Letter of Recommendation is the best column the New York Times publishes.
The Letter is not really a recommendation but a reminder to peer into the unremarkable: “red onions,” “washing dishes,” “talking about the weather.” Who ever thought he needed a few hundred Allium-spiced words about how a ruddy bulb’s “bitter alchemy transmutes its heat into an experience so intense that a single bite contains an entire sensory universe”? Even humble roots deserve florid prose.
I write letters of recommendation as part of my work, and I enjoy capturing funny, brilliant students in words. But I have also wanted—for years—to write Letters for other things: picking up takeout during a storm, the crosstown bus, a regular park bench, nodding at strangers.