The Wheat Lowdown

By MARK BITTMAN
Published: February 7, 2013 19 Comments

Those of us who cook believe that you have to cook to eat; baking bread is different. With so many relatively decent loaves readily available in stores, bread-baking is more of a hobby. The result, of course, will be eaten and enjoyed — and bakers know the rewards of blowing people’s minds with a good loaf: “You made that?” — but baking is not mandatory. (I say that having just paid four bucks for a “baguette” that would serve better as a kitchen sponge.) Moar

One Prism on the Undoing of Pinochet

The Mexican actor Gael García Bernal,backed by part of the rainbow logo of the No campaign, in the Oscar-nominated Chilean film “No.”
By LARRY ROHTER
Published: February 8, 2013

The blunt title of “No,” directed by Pablo Larraín and one of the five nominees for best foreign-language film in this year’s Academy Awards, refers to an inspiring moment in the history of Chile, his native land. In a straight up-or-down, yes-or-no plebiscite there in 1988, the citizenry ended the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet by voting him out of power, 15 years after he had seized control in a bloody American-backed coup. Moar

Frank Ocean Can Fly

Frank Ocean, the 25-year-old singer who released the hit album "Channel Orange" in July 2012.
By JEFF HIMMELMAN
Published: February 7, 2013 15 Comments

Frank Ocean did not want to ride in my rented Ford Fusion; that much was clear. After I parked the car, he met me outside his modernist apartment building in Los Angeles and led me to the garage where he rents three parking spots for three different BMWs. He was dressed casually — gray hoodie, jeans, high-top Vans with red laces, baseball cap — and he jumped lightly from the curb to the parking blocks as we walked toward his late-model blue BMW M3. Ocean no longer had driving privileges as a result of some recent violations, on top of which he was cited for marijuana possession a few weeks earlier. “You can drive,” he said, though I could tell that it was killing him. Moar