Tamara at Cookie Mag Awards

A veteran of the mayhem depicted on “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” Tamara Tunie is in her 10th season portraying Dr. Melinda Warner, a wryly intelligent medical examiner with a dark sense of humor. Typecasting, she says. Ms. Tunie, 50, appeared in the Broadway revival of “Julius Caesar” with Denzel Washington and recently produced and directed her first independent feature film, “See You in September.” In her foray into soap opera, she was Jessica Griffin on “As the World Turns.” She lives in an 1893 brownstone in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan...

Actor Tamara Tunie calls herself an "East Coast girl," and she’s had a steady career of “quality work” to keep her in New York. She spent two decades playing Jessica Griffin on As the World Turns and now appears regularly on Law & Order: SVU as Dr. Melinda Warner. A Harlem resident since 1983, Tunie had plenty to say about gentrification, and her husband’s cooking, in this week’s New York Diet.

Saturday, December 6
I love hot cereal, all kinds. So Saturday morning I had some oatmeal, and what I do is sauté some apples in a little butter and a little cinnamon and nutmeg and then...