Fourth of July
Hope your fireworks are worth waiting for – Happy Fourth of July!
Posts from the ‘General’ Category
Jul 4
Jun 19
Sopa Paraguaya
Of course, my father had every reason to expect a boy – they already had a girl after all. Though I rarely met him even halfway (tee-ball, soccer and tennis were disasters), I did prefer Star Wars to Barbie (there was a princess in it), wasn’t squeamish about what went in the frituras de sesos he love to make, and stayed awake during The Right Stuff – so I don’t think he minded too much. A foodie before the word, he gave me sugar cane to cut my teeth on, took me to the docks to buy fish as the boats came in, presented me with meltingly tender Italian prosciutto like it was a visiting dignitary, and charmed a fast melting cooler of Mexican guanabana ice cream through customs. Read more
Catching Up in May
I wasn’t really excited about summer (too hot, too soon) until I finished my run this weekend and stopped by the Grand Army Plaza greenmarket on my way home. Seeing some chives in full bloom, I asked the vendor how they could be used. Holding on to the stem, he gently twisted off the light purple puff at the top and presented me with a handful of blossoms – suddenly I could see weeks mint tea, ripe berries, fat peaches and green tomatoes spreading out before me and couldn’t wait to get started. But, before I get lost in the corn fields, I wanted to catch-up on some articles that popped up in May. Read more
May 16
Sorvete de Carambola
Some days, Manhattan’sChinatown could pass for Miami’s Little Havana. I have better luck finding tropical produce there than some of the smaller bodegas or upscale markets where a few tiny specimens are overpriced and undersold. A couple of weeks ago, I took the long way home, working my way through the East Village going along the Bowery to Canal St. where the fruit carts are piled high with pitayas, sapotes, and fresh guavas. Coming across a stack of carambola, I heard music. Read more
May 7
Crêpas de Castaña con Miel
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
May 4
Food Blogging with Steven Shaw
On May 19th, the International Culinary Center is starting a new session of Food Blogging with Steven Shaw, their Director of New Media Studies and founder of e-Gullet. I was talking with a friend interested in starting her own blog the other day and found myself gushing about how much support, encouragement and invaluable information Steven packs into the six-week course (and beyond). If you ever considered starting up your own site or just want help developing the one you have, this is a great way to go about it. This year, they’re also offering one full and one half scholarship to enrolled student. The deadline for submissions is coming up (May 9th) so I hope you’ll click here for more information.
Catching Up in April
The last few weeks, I’ve had some unexpected travel. The trips themselves were planned but it was unexpected how quickly the intervening weeks flew. Feeling like I’d hardly been home when it was time to pack up and leave again, it didn’t help that the entire city is coming out of hibernation so every weekend offers competing to dos, openings and events. Back from Puerto Rico after Easter, I missed the beach but was comforted to find Cobble Hill in full bloom. I had the chance to do a little virtual traveling as well and put up a few more posts on Devour the Blog including camarones al chipotle and torrejas with lavendar and honey syrup with more to come. Read more
Hungry in Mexico, Part 2
From the moment we returned to Mexico City, the meter was running. With only two more days, the list of things that we just had to do was growing. Taking the long way around through Condesa and along Reforma, we went back to the historic center of the city to pick up where we’d left off. Read more
Apr 13
Hungry in Mexico, Part 1
I had planned on a seamless travelogue describing my recent trip to Mexico City – from pre-boarding expectations to new discoveries and life changing insights. But if time stops while you’re on vacation, it goes into fast forward as soon as you get back, so it’s only now that I’ve had a chance to really get back to posting. Visiting for the first time, I wanted to be like Cantinflas‘ Passepartout in Around the World in 80 Days – taking in the countryside as it gracefully glides past, dancing on tabletops, and jumping in bullrings – but more often I was Niven’s Phileas Fogg, nose buried in my moleskin diary planning the next step. I was shaken out of this by the actual Cantinflas in the form of an enormous bronze statue of the actor Jose Moreno in the Zona Rosa. I was fidgeting with my camera and almost missed it altogether. When I finally looked up, he’d turned his back to me – I was disappointing both of us. Thinking too much of what I might be missing, I wasn’t seeing what I had right in front of me. I put the camera down and looked around. Read more
Apr 1
Catching Up in March
March has been such a whirl that I made it all the way to April before I could stop and catch my breath. It started well with my first contribution to the Cooking Channel’s Devour the Blog and it was great to see so many of you making the jump. A new post on stocking my Latin pantry went up yesterday with more to follow. I laid my cupboard bare (well I straightened it up first) so I hope you’ll visit the site again and let us know what’s in yours. I also wrote a piece about Latin American staples – Running with the Grains – for Marcus Samuelsson‘s Food Republic that combines two favorite obsessions – seeking out new ingredients and running till I just can’t anymore. A new site covering everyone from Junot Diaz to Michelle Bernstein (who also helps spices up school lunches here), I was thrilled to be a part of their launch this week. Read more
hungry sofia 
