New York City
Spotlight: Lali Restaurant05.24.12
In this week’s Spotlight, we’re featuring Lali Restaurant, a family-run business Dominican restaurant located in Hell’s Kitchen. This is part of a longer story that Executive Editor Karina Taveras wrote as her thesis for graduate school (which she just completed last week, WOO-HOOOO!).
On an unusually clear and breezy June afternoon, Lestiel Lopez, her curvy silhouette crowding the doorway of Lali Restaurant in midtown Manhattan, declares her latest plan.
“We start selling frio-frio today,” she announces to her staff.
Dressed in a cotton t-shirt and skirt, Lestiel, 30, known as Les, swiftly enters the restaurant, hugging a green jug filled with fresh mint that hides half her face with its wild stems. She walks past the vinyl stools at the counter and plops the greenery down on a table. A gold headband keeps her dark curls in place. Her skin is the color of brown sugar. more »
Get Spiced NYC is LIVE!05.01.12
I’m proud to announce the birth of a new food project. It’s a web food series called Get Spiced NYC and after many months of work, the fist episode is finally LIVE!
In each episode, we’ll sample 1 dish in 3 different spots and give you the verdict, so you can discover the city’s diversity along with us, one neighborhood at a time. Come along for the ride.
Spotlight: Hanoi-Havana Tasting at Zengo04.20.12
Lechon Asado with Vermicelli
Spring is here, which means the perfect time to try something new. Zengo, a Latin-Asian restaurant owned by celebrated Chef Richard Sandoval is doing just that. It has created a special tasting menu available through June that combines flavor profiles shared by Vietnamese and Cuban cuisine. Does it succeed? Let’s take a look. more »
Pommes Dauphinoise and a toast12.28.11
Making Pommes Dauphinoise
And…exhale. After all the holiday parties, tree-trimming, gift exchanges, and last-minute shopping frenzies, being back in the kitchen again was a perfect opportunity to slow things down. So Ana, my mother-in-law and one of my favorite cooks, and I prepared Pommes Dauphinoise (au gratin potatoes) from the Food 52 Holiday Recipe and Survival Guide cookbook that I reviewed last week. We peeled, sliced, grated, sprinkled, and created a delicate rendition of the classic potato dish, all the while using the iPad as a guide, and infusing the house with mouthwatering aromas of nutty gruyère and lemony thyme. We then served it as one of the main characters in a totally simple, cozy meal of hearty pasteles, glazed ham, avocado salad, and red wine. We toasted to family and to being together. Thanks Alex, for capturing the story with your beautiful images. more »
Food 52 Holiday Recipe and Survival Guide12.21.11
An interactive Holiday cookbook? How brilliant is that! A few days ago, I came across the launch of Food 52 Holiday Recipe and Survival Guide, and was giddy to find its nifty collection of Holiday recipes. I’ve downloaded digital cookbooks before, and they are usually striking and beautiful, but feel that they miss one key component: usability. The digital pages of the Food 52 cookbook for the iPad, on the other hand, are filled with photos, easy-to-follow instructional videos, slideshows, shopping resources – and everything has been integrated seamlessly throughout. It also has user-friendly features like notes and bookmarks that allow you to scribble digital notes and save the recipes you want to make in the future. more »
Latinfoodie Goes to Europe12.12.11
Hello Friends, I’m thrilled to share with you my first international byline! I have just been published in Sabor, a food magazine distributed in the Netherlands. For their Winter 2011 issue, I had the honor of covering Latin American tamales, prepared throughout the Caribbean and Venezuela during the Holidays. The story has been translated to Dutch, but here’s the original story in English. Hope it’s what you need to kick off a wonderful and blessed Holiday season! ¡Felices Fiestas! more »
¡Viva México!: Chef Salum at The James Beard House11.17.11
It was a clear Autumn night, one of those nights in the middle of October that deceivingly charms us into thinking that we’re ready for what is to come. In downtown Manhattan, shiny pumpkins sat on brownstone stoops and bursted in their orange skin, leaves hung on to branches, beginning their transition from a joyful emerald green to their brittle golden selves. Yet on this night, even though a sharp chill encroached upon me without an invitation, piercing through my tights and slithering behind my collar, I walked briskly to my refuge for the night. A warm place awaited, and I didn’t even have to leave the city. more »
The Jam Stand comes to brunch09.04.11
Lately I’ve been brunching at home, a lot. One of the highlights of this brunching spree included pairing crepes with Drunken Monkey jam from The Jam Stand, an artisanal jam business founded by two girlfriends Sabrina Valle and Jessica Quon. These adorable ladies are experimenting with wild flavor combinations in their Brooklyn kitchen, creating jams like the Razzy Gabby (raspberries and jalapeños), You’re Bacon me Crazy (bacon!), and Drunken Monkey (bananas and rum). The result is these crazy spreadable concoctions unlike any jam I have ever tasted before. They’re super fresh, have no preservatives, and many of them are made from seasonal ingredients. more »
“YOU GOTTA HAVE A BABY!”07.25.11
Do you remember that Seinfeld episode in which Elaine is surrounded by girlfriends who are telling her that she’s gotta have a baby and move to Long Island? My friend Jess sent it to me this past week, and it got me thinking. It seems like motherhood is knocking on my door in the most unexpected of places.
Every Tuesday morning, Gus and I have the same conversation.”Who’s going to pick them up?”,”Can you pick them up?”, “Are you going to pick them up?”. We’re not talking about babies (yet!), we’re talking about our veggies from the CSA, which we have to pick up every Tuesday night. The thing about the CSA that nobody tells you is that these vegetables become a responsibility. First of all, we have to pick them up before 7 p.m. from the Hudson Guild, which means we have to rush out of work (no later than 6:20 p.m.) if we want to see our vegetables that week. I know what you’re thinking: Why stress over these veggies? Well, we paid a nice and hefty fee back when the year began ($530) to get them, so why not do everything we can to enjoy them?
Don’t get me wrong, the veggies have been great. Last week, I prepared a summer squash and corn soup that had the clearest and most beautiful garden flavors I had tasted all summer. The recipe was included in the weekly newsletter we receive from Stoneledge Farm, which lists the produce of the week, and tips for what to do with it. Last week, I got squash, red onion, dill, eggplant, okra, and green beans. For the soup, I sauteed the squash with onions, poured in some chicken broth, blended it, stirred in some corn, and topped it with feta and lemon. It was unbelievable!
I also have to volunteer at the Chelsea CSA during the course of the summer, which takes place during the work day. They scheduled a trip to the farm, which sounded amazing, but it was on a Friday. So, as you can see, it’s a big commitment, and often work gets in the way. But man, I love those vegetables. When we went out of town this weekend, I thought of them often. “I hope they’re OK. I hope that that they’re OK over the weekend”. And you know what? They were. I got home last night and prepared a big, beautiful summer salad. The romaine was perfectly crispy, the red shallots were firm and plump. I was one proud Mama.
Diary of a CSA06.22.11
Strawberries for a summer spritzer
This year I finally remembered to join a local CSA. For those of you who are wondering what the heck I’m talking about, it’s a Community-Supported Agriculture program that connects you with a local farm so you get fresh, seasonal produce every week straight from the farm. Think of it as a farmer’s market club membership, except that instead of having to go to the farmer’s market, the market comes to you! A few months ago, after some extensive research, I came across the Chelsea CSA, which is supplied by Stoneledge Farm, run by the Kavakos family and located in upstate New York. Every Tuesday night from June through August, I will rush out of the office with paper bags in tow to pick up my vegetable share at Hudson Guild on 26th street. more »
Food For Thought