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New York Times
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Three Restaurants Where Grandma Is (Almost) Always Cooking
My grandmothers were all wonderful women who I adored, but none of them cooks. While I'm slightly relieved to have escaped the trope of the food writer who learned to cook at her grandmother's elbow, I've never been at a restaurant and said, wistfully, 'this tastes like my grandmother's ____.' So, here's yet another reason to love New York: You can borrow someone else's grandma! At least, for the duration of a meal. La Morada in Mott Haven is a lot of things: a family business, a center for political activism and a downright perfect place to eat mole under the watchful eye of someone else's grandmother. Natalia Mendez and her husband, Antonio Saavedra, opened the restaurant in 2009, and the moles are swoon-worthy. The three I tried: mole negro, deeply savory with warmth from pasilla, a perfect hot tub for braised chicken drumsticks; brick-red mole Oaxaqueño with enough bits of pepper to sink your teeth into; and mole blanco, a rich, pale blanket of pine nut- and cashew-based sauce. A few grandma-core touches complete the experience — terracotta share plates are delivered warm, and a colorful container of motley markers and paper wait in the corner of the restaurant. 308 Willis Avenue (East 140th Street) The two women folding and frying dumplings to order at Fried Dumpling in Chinatown move so deftly, I'm confident they could handle a 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. shift in their sleep. At the small shop on the one-block-long Mosco Street, they're all business, chatting to each other while churning out magnificent, savory pork-and-chive dumplings that need nothing, maybe save for a squirt of chile oil from a bottle on the room's singular table. For $5 (cash only!), you can walk into Columbus Park with 13 of these dumplings and, for another dollar, a pint container of warm, fresh soy milk. 106 Mosco Street (Mulberry Street) Want all of The Times? Subscribe.


New York Times
17-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Why a Teacher of the Year Is Giving His Prize Money Away
Good morning. It's Tuesday. We'll meet a Bronx high school teacher who just won a $25,000 award — and decided to put the money toward a teaching prize in Gambia when his hopes for a State Department grant fell through. We'll also find out about Senator Robert Menendez's 11-year prison sentence, which starts today. Alhassan Susso is a teacher at a high school in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx who has won numerous awards, including a national teacher-of-the-year prize in 2020. He has just been recognized again, this time with an award of $25,000. That money will now go to self-funding a project he is passionate about — a teacher-of-the-year prize in Gambia, where he is from — because his hopes for a grant from the State Department appear to have been dashed. For months, Susso had been preparing to submit an application for something called a public diplomacy grant through the U.S. Embassy in Banjul, the Gambian capital. Then, last month, the webpage with information about the grant program disappeared, Susso said. He had heard about the Trump administration's plans to lay off nearly the entire staff of the U.S. Agency for International Development, more than 9,700 employees. He figured that U.S.A.I.D. had something to do with administering the public diplomacy grants. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Yahoo
Man shot to death, woman wounded, outside Bronx bodega
A man was shot to death and a woman wounded in a hail of bullets outside a Bronx bodega, cops said Sunday. The 30-year-old man was shot in the chest and a 42-year-old woman blasted in the leg on Willis Ave. near E. 138th St. in Mott Haven about 8:30 p.m. Saturday, police said The two victims were strangers to each other, cop sources said. Medics took both to Lincoln Hospital but the man could not be saved. The woman is in stable condition, cops said. Four years ago, one man was killed and another wounded outside the same bodega. Charles Wilkins, 24, was shot about a dozen times while a 20-year-old man was struck in the leg after they stepped out of the deli on May 18, 2021. A gunman got out of a four-door sedan, opened fire and kept shooting as the two victims ran for cover. Saturday's slaying marks the sixth homicide in the Bronx's 40th Precinct this year, which saw six murders through May 4 last year, and 14 in all of 2024, NYPD statistics show. Police have made no arrests in Saturday's shooting.