Bilingual In The Boonies » Comida

The New Southern-Latino Table, a Melding

Carrie — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 14:54:35 +0000

Author is coming to Nashville.

Hey, American South, look what is happening: A new cuisine is emerging, born of Southern and Latino cultures.

Que?

Tamales stuffed with greens, corn ice cream topped with hot praline sauce, brownies with chile, sweet potato and plaintain casserole.

Welcome to El Nuevo South.

The ingredients of our people are joyfully intermingling with traditional Southern staples and celebrated in a new cook book, The New Southern-Latino Table: Recipes that Bring Together the Bold and Beloved Flavors of Latin America & the American South, by Sandra A. Gutierrez.

The 150 original recipes explore the melding of cultures, ingredients and cooking techniques of more than 20 Latin American countries with that of the traditional American South.

We can only say Wepa, Y’all, to that.

Gutierrez, a food writer and culinary instructor from Cary, N.C., will be in Nashville this month during the Southern Festival of Books. She will be on a panel entitled “Meet Me in The Kitchen — Recipes for the New World Cook” from 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 16 in Room 30 of Legislative Plaza. (Be sure to check the online schedule just in case anything changes between now and then.)

I spoke to Gutierrez, who was raised in Guatemala and the United States, about the book and she shared some of her original recipes on the Tiki Tiki. So, head over there, print them out and share, share, share them. (And then buy the book.)

You also can connect with Gutierrez at her site, Sandra’s Kitchen Studio, and on her Facebook page.

I leave you with this image of Guava Layer Cake with Cream Chese Frosting from the book, an image that made me dream of los bakeries in Miami and made me believe I can make this Cuban- and Southern-blended cake for my own daughter, a Cuban-ish girl born and raised in the American South — a perfect melding of cultures. Like the recipes in the book.

From "The New Southern-Latino Table: Recipes that Bring Together the Bold and Beloved Flavors of Latin America & the American South." by Sandra A. Gutierrez. Used by permission, University of North Carolina Press.

I am Weak

Carrie — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:35:18 +0000

The husband and I have been eating mostly vegetarian for several weeks now. The husband has even given up dairy. I do not believe life is worth living without goat cheese, manchego and ice cold milk.

We have felt good and we’ve lost a few pounds.

Enter, Papi from Miami…with a gigantic box filled with pastelitos de guayaba, guayaba y queso and just plain queso.

I looked at my husband: “Are you going to eat one?”

No, he nods.

“Good, more for me.”

You want to know what I had for lunch yesterday?

Cuban bread — AKA baked lard — with olive oil and garlic.

That’s it.

I can run from my Cuban DNA, but I cannot hide.

At least I followed it up with Detox Tea.

I am a little modern, after all.

Hey, so in blog news…I spoke at the Blissdom Conference last week. The topic: Connecting with Media during the Social Media 101 workshop. I am turning the talk into a presentation and I’ll post it online in the next day or two…I can’t today. Too busy finishing the pastelitos.)

You can see some of the tweets from the session here.

Chicharinas and Chicharrones

Carrie — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:06:55 +0000

There were countless Saturday mid-mornings when I would open my bedroom door and up my nose would waft the smell of chicharrones, my younger brother’s snack-of-choice.

It just wasn’t the aroma I needed before noon, but my brother was addicted.

I thought of him first when I accepted the free bags of chicharinas and cinammon churros from the nice lady at Rudolph Foods. I thought she was calling the chicharrones “chicharinas” as some sort of new marketing ploy. Like, “Hey, let’s call this little fat bomb a ‘chicharina’ and make people ‘think’ they are not ‘chicharrones.”

So, initially, I was disappointed. The chicharinas are made of wheat. I wanted the porky fat bomb, a fat bomb that wouldn’t count because I didn’t buy them, right?

OK, so even before I opened them, I went to my favorite taco truck (The one on Charlotte near Watts Ave., if you are in Nashville) and picked up 28 spicy pork and asada tacos and drove to a friend’s house for a quickie Friday night dinner hangout.

She was making her famous guacamole, pictured above. I laid out the chile and lime chicharinas next to the guac, and listened. Everyone loved them. I loved them so much, I held half the bag back! (See it in the background of the picture?) And, then I got caught and everyone else finished off my free blog-earned payola chicharinas.

The cinammon churros were a hit with the kids. I think they’d go great on vanilla ice cream or chai tea and while I enjoyed them, they made me long for the hot, sugary ones I used to get at the Morro Castle on N.W. 7th Street in Miami. But, hey, I’m in Nashville, so que remedio?

