Winner
Joel Raj, 17, from Metuchen, N.J., chose an article by Yotam Ottolenghi from The New York Times Magazine headlined “Summer Is Delightfully Messy. So Is This Simple Peach Dessert.,” and wrote:
“You’ve got juice in your hair,” my mom would laugh, but at age five, I didn’t care.
My face could’ve passed for a Jackson Pollock painting. The canvas for an abstract expressionist medium: watermelon. I was a small, sticky god of summer. But now, I am a reformed savage, slicing up a piece of pepperoni like a frog in eighth grade biology class.
My original recipe for life was merely pure chaos and joy. Then came the single, traumatic event that soured the whole batch, the Great Taco Catastrophe of sixth grade. There I was, on a first date, trying to look poised while wrangling a carnitas taco that had the structural integrity of a wet paper bag. I went for a civilized bite, and the whole thing imploded. For the next hour, I tried to carry on a conversation about her pet lizard while a piece of pickled onion was basically superglued to my chin.
That was the moment my inner five-year-old went into hiding, and the tall, awkward teenager took over.
So when Yotam Ottolenghi describes that sloppy, beautiful mess of a peach dessert, a dish that offers “total freedom to enjoy,” I hear the call of going back to the original stage of myself. This summer, I will find a peach so ripe and devour it with the kind of chin-dribbling freedom that would make my five-year-old self proud. The paper towel industry is officially on notice!
Runners-Up
Vivian Li on “Why We Mistake the Wholesomeness of Gen Z for Conservatism”
Allen Wu on “Can We Ask a Disabled Woman to Leave Our Pickleball Group?”
Apple M. on “The Lives Lost to the Texas Floods”
Jenny W. on “From Girl Boss to No Boss”
Karen Z. on “My Problem With Superman”
Melody Z. on “What I Learned When I Went Back to My Old Therapist”
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Honorable Mentions
Kelvin J. Lin on “The Harvard-Educated Linguist Breaking Down ‘Skibidi’ and ‘Rizz’”
Anika Khedekar on “Gillian Murphy, a Ballerina With Joy and Aplomb, Steps Down”
Daria S. on “For Family Reunions, Just Walk Down the Hall”
Darian A. on “Trump Shouldn’t Forget the Iranian People”
Ellie W. on “Separated as Toddlers, Raised on Opposite Sides of the World”
Evelyn Zhao on “What Tourists in Martha’s Vineyard Showed Me About Being Indigenous”
Gia Deborah W. on “The Grip That Race and Identity Have on My Students”
Grace Shim on “How Elephants Say They Like Them Apples”
Grace X. on “What (Actually) Brings Teens Joy?”
Henry Benning on “The New Yorker Embraces (Some) Modern Language”
Isabella W. on “Trying to Win at Doing Nothing, With a Crowd Watching”
Jack Riley on “I Can’t Sleep. Now What?”
Ka Ki Cici S. on “When They Don’t Recognize You Anymore”
Kaliopi T. on “Never Quitting ‘Brokeback Mountain’”
Leo C. on “A Lifetime After Fleeing the Nazis, They Tell Their Stories”
Lisa on “What I Learned When I ‘Walked My Age’”
Lu Yutong on “Australia Wants to Bar Children From Social Media. Can It Succeed?”
Myra Dhawan on “A Journey Across the New Syria”
Peixin “Joy” Y. on “Finding Beauty in Midair”
Ruyi L. on “What Teenagers Are Saying About Hugging Their Parents”
Shi Yi Y. on “A New Barbie Wears Blue Polka-Dots, and a Glucose Monitor”
Shuxin Fan on “Chinese University Expels Woman for ‘Improper Contact’ With a Foreigner”
Sonia on “It’s a Great Time to Be a Toe”
Xiaoqing Cai on “Finding Beauty in Midair”
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