The Dish That Brings You Back
Is there a food that transports you to your childhood? For me it will always be a bowl of avena.
My earliest memories are all food related, and the most vivid ones are in my Abuela Dora's kitchen. My grandparents raised my twin brother and me in a rambling farmhouse in Boqueron, a tiny beach town on the southwest coast of Puerto Rico. It was a small dairy farm with chatty chickens, proud peacocks, and loads of cows that the farm hands would take from one corral to another throughout the day.
My Abuela and Abuelo were set in their ways, and almost every morning, noon, and night was a carbon copy of the one before. I always woke to the smell of Sanka wafting through the air, and it would lead me to the small kitchen where my grandmother spent the bulk of her day. Without fail, she turned when she heard the shuffle of my footie pajamas with a stern "Sientate, mija." (Sit down, my girl.) escaping her lips before she even set eyes on me.
Those first few minutes were a sensory overload for a four-year-old. The smell of sulfur as my Abuela lit a match, the sound of her giant gas stove click click-clicking, the woosh of the flame catching. There was the slick yet somehow sticky feel of the tropical-patterned vinyl tablecloth under my fingertips. I'd watch impatiently as my grandmother hunched over a small aluminum pot in her pink bata and matching chanclas, the sound of her wooden spoon stirring avena barely audible over the staccato reporting on Noti Uno news radio.
My Abuela Dora made a bowl of Quaker Oats for me every morning. I loved the tin they came in. The guy painted on the front looked like a grown-up version of Quico, one of my favorite characters on El Chavo Del Ocho, the children's show we watched in the evenings with my grandparents on our small black and white TV.
I grinned when she plopped my plastic plate on that small square breakfast table. I loved watching the oatmeal spread across it, engulfing the white daisy pattern she'd expect to see again before she let me leave to help my grandfather feed the chickens.
Sometimes My Abuela Dora would garnish my plate simply with a drizzled ring of granulated sugar that would brown as it absorbed into the oatmeal. Other times she would top it with sliced bananas or mangoes plucked from the trees that bordered our patio. She watched me intently as I ate while the newscaster droned on in his neverending sing-song.
I adored the sweet, earthy warmth of that breakfast so much that, to this day, the mere sight of a bowl of oats takes me straight back to that kitchen. Sometimes, if I cook the avena just right, I can close my eyes and feel my Abuela next to me, tsk-tsking about my uncombed hair, ready to teach me how to start a new day.
What I would do to feel her hand in mine again, to lock eyes with her, to make her smile, even if just for a second.
Is there a dish that triggers your earliest memories? Who made it for you? Have you tried to recreate it? I can't recommend that enough. There is something so moving about capturing a time and place through food. My Abuela's breakfast staple inspired my recipe for tropical coconut oatmeal. You'll find it after the paywall.
Apple Pie Demo This Sunday!
I’ll be showing you how to make the Apple Pie that got me the opportunity to audition for Gordon Ramsay (and completely changed my life) on Sunday, January 29th, at 3 PM Central. The live virtual demo is for paid subscribers. I’ll be sending out a recipe card along with a Google Meet invite on Saturday, so you still have time to get on the list!
I’m going to show you how to make a killer Cream Cheese Pie Crust, a simple but multi-dimensional Apple Pie Filling, and an easy Pecan Caramel Sauce. If you want to get your shopping done early, I’m listing the ingredients you’ll need below.
Best. Apple. Pie. Ever.
Ingredients for Crust
pastry flour
baking powder
salted butter
cream cheese (2 blocks)
cider vinegar
Ingredients for Filling
sugar
AP flour
cinnamon
1 pinch nutmeg
lemon
baking apples (I use 2 gala, 3 large Granny Smiths, and 3 large honey crisp)
Ingredients for Caramel Sauce
salted butter
brown sugar
heavy whipping cream
vanilla extract or vanilla paste
pecans
New Show Alert!
I have a kid's show airing on PBS right now called Let's Eat Healthy Together. You can watch on-demand HERE.
I helped write the 12 episodes, each tailored to teach kids about nutrition and inspire them to eat a more varied diet. We banged them out in the first weeks of my move from LA to Nashville, and I’ll never forget the Zoom meetings I held in my home office with dozens of unpacked boxes in the background, and the stress of trying to figure out when I would have time to finish rewrites, unpack, start a new gig, prepare for the James Beard Awards, and shoot the show. It’s insane what you can accomplish when you just keep going.
Spanglish, The Cookbook
I've written about half of the recipes in the book, but there is still so much work to do. So I've been getting up at 3 in the morning to work on it before my actual work day begins. My deadline is September 2023, and even though that’s 8 months away, it still feels like someone’s sat on my chest permanently. There is still so much work to be done.
Still on my to-do list: 45 more recipes, headnotes for all 90 recipes, testing of all 90 recipes, photography of all of at least 75 of the recipes, a book cover shoot, a lifestyle shoot, rewrites, and who knows what else.
Whenever I get overwhelmed, I remember that I have some pretty fancy-pants people guiding me through it all. Not everyone gets a team like the one that I have, especially Latinas. This project is so much bigger than me, and the gray hairs it’s producing are worth it.
Tropical Coconut Oatmeal
I prefer to make my oatmeal with quick-cooking steel-cut oats because I'm a fan of their chewy texture— but rolled oats also work. You do you, though I'd steer clear of instant oats. They won't hold up.
All you need to remember is that the ratio of liquid to cereal changes with the type of oats you choose. If you go for rolled, it is 2 to 1, so a 15-ounce can of coconut milk is enough. If you go with steel-cut oats, the ratio is 4 to 1. You will need to add 2 cups of water to the coconut milk.
This recipe overflows with the natural sweetness of coconut, banana, tangerines, and mango. It makes four servings and takes about fifteen minutes to complete. (unless you’re using steel cut, which will take about a half hour). Double the recipe if you want to meal prep for the week. Find the recipe after the paywall. Buen Provecho!