Anyway, having gotten all nostalgic over chicharrones, I called my brother and asked him what the hell was up with all that pork rind eating he did as a teen-ager.

“I just loved them, especially abuela’s chicharrones because they had like a 1/4-inch of fat stuck to them,” he said, sounding like an addict about to relapse.

“The best,” he continued. “was when I needed a salty and a sweet and I would eat a chicharron and then have a peanut butter cup!”

I saw my skinny brother in a whole new light in that moment: As a pre-menstrual woman.

Anyway, my brother said he has to step widely around the bags of chicharrones at his New Jersey grocery store.

Should he relapse, Rudolph , who also own’s Pepe’s chicharrones, says they make the best. (They’ve even got a tri-fold, double-sided glossy with pork rind info and pictures to prove the point). They’ve also got some interesting recipes on the site.

OK, Latinos, talk pork fat to me…Why do we like it so much?

And to make the FTC happy, the only compensation I got for this post was two bags of chicharinas and two bags of churros from Rudolph and some blog fodder.

Feedburner Freakout

Carrie — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:53:12 +0000

My apologizies to email subscribers of the Boonie Blog. You are getting links to old posts and I have no idea how to fix it. It seems Feedburner gets un poco loco when you transfer a feed from one site to another and regurgitates the past. I have found several complaints in their help forum, but no one from the company — owned by Google — has answered.

So, I may just Twitter them to death until I get some resolution.

In the meantime, I did learn that I did not have to create a new feed and ask email subscribers to switch over. I simply could have transferred the feed y ya. So, if you haven’t re-signedup yet, ixnay on the sign-up-ay. And hey, if you want to unsubscribe, now is the time.

Very few things bring me to near-tears of frustration…but this blog transfer managed to do that last week…

To make up for the cyber flakiness, I am going to tell you this week about those free chile and lime chicharinas and churros I gladly accepted for free as Mommy Blog Payola…I usually turn down free gifts, but seriously, would you turn down free churros?

Talking Modern Mex food and Dulce de Leche

Carrie — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:48:00 +0000

My husband and I used to entertain a lot. A lot. And often, on the fly and a half-dozen times, it was lechon asado for a hundred. Since Maria was born I could probably count on two hands how many times we have prepared feasts for our friends. Que pena.

This weekend, there were 17 mouths at our house, all after a couple of hours of canoeing down a gloriously high Harpeth River.

The kids got pizza (que se chiben), the adults got Modern Mex, which I put together from a few recipes in Bon Appetit, a magazine I love and adore and delight in. (Photo from the June 2009 Bon Appetit article I used).

It made me want to have fiestas every weekend.

I’m sharing some of the recipes, because they were a hit, and because there’s a caramel dulce leche version that you can try, and if you know me, you know I am all about the dulce de leche.

First, the sangria — Rose wine, pineapple and guava juice. I had no guava juice (Hello, I live in Nashville!), but I did have guava mermelada, which my dad brought up from Miami and I had no idea what to do with until this weekend. I used it anyway. Here is the recipe. You can thank me and tell me how much you love me later.

Shrimp with lime and cumin and a mango, avocado salsa. I left out the scallops. Ay, Dios! I made arepas using a cheater shortcut from Publix, and I threw in black beans and corn. I made rice with summer squash and parsley and cheated on the black beans by using canned. Crema Mexicana went on the table, as did sour cream and chipotle hot sauce.

Had I not been pressed for time, I would have made the toasted coconut caramel topping for ice cream. (My guests got Key Lime Pie ice cream). But, goodness, the caramel topping is dulce de leche with Coco Lopez in it. It is so on the schedule for this weekend. Maria likes to make ice cream, and I like eating it.

If you like dulce de leche, by the way, check out Marta’s recipe on the Tiki Tiki blog this week.
(And tomorrow, you can read Laura I. Gomez’s Tiki Tiki post about throwing a Green treintanera fiesta.)

If I don’t post for a while, it is because I am drunk on pineapple, guava sangrias.

Talk Food to Me

Carrie — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 17:39:00 +0000

So, while I am pretty good multi-tasker, I am a weak meal planner. We eat well and healthy, but I get into a rut.

