I discovered Despana by accident, looking for something else, in the disorienting cross streets where Little Italy becomes Soho. A small gourmet shop and wholesaler specializing in Spanish imports, it’s lined on one side with olive oils, jars of preserves, canned delicacies and Valor hot chocolate and cases of cheese and cured meats on the other. There’s also a small lunch counter offering pintxos, tortillas, bocadillos, salads and desserts. Basically, everything you worried you’d never find when your year abroad ended. Now that I have found it, I plan to seek it with purpose, again and again and again.
I live a few blocks away from Cobble Hill’s Smith Street where you can’t swing a baguette without hitting three French bistros. With my mother visiting and my blog in mind, we decided to try Coco Roco, a Peruvian restaurant, for lunch instead. After my last few deep fried days, I ordered the Peruvian paella with mixed seafood and chorizo although next time I will definitely have the arroz chaufa de puerco, a fried rice with shredded pork that was tender and well seasoned. Simple dishes, I loved the brightness the cilantro, fresh peppers and corn added to each. Read more
This past week was my older sister Cami’s birthday, so I have been wound up planning an informal, low-key picnic in Central Park for 40 people. When I sent out the evite, I was worried that people wouldn’t be able to make it. When the RSVPs climbed, I was worried they all meant it when they said they were. I did my best to anticipate any logistical problems – were the bathrooms at the Delacorte Theater open, were leashed dogs allowed on the Great Lawn, were you allowed to hang a piñata from Central Park’s look-but-don’t-climb trees? (Answers: Yes, Yes, and Not if they see you). I prayed for sun but when I woke up to a gray Saturday morning, I was overwhelmed by the enormous number of things left to do for a picnic that was so obviously going be awash in early afternoon thunderstorms and soaked donkey piñatas.
I wanted Cami to have the classic Cuban spread – cangrejitos (crab-shaped puffs filled with sweet ham), crispy croquetas, meat filled empanadas, bocaditos (small white bread sandwiches filled with flavored cream cheese), and pastelitos de guayaba. Armed with 4 sheets of puff pastry, 3 bricks of cream cheese, ham and picadillo fillings, and the last of the homemade guava paste I’d brought from home, I set to work. To add a further complication, I was also settling in my mother and Chiqui who had arrived the night before for a two week stay (Chiqui being the 8 pound chihuahua who has replaced me in my mother’s affections).
The few hours I had given myself to prepare evaporated between finding extra closet space, outlets for chargers and rolling out emapanada dough. With just an hour to go, it seemed hopeless, and I started weighing the evils of less food versus having friends wandering the park looking for a spot that hadn’t been staked out. Then someone, probably Chiqui, set my iTunes to Celia Cruz. Now while listening to Celia cannot solve every problem, it does make unhappiness almost impossible. Somewhere Between Cao Cao Mani Picao and Oye Mi Rumba, time slowed enough for me to finish my first empanadas and my mother to cut the crusts of my sister’s favorite tuna bocaditos. By the time I climbed up the subway stairs to 81st Street & Central Park West with a box full of Cuban treats and five minutes to spare, I could finally see the blue skies I first felt when Celia started singing.
Today was my work shift at the Park Slope Food Coop. I am on a food processing crew which means that, every four weeks, I make my way across Union street, pull on an apron and start bagging spices, grains, nuts – whatever is missing. I thought this was only means to an end so I could shop there, but it’s become something that I look forward to every month. I love the easy, early morning chat that transpires between a handful of people with only dried cranberries and brazil nuts in common. It’s a nice lull before turning in my apron and heading upstairs to jostle with the tatooed yoga mommies for organic mangoes, green peppers and Spanish cheeses, another shift completed.
When I decided to write a food blog about Latin food, I knew this day would come. I can’t blame the blog. I’d been looking for an excuse to buy a deep fat fryer since I came across this best of list in Food & Wine last year. When a top appliance pick is also the most economical, my mind goes blank and I don’t come to until I’m punching in the three digit security code on the back of my credit card.
I’d avoided it this long because I believed my deep fear of frying was the only thing keeping me safe from the sleeping Cuban monster inside me. The monster that will fry anything that can’t fry it first. Apart from small batches of plantains or potatoes, I mostly avoid deep frying. I’m never quite sure of the temperature, so everything comes out uneven and random pops from the pan sends me scurrying. But now churros, empanadas, and croquetas aren’t just temptations to be indulged in moderation, they’re research. So today, after 3-5 business days, the Amazon stork delivered my deep fat fryer, and it’s an entirely different kind of monster.
I hate being cold, but I love getting warm. As soon as I found this recipe for “Age of Discovery” Vanilla-Scented Hot Chocolate from Maricel E. Presilla’s The New Taste of Chocolate: A Cultural & Natural History of Cacao with Recipes, I had to try it. Based on a seventeenth-century treatise by Antonio Colmenero de Ledesma, the drink discovered in Mexico and brought to Spain was touted as a cure-all. I had set off to make this a couple of months ago but had gotten sidetracked. After the sudden onset of summer heat last week, I thought this would be my last hot chocolate for awhile. Read more
Finding Latin American staples in New York is harder than you’d think. A little spoiled, I expect everything to eventually make it’s way here though the trick is finding where its landed. Divided by a common language, a dominican grocer will give you a noncommittal shrug when asked whether the mountain of batatas he’s standing in front is not actually the cuban boniatos that you’re looking for. Although I’m fluent in Spanish, I have a second-generation-american’s insecurity when faced with a native speaker and assume the miscommunication is on my end. That’s how I ended up lost in Jackson Heights buying a colombian arepa griddle which is actually a mexican comal for making tortillas, or maybe it’s both?
I don’t know if it was the treasure island theme, the two tiered Italian carousel or a contact high from too many helium balloons, but in the late seventies, Omni International Mall sold the most incredible chocolate chip cookies ever made. To this day, if any one in my family mentions that they had a really great cookie, the first question is always, “Omni International good?” Although it’s hard to find a bad chocolate chip cookie, everyone has a different criteria for what makes a great one. The Omni cookies met every possible criteria simultaneously. They were cakey but crisp, gooey but dunkable, and then they were gone. The Omni went from being an upscale retail experiment housing Pucci and Hermes to a tropical shipwreck and sometimes Miami Vice location that prompted your parents to ask if your doors were locked when driving past. Read more
Given the dire state of our economy, it’s probably a mistake to take every business closing in my neighborhood to heart, but I can’t help it. When Café Nova on the corner of Warren St. & Court St. closed down, I was crushed. Naturally, I blamed myself. Was it because I regularly took up their tables for an hour and 15 minutes to nurse a single latte while I did my laundry? Was it because I refused to call it anything but Café Nova even though it had been Margaret Palca Bakes for a couple of years already? Was I too aggressive when I stared down that spoiled 8 year old girl for a table? Did I scare away the mommy money and help put them out of business? Mostly, I love my neighborhood and don’t want to see it suffer. Since my favorite coffee spot closed this January, my heart would sink a little every time I passed the shuttered corner. Read more
Last night Powerhouse Arena in DUMBO hosted a party for Jennifer 8. Lee’s The Fortune Cookie Chronicles. It was a great event with Chinese ice cream, Thai beer, and lucky cakes from the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. Lee showed footage from her research into the true origins of General Tso’s chicken, chop suey and fortune cookies among others. It’s a great story about cultural adaptation and reminds us all that immigrants who speak with accents don’t necessarily think with them.
hungry sofia 