Aug 29
Lately, in my heat-addled mind, the most satisfying meals can be summed up in two words – cold and simple. Though gazpacho meets both criteria, I’d yet to make it this summer. Looking for a new variation, I tried this popular recipe for gazpacho al estilo de Patricia by Spanish chef José Andrés. Having experimented with pale ajo blanco, deep pink gazpacho with strawberry and fennel, and classic red with tropezones, it was time to go green. Read more
Aug 22
A few weeks ago, I interviewed Fany Gerson for The Latin Kitchen about La Newyorkina on New York’s High Line which has become my favorite stand at one of my favorite city spots over two seasons. I love the way the park cuts into the sky line, but I hadn’t appreciated what the expanding line-up of food stands brings to the space until Fany described seeing her incandescent pops walking along the railway paths. Read more
Jul 20
A few weeks ago, I set out to find shaved ice vendors on the Lower East Side for Edible Manhattan. Not only was it early spring, but it felt like years since I’d come across the kind of traditional, wooden slat push cart I was hoping to find. When I did set out to look for them one Saturday, it was the kind of hot where the pavement trembles in front of you, so it was a very real relief when I met Andres Fabré on the corner of Clinton & Essex. Last week I filmed this Edible segment for NY1 with Rachel Wharton of Edible Manhattan featuring Andres – all the assurance I needed that it was more than a mirage.
Jul 11
I always hope that someone will see a recipe on my site and decide to try it out for themselves. In the case of these porotos granados, I absolutely understand if they wait for the cooler days of summer. I came across the Chilean recipe months ago when fresh cranberry beans seemed very far away. With origins going back to the pre-Columbian Mapuche Indians, it brings together my summer favorites- fresh beans, tomatoes, and corn. Available year around as dry Roman beans, I could have made the dish with frozen corn, and canned tomatoes but decided to wait. Finally, last week the cranberry beans made their appearance at my Sunday farmer’s market, right around the time someone turned the heat up to a 100 degrees. Read more
Jun 26
It’s been coming for awhile, but instagrams are now everywhere. Nostalgia for the present makes sense in the summer and that seems to be the app for it. While I love the effects, there’s something unearned about tapping an icon and adding a 1977 filter to a 2012 happening. As someone who already has a seventies-circa filter coloring their earliest memories, it can be disorienting, erasing the line between then and now. Read more
Jun 15
In case you missed it, I posted this recipe for alfajor de coco on Devour the Blog and wanted to share it here. Normally, having something this sweet on hand is dangerous – sneaking slivers on every trip to through the kitchen until it’s gone sooner than I’d like (or would ever admit to). In this case, the tart just got better with each passing hour so I had extra motivation to keep walking until I could properly indulge.
Jun 5
I’ve had it flagged for a long time but it wasn’t until this weekend that I finally made a batch of Galician filloas. Served year around in northern Spain, they are most popular during early winter’s carnival season. Similar to crêpes, they’re made from with the usual suspects – flour, eggs, milk – but can also be blended with stock and cooked off with bacon fat or lard instead of butter. The thin batter is poured onto a hot skillet (or a stone), flipped and filled or sprinkled with sugar and served as dessert. Hovering somewhere between sweet and savory, they can be hard to classify. Read more
May 20
It was about a year ago today that I started a major kitchen re-haul (really a few hours) before throwing a surprise party in my apartment. I say started because, while everything was put back into some kind of order, I don’t think it was really finished until this week. Faced with the potential embarrassment of friends seeing my apartment in shambles, I made miracles happen and then took some time off (about 12 months to be exact). Most of the elements were in place but crowded, and I hadn’t gotten around to tying it all together. Read more
Apr 29
When I decided to make bollitos de carita – black-eyed pea fritters made from beans soaked for hours then husked and ground to a paste – I couldn’t believe no simmering would be required. Left overnight, they were supposed to blister and pucker leaving behind perfectly tender, creamy white beans. I loved that caritas roughly translates to “little faces” and imagined removing the peel would be as simple as slipping off a mask. Not so. Some popped right out but more needed coaxing, and no matter how many I did, there were always more. Read more
Apr 17
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
Finalist for the 2015 James Beard Foundation Award in the International Cookbook Category for The Cuban Table
hungry sofia 