moment of reconciliation. The chief was very young—he was not even born 52 years ago. So he was offerin' an apology and to be forgiven on behalf of his associates, his colleagues of the past … For the police chief to come and apologize, to ask to be forgiven—it felt so good, and at the same time so freein' and liberatin'. I felt like, you know, I'm not worthy. You know, I'm just one. I'm just one of the many people who were beaten. It is amazing grace. You know the line in there, 'Saved a wretch like me?' In a sense, it's saying that we all have fallen short! 'Cause we all just tryin' to just make it! We all searching! As Dr. King said, we were out to redeem the soul of America. But we first have to redeem ourselves. This message—this act of grace, of the badge—says to me, 'Hold on.' And, 'Never give up. Never give in. Never lose faith. Keep the faith.' Keep the faith, yes. But don't look away.
New York Times
19 hours ago
- New York Times
4 Rules for Better Burgers
The cookbook author Kenji López-Alt knows burgers inside and out. Here are his nonnegotiable rules for success. One tip: Cooking thinner burgers largely on one side helps with their browning and flavor. Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Published July 23, 2025 Updated July 23, 2025 As a professional chef, food writer and cookbook author, I've spent the last two decades of my career rigorously researching and testing recipes, techniques and widely accepted kitchen wisdom to fire out the whys of cooking. Over this time, I've operated multiple burger joints and even wrote a monthly column for Serious Eats called the Burger Lab, in which I isolated and tested every possible variable that can affect the flavor and texture of a burger. You know what I found? With good seasoning, a nice hot fire and a well-dressed bun, even a frozen precooked burger patty can end up tasting decent. But that doesn't mean you can't aim for something better. By The New York Times Cooking Here are the most important tips I've found for optimizing your burger experience, whether in the backyard or the kitchen. Working ground beef too much can cause it to become dense. Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Ground beef is an amalgamation of proteins, fat and water: The more you work or knead it, the more those proteins tend to bond, forming a protein matrix that adds chewiness and structure. In bread, this can be a good thing, but with burgers, overhandling can create an unwanted dense texture. (Incorporating extenders, like eggs or breadcrumbs, or extra seasoning, like onions and herbs, also forces you to overwork the meat and distract from the beef flavor, so skip it.) Salting the outside of your patties keeps their texture lose and tender. Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Salt breaks down muscle proteins and helps them to link up more easily. This is a good thing in sausages, which should have a firm texture, but with burgers, you want looseness. A burger should be tender, with plenty of pockets for juices and rendered fat to collect. Seasoning only their exteriors ensures optimal texture and gives your burgers a nice salty crust to bite into. Browning your patties deeply maximizes flavor. Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Whether you're making a big burger on the grill or a crisp-edged smash burger on a griddle, browning is flavor, and high heat is key. For thicker grilled or griddled burgers, wait until your pan or grill is hot before adding the patties, and cook them until they're well browned on both sides. For thinner patties or smash burgers, I let them spend most of their time on their first side, so they cook almost all the way through and develop a deep brown crust, before flipping and cooking the second side for just a moment. This maximizes flavor while maintaining juiciness. Preparing your buns ahead of time lets you get to eating so much faster. Bryan Gardner for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne. Don't let your patties sit around on the cutting board (or worse, a steam table). Burgers are at their best fresh from the fire, before any juices have had a chance to drip out. Instead, make sure your buns are toasted to minimize time between cooking and scarfing. 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 .
Hypebeast
a day ago
- Hypebeast
Visionary Painter Raymond Saunders Dies at 90
Summary Raymond Saunders, the radical American artist known for his radical approach to abstraction and assemblage, passed away at the page of 90. His death was confirmed in a joint statement co-published by his representing galleries — Casemore, Andrew Kreps and David Zwirner — earlier this week. Saunders' oeuvre is defined by his resistance to categorization. Through texture, symbolism and material he challenged the viewer to reconsider assumptions about Black identity and cultural expression. In his assemblage-style artworks gestural brushwork sits beside vibrant color fields, notational markings and found objects, and served as a means of interrogating the dense fabric of American history. News of his passing follows the recent close ofFlowers from a Black Gardenat the Carnegie Museum of Art, where he took art classes growing up. The exhibition marked the first major museum retrospective for the two-time National Endowment for the Arts Awards recipient. Born in Pittsburgh in 1934, Saunders received a BFA from Carnegie Institute of Technology, and later moved to Oakland to pursue an MFA the California College of Arts and Crafts, where he became a professor. Saunders leaves behind a legacy of fearless experimentation through bodies of work that bolsters the autonomy and expansivity of Black artisthood. In his 1967 essayBlack Is a Colorhe wrote: 'i'm not here to play to the gallery i am not responsible for anyone's entertainment. i am responsible for being as fully myself, as man and artist, as i possibly can be, while allowing myself to hope that in the effort some light, some love, some beauty may be shed upon the world, and perhaps some inequities put right.'
