Jun 27
I have wanted to post this recipe for mousse de maracuya/passion fruit mousse for a couple of weeks. Written by Layla, an Ecuadorian woman who now lives in Seattle, Laylita’s recipes is full of great ideas for recreating traditional recipes far from home. This light mousse can be made with frozen fruit pulp as a substitute for fresh passion fruit and replaces condensed milk with heavy Read more
Jun 19
I love guava in all its forms, but they can be a hard sell. When I was in college and brought back guava pastries from home, I could see my friends’ initial enthusiasm for an authentic Cuban indulgence give way to politeness with the first taste. Rich and sweet, they’re not for everyone. That’s why I was excited to see a recipe for guava sorbet included in Kate Zuckerman’s The Sweet Life: Desserts from Chanterelle, one of my favorite dessert cookbooks. I’d been looking for guavas all winter, but only found them a few weeks ago during a market tour in Chinatown. Less fragrant than red or strawberry guavas, I almost passed them by. Left to ripen for a few days, they made a refreshing sorbet, not at all too rich or sweet by any standard. Read more
Jun 7
I have a very dysfunctional relationship with my KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker attachment. I’ve tried a million recipes but the results have been inconsistent. It will give me my dreamed of ice cream for a few hours after it’s just made, but it develops an icy, fuzzy, rock hard taste by the next day. It’s the memories of my few successes that keep me going (there was a green tea ice cream once and a yogurt sorbet that were just right…). That’s why I like Mariana Crespo’s recipe for dulce de leche ice cream so much. It’s straightforward and simple and it gives you a creamy, decadent result every time, that you can take into the week with you.
Jun 1
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…
May 18
This past week was my older sister Cami’s birthday, so I have been wound up planning an informal, low-key picnic in Central Park for 40 people. When I sent out the evite, I was worried that people wouldn’t be able to make it. When the RSVPs climbed, I was worried they all meant it when they said they were. I did my best to anticipate any logistical problems – were the bathrooms at the Delacorte Theater open, were leashed dogs allowed on the Great Lawn, were you allowed to hang a piñata from Central Park’s look-but-don’t-climb trees? (Answers: Yes, Yes, and Not if they see you). I prayed for sun but when I woke up to a gray Saturday morning, I was overwhelmed by the enormous number of things left to do for a picnic that was so obviously going be awash in early afternoon thunderstorms and soaked donkey piñatas.
I wanted Cami to have the classic Cuban spread – cangrejitos (crab-shaped puffs filled with sweet ham), crispy croquetas, meat filled empanadas, bocaditos (small white bread sandwiches filled with flavored cream cheese), and pastelitos de guayaba. Armed with 4 sheets of puff pastry, 3 bricks of cream cheese, ham and picadillo fillings, and the last of the homemade guava paste I’d brought from home, I set to work. To add a further complication, I was also settling in my mother and Chiqui who had arrived the night before for a two week stay (Chiqui being the 8 pound chihuahua who has replaced me in my mother’s affections).
The few hours I had given myself to prepare evaporated between finding extra closet space, outlets for chargers and rolling out emapanada dough. With just an hour to go, it seemed hopeless, and I started weighing the evils of less food versus having friends wandering the park looking for a spot that hadn’t been staked out. Then someone, probably Chiqui, set my iTunes to Celia Cruz. Now while listening to Celia cannot solve every problem, it does make unhappiness almost impossible. Somewhere Between Cao Cao Mani Picao and Oye Mi Rumba, time slowed enough for me to finish my first empanadas and my mother to cut the crusts of my sister’s favorite tuna bocaditos. By the time I climbed up the subway stairs to 81st Street & Central Park West with a box full of Cuban treats and five minutes to spare, I could finally see the blue skies I first felt when Celia started singing.
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
Mar 26
I don’t know if it was the treasure island theme, the two tiered Italian carousel or a contact high from too many helium balloons, but in the late seventies, Omni International Mall sold the most incredible chocolate chip cookies ever made. To this day, if any one in my family mentions that they had a really great cookie, the first question is always, “Omni International good?” Although it’s hard to find a bad chocolate chip cookie, everyone has a different criteria for what makes a great one. The Omni cookies met every possible criteria simultaneously. They were cakey but crisp, gooey but dunkable, and then they were gone. The Omni went from being an upscale retail experiment housing Pucci and Hermes to a tropical shipwreck and sometimes Miami Vice location that prompted your parents to ask if your doors were locked when driving past. Read more
Mar 14
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
Finalist for the 2015 James Beard Foundation Award in the International Cookbook Category for The Cuban Table
hungry sofia 