内容摘要：“La Rufina started as a very small kitchen,” said the 30-year-old chef, a native of the Lake Titicaca region. “We never dreamed of having two locations or being included in the 50 Best Discovery list.”

“La Rufina started as a very small kitchen,” said the 30-year-old chef, a native of the Lake Titicaca region. “We never dreamed of having two locations or being included in the 50 Best Discovery list.”

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamonKosher salt and ground black pepper

2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed and halved2 tablespoons neutral oilFresno or jalapeño chilies, stemmed and sliced into thin rings, to serve

Fresh cilantro leaves, to serveIn a blender, combine ¼ cup vinegar, garlic, ginger, paprika, sugar, cloves, turmeric, cumin, cayenne, cinnamon, ¾ teaspoon salt, 1¼ teaspoons pepper and 3 tablespoons water. Puree until smooth, scraping the blender as needed. Pour into a medium bowl, add the chicken and toss to coat. Let stand at room temperature for 15 minutes.

In a large Dutch oven over medium, heat the oil until shimmering. Add the chicken and marinade in an even layer. Cook without stirring until the marinade has browned and the chicken releases easily from the pot, 5 to 9 minutes. Stir, then add ⅓ cup water and bring to a simmer. Cover, reduce to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, until a skewer inserted into the chicken meets no resistance, 35 to 45 minutes.

Stir in the remaining 2 tablespoons vinegar, increase to medium and cook, stirring often, until the sauce is thick enough that a spoon drawn through leaves a trail, about 8 minutes. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle with sliced chilies and cilantro.exploits all the tension and ambiguity inherent in that opening scene to craft a short, propulsive novel that suggests that at work and in life, we are constantly trying out roles and making it up as we go along. Or, to quote

, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”“Audition” features an unnamed female narrator, an actor of some renown, in rehearsals for a difficult new play. When she is not on stage, she lives a quiet life in the West Village with her art historian husband, Tomas. Halfway through the novel, everything changes. The relationships between her, Xavier and Tomas are turned upside down in head-spinning fashion like the figure/ground illusion known as Rubin’s vase. Look at the picture one way, and it is a container for flowers; look at it another way, and it is the silhouettes of two heads facing each other.

Kitamura’s two previous novels also featured unnamed female protagonists whose work was bound up with interpretation: in “Intimacies,” a female interpreter at the Hague, and in “A Separation,” a translator. In this book she evokes a stylish city built out of glass, a sort of Mastercard ad where people have personal assistants and nibble on charcuterie trays in tastefully furnished apartments.In this facsimile of New York, which does not include disheveled people sleeping on the street or garbage spilling out of trash cans, Kitamura does a good job of creating a sense of the uncanny and feeling of dread. Reality is unstable; nothing is as it seems.