It's Tuesday afternoon. It's over 50 degrees in New York (Fahrenheit, of course). I've just come inside from a run in Prospect Park. Life is good. So before I get stuck into the task of gmail spring cleaning, I'd like to share one of the most simple and wholesome discoveries that I've made in 2016: tahini.

I've been leading my life as much offline as on these days (should that be surprising for anyone?) and my growing cookbook collection is half electronic and half paper. I've been especially collecting Middle Eastern cookbooks, and one hefty one--oversized pages spread before me right now--is Zahav, a testament to the global influences on the very particular cuisine of Israel. Before I started all this reading, I didn’t know much about tahini or the difference between (how could you, with this nomenclature?) “tahini” as in the jarred sesame paste and “tahini” as in the simple sauce prepared from the paste. (To complicate further, the Israeli word, apparently, is “tahina.”)