Dec 16
A few weeks ago, I decided to make Cannelle et Vanille‘s Aran Goyaga’s Swiss Chard, Pear and Gruyère Tart from her new cookbook, Small Plates and Sweet Treats. I’m not sure how to describe this beautifully photographed book except to say that it glows. It actually glows. Read more
Nov 1
It was the wind howling against the windows that really unnerved me. The un-ignorable fact that the smallest pebble hitting the pane at the wrong spot would shatter it completely and bring the full force of the hurricane inside the house kept me sleepless. When the storm had finally passed, I left the interior room we’d huddled down in and dared to look out the window. Most of the surrounding houses were still standing, but I couldn’t make them out – it was all white sky and black water. Knowing we were safe, I allowed myself to sleep, unless I was wrong and had been dreaming the whole time. Read more
Jun 5
I’ve had it flagged for a long time but it wasn’t until this weekend that I finally made a batch of Galician filloas. Served year around in northern Spain, they are most popular during early winter’s carnival season. Similar to crêpes, they’re made from with the usual suspects – flour, eggs, milk – but can also be blended with stock and cooked off with bacon fat or lard instead of butter. The thin batter is poured onto a hot skillet (or a stone), flipped and filled or sprinkled with sugar and served as dessert. Hovering somewhere between sweet and savory, they can be hard to classify. Read more
Apr 8
I hadn’t planned on a traditional Good Friday. I was supposed to meet my friend Carolina, who was visiting, at the Met but was falling behind. I’d spent the day making a tarta Pascualina or Easter pie to write about this weekend when the day got away from me when another friend who was moving to Chicago stopped by in the afternoon to say goodbye. For the past few weeks, Aaron and I had done a lot of before-you-go things in the neighborhood but helping me finish the pie was the absolute last. The pascualina done, I changed to plan to a low-key night at home with Carol and my sister Cami – the better to catch-up on the bear of a week we’d all had. We were about to sit down when we heard the procession outside the window. Read more
Jan 19
I’ve always been a little afraid of cactus plants. Though inclined to like any vegetation that looks like an alien life form, the very idea of a cactus sends tiny invisible splinters to my fingers. In reality, it’s the cactus that should fear me, since I managed to kill one in college with the reasoning that if it could just survive in the dessert, it would flourish with regular watering. It did not. Read more
Jan 13
I was excited but not surprised when I heard that Dawn and Dave of One Girl Cookies would be publishing their their first cookbook. Walking into their Cobble Hill cafe and bakery is something like walking into a story so it was only a matter of time before it was bound between two covers.
Nov 1
I only really became aware of el Dia de los Muertos a couple of years ago but then it was love at first sight – the papel picado, the calacas that would be frightening if they weren’t so eerily famliar, the food welcoming spirits home as though no time has passed. There’s an easy tension to the way it’s celebrated – a balance between the pre-Columbian and post-Discovery, the corporeal and the spiritual, the seen and unseen – that’s lovely to live in for a couple of days. In the past, I’ve made pan de muerto but this year wanted to try empanaditas de calabaza. Families may start their vigil with the ofrenda, but they see the spirits back to the cemetery. Whatever I made, I wanted it to be filled with fall spices, comforting, and most importantly, portable. Read more
Aug 6
The thing about vacation is that eventually you have to come home. Always wanting to make it last a little longer, I hold on by bringing back ingredients, recreating recipes, or incorporating holiday habits to my everyday. In the past year, I’ve visited Paris and Mexico City, which is why I have tins of fois gras and impressionist teas on my shelves, half empty jars of caramel beurre au salé and cajeta in the cupboard, and stacks of corn tortillas in the freezer. This is also why I flounce around Brooklyn markets on the weekend with an enormous Provence basket and can’t stop making batches of salsa verde. Read more
May 7
I hope I’m never too old to play in my mother’s room. Stocked like a beauty counter at Saks and filled with back issues of ¡Hola! (similar to the UK’s Hello! magazine but with fewer Windsors and more Grimaldis), my sister and I treat it like a duty free shop where everything is actually free. Searching through her neat drawers and tables, we call dibs on new masks and eye creams, bracelets and rings we’re sure our grandmother would’ve wanted us to have, charms and trinkets that we casually discarded like the wicked stepsisters when we were younger but now want to reclaim for sentiment, or irony, or both. Overcome with the mami-can-I-haves from the moment we land, we can be pretty tough to take, though in our defense, she gets pretty spoiled when she comes to visit us. Read more
Mar 22
I was working on a post on the Latin pantry for Devour the Blog when I decided to take a look at my own. I’m constantly straightening and organizing my shelves in the on-going game of kitchen Jenga that my limited New York storage space forces me to play. I can’t complain though because a few years ago my cupboards would have been bare. It took me awhile to figure out what I like, how I should store it, and how often I would use it. I hate waste and there were a few forgotten items staring at me resentfully from behind the much loved olive oil and sea salt, but I think I got it down to the essentials. I don’t know if it’s pure projection or all those chiles and peppers, but Latin American products seem to vibrate just a little bit more than others. I feel like if I winked at the woman on the P.A.N. Harina bag she just might wink back and I’m also absolutely terrified of the Abuelita on Nestlé’s Mexican chocolate discs though I’m sure she means well. Read more
ana@hungrysofia.com
