Adam Gopnik

The coffee shop is a great New York institution, but it has terrible coffee. And the more traditional coffee shops are trying to catch up with more sophisticated coffee drinkers.

Cooking is the showy side of domesticity.

I rush to add that I find the Web infinitely useful for rustling up information, settling arguments or locating the legends of rock stars.

After my swims this weekend I think coach realized, you know what, you have to have a good one getting out of this meet. So I put the suit on and had a decent swim.

I'm not a morning person: I can't function until I've had a coffee - or several.

Shaft was a pop culture figure along t he lines of, I guess, Dirty Harry - except that he wasn't as much of a racist. So yeah, I was always a fan.