The email error is frequently reported by people using a non-Gmail address for mailing the books- the common cure seems to be to just use a Gmail address and everything should work. Do a forum search for the error message if you need more details, there should be quite a few threads for this.
As for the NY Times question: Try looking for a recipe. There may already be one in the news section of Calibre, if not, search the
recipe subforum.