lsanderson | Food Wednesdays running a bit late...

New Year, New Dumpling
By JOAN NATHAN

TRADITION has it that there is a dumpling for every Jewish holiday: kreplach, the Jewish tortellini, for the meal before Yom Kippur; dough pockets filled with cottage cheese for Shavuot; and matzo balls for Passover.

But Jewish food has become so diverse, how about a taste of another kind of tradition for Rosh Hashana on Friday night? A new dumpling for the holiday.

I first found gundi, a cardamom-flavored chickpea and chicken dumpling, 15 years ago when I met Azizeh Koshki, who had just emigrated from Iran.

Recipe: Whole-Wheat Matzo Balls
Recipe: Iranian Beet, Plum and Celery Soup With Kubbeh (Meat Dumplings)
Recipe: Persian Chickpea and Chicken Dumplings

Bringing It Home
Vegetable Love, Requited
By CELIA BARBOUR

LIKE everything else in my life, salads grow more complicated in the fall. In June and July, I like lettuce plain, with olive oil and vinegar splashed on straight from the bottle, plus salt and pepper. It is one of the skills I am secretly exceptionally proud of, this ability to dress a salad in the bowl without mixing up the dressing on the side first. I am convinced that salad tastes better this way, though I can’t figure out why. And I enjoy doing it — I feel more in tune with the greens, and also more picturesque (which, by the way, is a vast and unexplored category of human satisfaction).

Recipe: Chicken and Parsnip Salad With Roasted Shallot Dressing
Recipe: Apple, Cranberry and Goat Cheese Salad
Recipe: Dandelion, Bacon and Egg Salad

The Minimalist
A Lamb Classic From Mongolia
By MARK BITTMAN

IF I were to ask someone who knows about the world’s cuisines, “Where is the combination of chili, cumin, garlic and lamb a classic?” the most likely answers would be North Africa, the Middle East or elsewhere in western Asia. But this dish is straight from Mongolia, via the street vendors of Queens, and it’s little more than those four ingredients.

Recipe: Stir-Fried Lamb With Chili, Cumin and Garlic

High in Algeria’s Mountains, a Kingdom of Couscous
By CRAIG S. SMITH

FRIKAT, Algeria

HERE in this little village, high in the Atlas Mountains, with a distant hint of the sea, is the seat of the couscous royalty: La Maison Lahlou.

It’s a modest realm, a three-story, unpainted concrete building that serves both as the Lahlou family’s home and as a processing center for its hand-rolled couscous, which won top honors in the eighth annual international couscous competition in the Sicilian fishing village of San Vito lo Capo last year.

A Calvados Meant for the Cook
By FLORENCE FABRICANT