What Five Cooks Make To Say “I Love You”
Welcome to Cooking For Love: Volume I
The first time I cook for you is my favorite. It means my house is clean, it means I have a fridge full of groceries, it means I get to spend all afternoon in my kitchen with my playlists and it means you and I are about to go from whatever we are to something infinitely more. If a new friend comes over for dinner she leaves a friend I call on the phone after work, a friend whose mother’s name I know. If a crush comes over for dinner he becomes _______ (my mom reads this). We need to add a base for “sharing a meal I made.” I think it’s the most intimate thing we can do together.
One of the first questions I ask everyone I meet, right after “what’s your name” and “where do you get your haircut” (everyone has better haircuts than I do) is “what is your favorite thing to cook tell someone that you love them.” Through obsessive consideration I have my answer scripted down to the thing that I’m wearing when I cook it. I’m in a pale yellow dress (which means in this fantasy it’s also August and that one streak in my hair is as blond as it’ll ever be) with little flowers and flutter sleeves, and I’m making you Chicken Marbella how Ottolenghi does it (dates instead of prunes because prunes are essentially a laxative and thus hateful.) This dish is perfect to me for three reasons:
You do all the work two days in advance, letting it marinate until the one(s) you love come(s) over. When they knock on the door your whole kitchen smells like garlic and fat, but you look unruffled, radiant in pale yellow.
Even for its ease, you still get to perform adeptness. “I’m gonna check the chicken do you want another glass of (whatever wine they brought)?” you say, breezing over to the oven barefoot to lean over and check that the skin’s golden brown. It is! God you’re good.
For the purposes of wooing, chicken thighs are unparalleled. They are at once the sexiest part of the bird and deeply nourishing, and in serving them you say not only *Jessica Rabbit eyes* but also, “this is what I will feed our children one day.”
It’s my favorite question in the world and I’m never not delighted by your answers. My heart swells hearing you describe your particular method for spaghetti alle vongole, picturing you rolling out the dough for your chicken pot pie or laboring dutifully over “anything, when served with fervor” (that’s what Martha Stewart said when I asked her). Food is a language, each ingredient is a letter, and the way that you combine them says everything about who you are, or how you hope to be.
So, a self-indulgent endeavor, thus begins a new series on Pony Express — one where I wrangle my favorite cooks, writers, and people I generally want to talk to into answering my favorite question of all time, and then some. And I have an unbelievable all-star lineup for volume I, naturally. Start clapping for my friends
, , , Julie Saha and Smith.
Alexis deBoschnek is the author of a Substack called
, a cookbook called To the Last Bite and of another one called Nights and Weekends coming in August. She is exactly who I wanted to share the corner of a Stissing House table with because we have all the same opinions on chicken (dark meat preferred), small plates (overrated) and hosting dinner parties (the greatest pleasure human life can offer).1. What’s your favorite thing to cook to show someone you love them?
Maybe it's just because I always want this dish and it feels particularly celebratory to me, but there's nothing better to me than channeling old steakhouse vibes. Think shrimp cocktail, steak, wedge salad, potatoes in some form, and a hot fudge sundae for dessert. Oh, and an ice-cold dirty martini.
2. If this meal could talk and say “I love you,” how would it?
I think any meal that takes a degree of planning and time is an expression of love. Salting the steak the night before, chilling martini glasses in the freezer, it's all the little things that make for a spectacular meal that say I love you in a big way.
3. Have you made this meal to this end before? How’d it go?
So many times! So much so that I've actually included a recipe for ribeyes and a party wedge salad in my upcoming cookbook Nights & Weekends (coming August 2025!). Since steak houses usually feel like a special occasion destination, people are always delighted to get the same joy at home. I've made it for my husband and for a dinner party for 10 — and everything in between — and it's always a hit.
Julia Harrison is the author of orzo bimbo, founder of saloon and most importantly her bedroom is across from mine. She is very good at doing weird things with her legs and even better at knowing exactly what she wants (like she’ll say “I’m craving coriander”). She has an encyclopedic knowledge of both Greek myth and the Looney Tunes. She looks amazing in blue.
1. What’s your favorite thing to cook to show someone you love them?
I have to answer this in an annoying way which is to say: it has to change depending on the person. The last time I cooked to show someone I loved them was when I tried making braised short rib for my ex-boyfriend for his 30th birthday. I made him short rib because he was the kind of man who liked to eat what he called "steak snack." But for example if I were to cook for you I would make a chicken, date, and olive dish in your little pink Le Creuset. (Pony note: she gets meeee <3)
I think basically when I cook to show someone I love them I approach it like this:
- a meat centerpiece (never ham)
- it's going to take for-fucking-ever
- it's going to be really hard
- I probably haven't made that recipe before
To me that's how you show someone you love them: you allow them to watch you perform meat gymnastics for their benefit and hope they love you regardless of how it turns out.
