Beverages & Drinks | hungry sofia

Jun 25

Una Tormenta

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

Apr 30

10 Comments

Yerba Mate Soda

I keep coming across lists of things I’m not supposed to like. If I do – which is often the case – then I’m from Florida/Brooklyn, varying degrees or white/latino/other, basic or a hipster. The hipster lists really sting because they’re typically include favorite food trends – but then who doesn’t love bacon, green juice is good for you, and mason jars are very practical. I was considering making my own yerba mate-flavored soda when I saw homemade soda listed as a repeat offender and felt very much caught in the act. Read more

Aug 2

5 Comments

Batido de Cherimoya

With my manuscript deadline closing in, I haven’t been able to update as much as I’d like. For months now, I’ve been waiting for life to get back to normal but am starting to realize that this might be it. Not wanting to stay away any longer, I’ve decided to keep it light and frothy – very frothy – and write about batido de cherimoya. I had it for the first time at a small Peruvian restaurant my mother wanted to try. Lost in a tetris-like configuration of strip malls, it was actually a great place with amazing ceviche and Miami-eccentric service. Their jugo de cherimoya reminded me of the icy champola de guanabana (another tropical fruit with a pre-historic exterior and sweet center) I had growing up. Read more

Feb 8

21 Comments

Churros con Chocolate

I was in Miami a few weeks ago when the temperature dipped to the high-60s.* Anywhere else this would have been a non-event in January, but for me it was a big deal. It had been unusually warm through the holidays so my family and I took no chances that this could be our last opportunity for midnight churros at Las Palmas – freshly fried and served with chocolate so thick that the spoon could stand on its own. Read more

Apr 17

12 Comments

Saveur Nomination and Spring Fever

First of all, I am thrilled to announce that Hungry Sofia was nominated by SAVEUR as one of this year’s best blogs in the category of Best Regional Cuisine! I am so proud to be included in a fantastic group of bloggers and can’t thank everyone enough for putting my name into the mix. I’ve discovered amazing new sites among the nominees, so I hope you’ll take a moment to jump over to Saveur. Voting is open from now until April 26. Registration is painless and you can do it here then vote here! Read more

Oct 21

5 Comments

Hot Chocolate with Máchica

This post is brought to you by several false starts and a Mac meltdown. Last week, I was trying to close out of an application when my computer completely froze. Like anyone who doesn’t really understand them, my first instinct was to do a panicky hard reset. Though it turned on, it only gave me a greyed out start-up screen with the endless scrolling ellipsis doing what I’ve now learned is “beachballing”. Several hours, three calls to Apple support, two failed re-installation attempts, and a visit to the Genius bar later, I still couldn’t get off the beach. Told that I’d most likely have to wipe out my hard drive and start over, I made yet another visit to the Apple store thinking that if it came to that, at least I’d be in a safe place. Read more

May 27

8 Comments

Casting Mojitos

There are so many stories around the mojito but the one I hope is true is that its name comes from the African word for “mojo” or casting spells. This makes perfect sense because, as a friend pointed out, mojitos make everyone happy. Assuming all other conditions are equal and in moderation, a strong mixed drink can make someone pensive or low key, exhilerated or stupefied, wild or reckless, but a mojito – happy. It’s even hard to think of a mojito without smiling, it’s a charming little cocktail. Read more

Nov 26

3 Comments

Tropical Floats

I generally stay away from soda. A former diet Coke addict, I’d long sworn off high-fructose pop for San Pellegrino and prissy bottles of French lemonade. Still, I made the exceptions for the Mexican sodas sold in bodegas and taquerias. Coming in flavors like tamarindo, guayaba, and jamaica and made with real sugar, I was mostly attracted to the unreal colors that radiated out of the coolers and glass cases. I hadn’t done product reviews until now but when Jarritos offered to send me samples, I thought it would be a fun way to experiment with the flavors I hadn’t tried. Having spent the summer indulging in egg creams and milkshakes , I decided to make ice cream floats for my friends and find out what they thought. My sister Carmen had an interesting perspective that she offered to write up and post, pointing out more than pretty colors. Read more

Nov 3

5 Comments

Champurrado

After last November, I promised myself that I would build my own altar for el Dia de los Muertos. Though widely observed in Mexico, I only discovered the holiday a couple of years ago. According to tradition, I should prepare some of the favorite foods of my dearly departed, lay them out in their honor, and wait for their promised return. The problem is that while I do have family living in Mexico that I adore, they are in fact living. I may dedicate an altar to welcome my Cuban grandmother’s spirit, but if she returned to find herself on top of a Mexican altar, I would have a lot of explaining to do. Wondering what I could possibly make to welcome her, I thought of hot chocolate. Read more

Sep 27

9 Comments

Cortado

After a wonderful fall break, I thought it was appropriate to wake up my blog the same way I wake up myself – with a cortadito. Landing in Paris was exhilarating, tinged with pink and capped with gold, the city smells like butter. From the first moment, I wanted to go in twenty directions at once. Exhausted but not wanting to lose the day, we went to the closest cafe for a quick lunch before heading out. Ordering in broken French, our waiter responded in broken Spanish. We weren’t getting very far until he hit on exactly what we were looking for – a cortado. Relieved to be understood, I finally felt awake. Read more