Apr 15
I don’t know why they say you can’t be in two places at once. I do it all the time. Last night, for instance, I was both having a quiet night in Miami and on the corner Clinton and Degraw in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, waiting for the Good Friday procession from Sacred Hearts and St. Stephen’s Church. Read more
Jun 3
I can’t decide if this post is too late for mother’s day post or too early for father’s day. My mother was both for most of our lives, so it’s kind of perfect that it falls somewhere in between. The first comment people made when I told them I was moving to Miami was that my mother must be thrilled. I love telling people that her initial reaction was a momentary pause, a sigh, and to say – well, I’ll need my space. Full disclosure – she denies saying this but then she laughs because she knows it’s true. Read more
May 5
While it’s not something typically associated with life in Miami, poetry – read, written, spoken – is very much part of the city’s DNA. Every April the O, Miami poetry festival makes it their goal that every person in Miami will encounter a poem at some point in the month. It might pop-up on a prescription bottle or out of a vending machine, go underwater at the Standard Hotel or float through the canals of Coral Gables, get written across a cocktail napkin or the sand, be spotted in a picket line or from the window seat of a Miami bound airplane. If this seems unlikely, bear in mind that kids here learn to recite José Martí along with their ABCs.
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Apr 28
The last time I posted, I was in the middle of packing up my Brooklyn apartment. For years, my heart and mind had been divided between Miami and New York. If you follow this site, then you know that home has been a preoccupation from my very first post. Faced with an expired lease in a neighborhood I felt increasingly alienated from, the heart won and the rest of me followed. I’d planned on relaunching my site as soon as I was settled in Miami but then unpacking always takes longer than you think it will. Read more
Aug 21
Clearing things out is stressful but I’ve also found a lot of things to hold onto. In that spirit, I remembered a post I had written when I was asked for and heirloom recipe. I immediately thought of my mother’s merengón. Read more
Jul 31
As someone who loves ceviches and tiraditos in all their forms, I’ve wanted to post a raw fish recipe for awhile but have held back. I understand that sushi-grade fish is safe to eat but there’s something unnerving about preparing it yourself. I leave it to others to not cook it correctly for me and certainly didn’t feel comfortable telling anyone else how to go about it. When Gastón Acurio’s Peru: The Cookbook came out, there were no excuses. Beautifully put together and encyclopedic, Peru is more self-contained than I’d expected but it’s surprising how personal each entry feels. I decided on the tiradito nikkei – partly because of its attainable ingredient list and partly because it calls for completely fish that’s completely raw – no searing, no marinating. Finding the freshest possible fish was key so I went to my favorite fish store in the neighborhood and asked my friend Alex to show me how to get even slices. After cutting off a corner, he gave it for me to sample. Taken aback, I couldn’t say no. I bought a pound and brought it home and from there it couldn’t have been simpler. By the time you’ve prepped the ingredients, it’s pretty much just a quick assemblyand you’re done. As I paused to take a few pictures, I could see the citrus based sauce was cooking the edges of the fish and hurried up. I didn’t want it to interfere with the fish’s texture that – even on its own – was all ocean. Read more
Jun 25
Some words have no translation. It’s easy enough to approximate the meaning but the emotion is lost. That’s how I feel about the word tormenta. It means nothing more than a storm, but tormenta is just a better word for it. It even sounds like the crack of lightning. Tormentas slice through canvases by El Greco to threaten saints and martyrs, storms menace weekend sailors and their dockside girlfriends in yacht rock classics. Storm clouds can be chased away, tormentas have to be waited out. I miss the rains I grew up with in Miami where the weather can go from a bright, blue sky day to an end-of-days downpour (or aguaceros) in a heartbeat. Read more
Jun 10
It’s technically still spring, so I spent most of yesterday cleaning out my closet. Storage is always a problem in my apartment, so I’m pretty good at throwing things away a little at a time – or so I thought. I was putting something away, looked up at a stack of t-shirts, and realized I could easily give half of them away – then one stack led to another. A few months ago, my friend sent me an article from organizational consultant, Marie Kondo. Read more
May 20
It’s very hard to write around ramps and not start with an apology. Everyone one is writing about ramps right now. Like pumpkins in the fall, they’re everywhere and then they’re gone. Unlike pumpkins, there is nothing contrived about the ramp rush. They’re season really is brief unless you go full-Brooklyn and spend April pickling every hard won Read more
Apr 22
Reading Donna Bell’s Bake Shop Cookbook inspires me to share my New York origin story – or more importantly how I met Darren Greenblatt – one of the writers and co-owners of the eponymous bakery. My older sister’s best friend went to FIT with Darren so he was one of the first people I met when I moved up here to go to school – not that I think I Read more
Finalist for the 2015 James Beard Foundation Award in the International Cookbook Category for The Cuban Table
hungry sofia 