2. If this meal could talk and say “I love you,” how would it?
You mean like if it anthropomorphized? Probably a few drops of uranium and a little human blood would do the trick. A quick brine in the Gowanus. And it's first words would be sorry I'm new here and under-salted. Does that answer your question
3. Have you made this meal to this end before? How’d it go?
In the occasion of the braised short rib, it was fine. We had it on polenta. It took 4 or 5 hours. We were already broken up when I served it to him, but I wanted him to have a good 30th birthday and he was in town for Christmas so I tried to pretend everything was fine and cooked him the short rib. We broke up again two days after that on top of our existing breakup. I'd make it again, probably, for a man who didn't bully me so much.
Colu Henry is the author of a Substack called Colu Cooks, two cookbooks called Easy Fancy Food and Back Pocket Pasta, and most of my favorite recipes in the New York Times. I met her once, also at aforementioned pivotal Stissing House work event (shout out to my beautiful boss
) and she’s the kind of warm and wonderful that’ll make you feel like you’ve known her forever (or at least desperately wish you had.)1. What’s your favorite thing to cook to show someone you love them?
A roast chicken. I know it sounds simple and it is, but it's the ultimate comfort food. If I make you a roast chicken, I'm not trying to impress you, it means we’re comfortable enough that I just want to make you something that I know will both enjoy and be nourished by. The house also smells great.
2. If this meal could talk and say “I love you,” how would it?
It would be splayed out, spatchcock-style and golden and glistening with some bread nestled underneath. She's lowkey sexy, but also unfussy.
3. Have you made this meal to this end before? How’d it go?
Oh yes! It's one of my favorite things to make for both myself and my husband, as well as friends. I'd probably round out the meal with some roasted potatoes and a big, bright chicory salad. Simple is always best.
Julie Saha is a chef at famous Dinner Party in Clinton Hill and the genius behind foodbebo, an Instagram account that shows me exactly what I want to eat before I even know that it exists (read: “freak slaw.”). I have her website open in another tab as I write this and I keep clicking back to look at that chocolate ginger cake with blood orange vanilla buttercream. Ffs.
1. What’s your favorite thing to cook to show someone you love them?
Most of my time is spent at Dinner Party (restaurant in Clinton Hill), so I haven’t been cooking many elaborate dishes at home. I say that because at other points in time, a more involved, multi-step cooking process had felt like the most explicit proof of having love for the person who would be eating it. But that has transformed; at the moment (Winter 2025) a stew seems to be the most loving thing I could make. A Korean beef and silken tofu stew, or a lentil soup with plenty of spices, potatoes, and herbs, list goes on a stew could be anything.
2. If this meal could talk and say “I love you,” how would it?
This type of meal says “I love you” in an “I’ve had you on my mind all day” kind of way. It's something that happens in the background of all the other things that steal my attention throughout the day but working on the stew is something I’ll return to over and over; existing steadily in the background with uninterrupted importance. I feel that the way things are added to a stew or soup in stages, ultimately making it richer and richer with time, is the perfect parallel to a good relationship and loving someone. There’s also a 90% chance of there being leftovers from a stew dinner which means I will feel my own love the following day when I have a perfect meal ready in the fridge.
3. Have you made this meal to this end before? How’d it go?
I’ve used the gift of stew to make sure someone knows I love them many a time. Whether it's a quart of a stew I saved from family meal at the restaurant or something I made in their company, stew love has been in my repertoire. 100% success rate <3
Sakura Smith is the beautiful mind behind a Substack called The Bunny Diaries and bagel bunny, baking bagels made from fermented vegetable yeast using a starter created in 1974 by a monk in Japan (!!!!!!). If you know me you know that is what I want in a bagel and if you know Sakura you should count your lucky stars.
1. What’s your favorite thing to cook to show someone you love them?
Hmm. Maybe it is something that I think that person will love. There is a meal for each person in my life. But overall I would say it would probably be a healthy soup to eat with rice. Like last night my best friend who is visiting, my boyfriend and I were just sooo hungry and I thought oh I’ll make a nourishing soup. I did two kinds with what we had. One veg spicy mushroom tofu soup and one pork with cabbage soup. But I think the soup is interchanging to how we feel.
2. If this meal could talk and say “I love you,” how would it?
It just feels like care when you share this meal together. Though, soup is a dish itself that is cozy and careful. Something that moves through you and touches you as the warm liquid moves from the mouth down through the esophagus, into the chest and then into the tummy.
3. Have you made this meal to this end before? How’d it go?
No matter what it is that I am cooking, it is showing that I love them. But when I make soup I know they truly feel it.
Thank you for reading that. And thank yourself too because wasn’t it wonderful? Please for the love of god tell me your answers, too.
Chicken Marbella kisses xx Pony.
I bake sourdough bread for my husband at least once a week because he gave up European bread to come here and marry me.
I think cooking for children or nieces or nephews should emphasize recipes handed down to you from your parents, grandparents etc. These are the important ways to preserve culture, identity, flavours, nutrition, and of course always says "I love you"