Cuisine by Country | hungry sofia

May 4

The Hard Way

I love doing unnecessary things, and I’m good at them. I run ridiculous distances when not being chased, am a meticulous Christmas present wrapper, and a refrigerator door alphabetizer. That’s why I am determined to make guava pastries from scratch even though I haven’t been able to pull off the puff pastry. I tried again this afternoon with a dough I had made, and I ended up with guava scone/pop tarts instead. To add insult to injury, I made a second batch with frozen Trader Joe’s artisan pastry that puffed pretty and were much less trouble. Still, no sense of ownership on the Trader Joe’s, so I’ll just have to keep trying.

May 3

Make It Hot, But Not Yet

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

May 2

Next Time in Chile

I have no present plans to visit Santiago, Chile but I love saving these travel articles when I come across them. I thought this wonderful review of Hosteria Doña Tina worth keeping if only because it says there are few restaurants in Santiago that serve traditional Chilean food, so I’ll want to remember where they put this one. Actually, I find this true of many Latin countries, and I’m not sure why. Perhaps because so many swear that the best, most authentic food can only be found in their homes, the only alternative is to have their actual mother as the chef and the brothers and sisters as waiters.

May 1

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Kako’s Arepas

Now that I thought I had the right arepa pan, I was dying to test it out. An increasingly popular street food trend, I wanted to master making them at home so I could have them with leftover guisados and the Colombian cheese I could only buy as a wheel. Generally, I prefer the peaceful precision of baking, so I decided to follow the directions on the package and stuff them with ropa vieja I had left from earlier this week. The results were disappointing, a little too messy, and definitely too raw.

The Spanish Goose Whisperer

I’d heard Dan Barber mention an ethical foie gras producer he’d discovered during a panel discussion for the Brooklyn Book Festival in 2007 so I was excited to come across a talk he gave this winter where he elaborated on his encounter with Eduardo Sousa, the owner of the Pateria de Sousa. I always associate Extramadura with drought and a barren landscape so I fell in love with the paradisiacal description of the farm. But then I’m not a goose.

Apr 27

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Old Clothes/New Beginnings

When I asked my grandmother who’d taught her how to cook, her answer was always “el exilio”. Married in the 40’s and raising children in early 50’s Havana, she was very much a part of a generation that believed every modern convenience was invented to limit their time in the kitchen – a movement that if she hadn’t followed, she would have invented. Then like many women emigrating to Miami and starting over in a new country with less help and fewer resources to feed their families, the one guide they all shared was Nitza Villapol’s Cocina Criolla.

Known as the Cuban Julia Child (if those two things aren’t in fact mutually exclusive), her book became the center of every cuban kitchen in exile, providing a way for them to see their family’s through a difficult transition and begin recreating what they’d left behind. A controversial figure, whenever I have a basic question about Cuban cooking the first suggestion is always to check el libro de Nitza. Reading through it now, I find all kinds of idiosyncrasies. Cubans are unrepentant Francophiles so while they’re french terms sprinkled throughout, there’s an entire section that puts “pie” in quotes and names ingredients by their American brand names. Only available in a slight, paperback edition that looks dog-eared even when it’s new, it’s a popular gift even now for Cuban women who are either getting married or leaving home, whichever comes first. My own copy found me when I was helping to pack my grandmother’s belongings after she’d passed. I was shocked. First, that she owned a cookbook and second that it had clearly been used. Read more

Apr 24

Zagats in Cuba

I thought this article about food in Cuba from the Atlantic Monthly online was pretty accurate. When I visited Havana in 2000, any food I had outside my family’s home tasted like ashes, and the service was indifferent when not insulting. Inside, however, my great aunts were able to work miracles with the little food we’d brought, together with the fresh vegetables that had come in earlier that week from the countryside and sold house to house for dollars. I remember a big part of each morning involved picking the stones from the rice. There were also tiny stones in the queso guajiro we ate every night with bread and Menier chocolate from Miami. Stones in rice inedible, stones in cheese dipped in chocolate, oddly fantastic.

Apr 23

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Lost in Translation

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?

Mar 14

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Shortbread Saints

I promised myself that it wouldn’t escalate. An after-work dinner with a friend in a nearby restaurant became dinner with friends plural at my house. I know it’s a mistake to try new things on guests. By the time people arrive, I’m too tense/excited/tired depending on how it went that I can’t enjoy myself. But who can resist a captive audience? Read more

Dec 29

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A Palace Tour

I start every trip to Miami at Versailles Restaurant on Calle Ocho. Versailles lives up to its name with its mirrored walls, court in eternal debate, and heavily bejeweled matrons . The front entrance opens onto a long red carpet leading to the two, raucous dining rooms. There may be music playing at Versailles, but it’s impossible to hear over the sounds of politics, silverware, and full-blast air conditioning. Recognition is key, and upon entering everyone immediately scans the room for familiar faces. A quick table stop or two before being seated can whether you’re given the real menu or the tourist menu in English.

I rarely have Cuban food outside of Miami. Deceptively simple, it’s easy to get wrong. Today, I arrived with a checklist of things I’ve been dreaming of from the moment I booked my flight – tortilla de platanos, croquetas de yucca, ropa vieja, flan de queso. Nevertheless, once there, I ordered to please my waitress. Versailles boasts the boldest wait staff in the Miami and possibly the world. They’re like a female army in tight green, polyester leisure suits trained by hypercritical, but well-meaning Cuban grandmothers. One raised eyebrow or sharp comment, will prompt you to cut down a croqueta order and cancel the fries, yet they seem genuinely disappointed if you don’t clean your plate and order dessert. I had a media noche since it’s hard to find a cuban sandwich made with the traditional pan de agua outside of Miami. It was heavy on the ham but still delicious. The fried plantains were also fantastic, perfectly sweet without being oily. For dessert, I had the brazo gitano, a rolled cake with dulce de leche filling and chocolate frosting. My cake was a little dry, and I was soon begging my sister to share her flan with me. Finally, even though it’s just a macchiato, it tastes so much better when you can call it a cortadito and have it on a warm December day.

When I was little, I made no distinction between the plastic baroque of Versailles and the palaces of books and Disney movies. Even as an adult, it never disappoints. Like going through the looking glass, it becomes as small or big as you need it to be on that day, at that moment. I’ll visit Versailles several times on my trip as I work my way down my list. With each meal, I settle into it’s rhythms and sounds till it’s time to go home again.