General | hungry sofia

Dec 18

Shops Around the Corner

Shopping in Brooklyn can be a unique experience, each store its own world staffed by the designer/owner/manager who’s set up shop. Going into the final week before Christmas, I decided to do a quick tour of my favorites looking for housewares and kitchen gadgets, preferably utilitarian but with something more. After all, if they’re pouring out the same 1/2 cup of milk, why shouldn’t measuring cups come shaped like matryoshka nesting dolls or salt and pepper shakers as penguins for that matter? Here’s what I found:

Estrellas de Chocolate

I’ve become deeply suspicious of Cuban cookies. It’s not really the cookie’s fault. They’re just not what we do. Growing up, home baked cookies weren’t foreign but they did have the exoticism of something you’d mostly like get at a friend’s house. Tres leches, meringues, tocino del cielo, flan were home, toll house was not. The last couple of months, I’ve tried a few forgettable variations. I follow the recipes to the letter but cusubes elude me and my caballitos de queque were cinnamon drenched failures. This being the cookie season, I looked though all my Cuban sources for a new recipe that was traditional but workable. Many called for Crisco with 1950’s abandon while others were really turrones (blended with more Crisco). Read more

Dec 13

I Still Want To

Today marks a year since I put up my first post, I want to eat my Christmas tree, so I thought it would be appropriate to re-post now. When I started, I had a vague notion that I wanted to write food and that all my titles would end in ellipses. Since then, I’ve found my focus, spoken to hundreds of people willing to answer thousands of questions, and become the person at the restaurant who photographs her food. I was worried that I would run out of things to write but I’ve kept this site going and had the opportunity to write here, here and there. I must have really been hungry.

Dec 8

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The Lists

With so many “best of” lists coming out not only for the year but the decade, it’s good to have a focus. Looking at the best of cookbook lists that are coming out, I realize that the year has gone by in blink and I have a lot of reading to do. From what I’ve seen so far, I’m happy that Francis Mallmann’s Seven Fires is popping up, hope to see Michelle Bernstein’s Cuisine á Latina included on more, and need to make jasmine rice pudding from The Craft of Baking, by Karen DeMasco and Mindy Fox, immediately.

Click here for Caroline Russock’s Cook the Book take on Serious Eats and here for Eat Me Daily’s roundup. Finally, just for fun here are the top 10 flash mob pics of 2009 in case you missed any.

Dec 4

Playing with Food

I am always inclined to buy fresh quinces. I think it’s the soft gray down that clings to them so that they appear freshly hatched, like apples in baby blankets. Actually using them however is a different story. Too often, I leave them on my counter to look pretty and forlorn until I make a last minute attempt at transforming them into some kind of edible paste or jelly. It seemed a shame to always take something fresh and sugar it down to pulp, no matter how delicious it is with manchego. Determined do it differently this time, I started to look for quince recipes that didn’t end in membrillo. Read more

Nov 25

Anticipation, Apples, Almódovar

I’ve always loved the day before Thanksgiving. Even as my crepe paper pilgrim hat was melting in Miami’s November heat (started out as a Pilgrim lady ended up as the Wicked Witch) in school or a last minute deadline turned my half day into overtime as an adult, I could buzz along on anticipation alone, excited for the days ahead. For a few years I’ve had my own pre-Thansgiving rituals – early day (a day off with a dash of reprieve), quick stop by the Union Square greenmarket for northern spy apples (they go top secret on me when I need them for pie), and an early afternoon movie, ideally the newest Pedro Almódovar which seems to arrive just in time.

Nov 15

Sunday Mornings

I thought I left behind my Saturday cartoon habit in elementary school but realized it’d just morphed into my early Sunday morning movie ritual. I do try to sleep in like everyone else but it’s impossible to explain to my two yorkies why they should let me on this one day of the week (either they don’t want to learn or they can’t learn). Not that I mind too much since it’s the only day I don’t feel obligated to check the weather, headlines or facebook first thing. Cafe con leche and TCM is like cake for breakfast. It doesn’t even have to be particularly good, as long as it’s black and white and has that low crackle soundtrack of sizzling bacon. Maybe I never got Dorothy opening the the sepia door to Oz, but its become my own way to test the waters for the week ahead. A Thin Man movie, it’s going to be a good week. Destry Rides Again, could be trouble. Fred and Ginger, might be s’marvelous.

Nov 11

One Example

As someone who was scolded by a deli owner for trying to buy a stick of butter out of a 4-pack, I loved reading about Judith Jones’ attempt to buy a single stalk of broccoli in Joe Yonan’s, “What an expert eye, and a game plan, can do for the single shopper,” in the Washington Post. Throwing away food is one of my all time pet peeves in the kitchen. I take every expired yogurt and pepper gone mushy as a personal failure so I was inspired by Ms. Jones determination. A few months ago I attended a reading of her memoir, The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food, she kindly advised me to follow my own muse in her dedication. For now, I’ll just follow her example and make every ingredient count.

Nov 3

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Culinary Conspirators

I’ve been grazing in the same used book store for a few months now, becoming protective of the cookbook corner in the back that no one else seems to visit. It’s become a kind of oujia board, I’ll drop in on my way to Sahadi’s and take a quick look for something new or unusual that will take me in a different direction. I’m starting to believe that the books I’ve been finding come from the same collection since they all share a similar sensibility – New York circa Auntie Mame. Yesterday, I finally bought their copy of The Conspirators’ Cookbook published in 1967 under the pseudonym Century Downing. I was drawn to it’s a pleasantly misanthropic, pro-Europe cookery rants against the canned American sixties with chapters like “Mari’s Little Lamburger”, a list of Ten Commandments that includes “shoot anyone who asks for catsup,” and diatribe against “food fakery.” I’ve never been too interested in conspiracies, but I’ve always had a soft spot for curmudgeons ahead of their time. Read more

Oct 31