Up Now

UP NOW A cooking star is born -- because he has stars in his eyes. Romantic ones. Mike Nizza recently left his job a rising star at The New York Times to become one in Washington. Complication? His girlfriend's still in New York.

The good part for me and for us is that he works at Atlantic Media, where he has overseen the launch of this very site -- and that Friday nights are now reserved for suppers with Julie, which he starts planning well, far as I can tell, the beginning of the week. We'll be hearing about them in his charming, romantic new series, Made For Julie, which makes its debut today with an account of his obsessing over a killer bacon cheeseburger -- along with a bonus section of terrific recipes you'll want to make even if you don't own (spoiler) a meat grinder. I already had a weakness for iceberg salad with bacon, but his chile-and maple-syrup-toasted pecans have me making out a shopping list for Friday supper. Start making out yours now.

Plus Grant Achatz starts ushering us down the new creative path we'll be discovering with him; and Jerry Baldwin shows us something that even I, coffee fanatic though far less traveled, had never even heard of: quti, a beverage made from steeping coffee leaves he found in Harrar. My consolation is that he'd never heard of it either. Mike Nizza's consolation is that he's found a new word to call his girlfriend. (And watch what you say about them in the Comments section -- he oversees that, too.)