Cuba’s culinary scene — known for its simple, classic dishes — has long flourished even as it is typically overshadowed by the country’s famous cigars and mojitos. But today, many popular Cuban dishes are being reproduced in home kitchens and popular restaurants across the U.S. Classics like ropa vieja (shredded beef) and papas rellenas (stuffed potatoes), as well as less common dishes, such as chicken tamarind, have injected a welcome burst of flavor into America’s dining experiences.

It takes a certain kind of person to eat vast quantities of Velveeta cheese. Those people are called Texans. The Lone Star State is known for its Tex-Mex cuisine, that heavy, cheesy love child of Mexican food that introduced fajitas and nachos to the world. But a Tex-Mex restaurant is only as good as its queso, Texas shorthand for chile con queso — and now you can make your own at home.

Cool Whip, chopped pecans, mini marshmallows, canned pineapple and pistachio pudding mix. The perfect recipe for a refreshing summer dish … or the blueprint for a cover-up of epic proportions? The dessert known as Watergate Salad became popular in the 1970s and ’80s after Richard Nixon’s sins became America’s publicly aired dirty laundry. As long as there are presidential scandals to endure, there will be tasty ways to escape them.

It’s a dessert that goes by many names. Shish Cake. Chocolate Lush. Guadalupe River Bottom Pudding. Some call it the Next Best Thing to Brad Pitt. In 1992, it was briefly the Next Best Thing to Luke Perry. Perhaps its most enduring name is the Next Best Thing to Robert Redford. The rich, creamy, layered dessert is just too easy to make and too easy to finish and, like the Sundance Kid himself, is timeless, well-proportioned and inescapably itself.

Experimental game designer Jenn Sandercock’s “Edible Games Cookbook” is filled with games you can cook and devour. There’s Flip ’n’ Stick, a game borrowing elements of beer pong and squash that uses cookies, Nutella and M&Ms. There’s the more complex Patisserie Code escape room. It makes cleaning up the game easier if you eat as you go, right?

Without afternoons at the beach, long plane rides or other stretches of unspoiled time, post-summer doldrums can be a tricky time to dive into a book. There are so many distractions, and how do you choose what to read when escapism seems irresponsible and realism seems untenable? Here are a few great reads for your fall reading list from novelists around the world that puts a welcome perspective on modern crises.

Your worst fears about Siri or Alexa are realized in “Shipworm,” a feature-length fiction podcast from Two-Up Productions, the studio behind “Limetown.” In this ambitious, nearly two-hour technothriller, the protagonist doctor, played by Broadway veteran Quentin Earl Darrington, wakes up to discover a mysterious voice inside his head calling herself “the conductor.” He must do whatever she asks or his family will die. When it comes to scripted fiction podcasts, this is just the beginning.

on The Carlos Watson Show!

For decades, the tiny SoCal coastal town of Del Mar was the summer hangout for a cadre of aging Hollywood stars obsessed with horse racing. Del Mar has always been different from other tracks. Across the road from a sandy white beach, the track boasts lakes, swaying palm trees and fountains in the infield, while the grandstand has ocean views. During race season, which starts in mid-July and runs through the end of Labor Day weekend, families can picnic in the infield, where kids run wild — and learn the intricacies of betting on horse racing.

Cave City, Kentucky is a wonderful world of kitsch in the heart of the American South. The main attraction? The area’s eight Appalachian caverns, which span more than 400 miles and make up the world’s longest known cave system. Although the caves are open year-round, the other activities — including zip-lining, horseback riding, flea-market shopping and life-sized dinosaurs — are best reserved for summertime. Concluding, of course, on Labor Day.

The Kauai marathon is quite possibly the prettiest run in the U.S., if Pacific islands with white-sand beaches and lush jungles are your kind of thing. Every Labor Day Weekend, thousands of runners line up and an emcee delivers a Hawaiian prayer while fire dancers light up the dark sky. The actual run takes participants through jungle-like streets (one spot on Kauai is the rainiest spot on Earth) and through the 100-year-old Tunnel of Trees.

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