Beverages & Drinks | hungry sofia

Jun 25

A Brazilian Afternoon

Most weekends, when I’ve been to the farmer’s markets, had my brunch, and caught a matinee, I find myself at Rapisarda, the Cobble Hill store owned by Brazilian designer Claudia Rapisarda. I’m not alone. There’s always someone half-shopping, half-visiting Claudia. The store itself is hard to describe. A unique collection of pieces that she both designs and brings from Brazil, it vibrates with color.

It was during one of my visits that she tried to explain how to make farofa, a dish I had been reading about and wanted to try. Claudia can’t not help someone, so she agreed to come to my apartment and show me herself. In addition to the farofa, the menu grew to include: feijoada, a black bean stew with pork (using kielbasa as a substitute for Portuguese linguiça); couve, collard greens sauteed in olive oil and garlic; fluffy white rice cooked with more garlic; sliced oranges; and, of course caipirinhas. Read more

Jun 6

1 Comment

Making a Watermelon Blossom

My friend Alexis who teaches beverage courses at the French Culinary Institute and writes A Thirsty Spirit can turn anything into a delicious cocktail. Click here to read what she did to the agua fresca recipe from the New York Times I’d written about in So Hot.

Jun 1

2 Comments

In a Manhattan Kitchen, Part 2

As promised, I’m posting the results of our market run through Chinatown. When it was all laid out, I have to admit I was intimidated. I knew absolutely nothing about Filipino foods. A combination of Spanish, Mexican, Malaysian, Chinese and Indian, I had never seen many of the ingredients before and their names wouldn’t stop moving long enough to be written down so I’ve included a lot of pictures. With Benjie’s help, Annette explained the origins of what we would be making. Then it all started going at once…

So Hot

Now that the heat is not just outside but very much inside my apartment, I’ve started thinking about ways to cool off this summer. When I came across this New York Times recipe for agua fresca, I knew that I was going to be doing a lot of pureeing in the next few months. I made the cantaloupe agua fresca for the park today, following the directions closely, and loved the results. There are other versions where you don’t strain after blending or add more fruit at the end which I’ll definitely try next time. Mostly, I love having an excuse to buy any farmer’s market fruit too pretty to leave behind (not unlike the fat little bird sugar dispenser I found this weekend). Maybe the heat is getting to me after all?

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