Now, there is potential in this World Wide Latin Web to find menu inspiration through el Tiki Tiki Blog.
Mira, the idea is you tell me what’s on your menu this week, or what you wish was on your menu this week. You inspire me, you inspire others, we inspire each other…And, everybody shouts Buen Provecho!

Here’s the post at Tiki Tiki.

What do you think?
And, what are you eating?
Post menu ideas over there…

Ahora tengo hambre.

Mucho linkage: Latin books, food, movies, and a good cause giveaway

Carrie — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:07:00 +0000

Happy Monday. I hope the sun is shining and the birds singing wherever you are. It is bright and beautiful in the Boonies — a lovely reward for the gray season we have endured.

The only negative I’ve got going on: The floor in my office is covered with folders for unfinished business taxes. The mess is soul-sucking.

So, here’s some good stuff before I sign out for the day to act like a responsible grown-up.

The International Children’s Digital Library has books in 48 languages available on-line. I just took a test drive and found “La Bruja de la Habana Vieja” (The Witch of Old Havana) and “Me gustan cuentos antes de dormir” (I like stories before I go to sleep) and many, many more. You can search by the Spanish language, and other languages such as German, Farsi and Mongolian. Quite the cool find and credit goes to a brief in the February issue of Family Fun magazine.

Also in Family Fun’s March issue (yes, I let them pile up on my nightstand) is a collection of Latin American comfort foods by Maria Baez Kijac, author of The South American Table. The magazine put some of the recipes online in its very cool “Month of

Meals” planner. Que convenient because I have no idea what I am cooking this week.

Look for the ham and cheese empanadas and the Puerto Rican Chicken Stew, particularly. If you can find a copy of the magazine, there are other recipes that look great, including Cuban black beans and corn casserole from Paraguay. I would type them in, but I’ve got that pile thing to deal with.

Have a child in diapers? Free culeros, or A Giveaway for A Good Cause:

Pampers has launched a campaign called “One Pack = One Vaccine.” It is a global initiative with UNICEF to eliminate maternal and neonatal tetanus (MNT), a preventable disease that claims the lives of approximately 128,000 infants and up to 30,000 mothers in less industrialized nations each year – that’s approximately one newborn death every four minutes, according to the rep’s statement. Vaccines cost just five to seven cents, much less than a postage stamp.

Through May 1, every time folks in the United States and Canada buy specially-marked packages of Pampers diapers and wipes, they purchase vaccines. In 2008, more than 50 million vaccines from the North American campaign were provided to moms and babies. Pampers hopes to raise this year’s total to 80 million. The lovely Salma Hayek, by the way, is the spokesperson for this campaign.

The Giveaway: Pampers reps will send freebies to six of you: Two will get a coupon for free diapers and four will get a onesie. (Even if you don’t need the diapers, you can give them to someone who does…) Winners will be randomly selected.

Here is all you have to do: Comment on this post by 8 p.m. Tuesday March 10 and tell me your best potty training or diaper changing story.

Here’s mine — one of many: Maria laughs until she cries when we tell her about the poop that shot out of her newborn body, splattered on the opposite wall and also dripped down the changing table. She cries thick tears when I tell her about the astonished look on her father’s face, a face that said: “Seriously? Flying poop too?”

A sneak peak:

April 4 brings the Sony Pictures release of “Sugar” — the story of a fictional Dominican pelotero Miguel “Sugar” Santos who tries to make it in the American big leagues. It did well at Sundance. Ah, to be in Santo Domingo today.

EDITED March 11 — Giveaway Winners:

Using Random.org, this is what we’ve got…

Diaper coupons: Adriana and Ashley

Onesies: Jen, Kimmer, Kati and Sarah of bswebster e-mail.

Please e-mail me at the Boonie blog address so I can get your mailing addresses, or I can give you the Pampers rep contact.

Enjoy and thanks for supporting a good cause.

Mucho linkage: Latin books, food, movies, and a good cause giveaway

Carrie — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:07:00 +0000

Happy Monday. I hope the sun is shining and the birds singing wherever you are. It is bright and beautiful in the Boonies — a lovely reward for the gray season we have endured.

The only negative I’ve got going on: The floor in my office is covered with folders for unfinished business taxes. The mess is soul-sucking.

So, here’s some good stuff before I sign out for the day to act like a responsible grown-up.

Meals” planner. Que convenient because I have no idea what I am cooking this week.

Have a child in diapers? Free culeros, or A Giveaway for A Good Cause:

Here is all you have to do: Comment on this post by 8 p.m. Tuesday March 10 and tell me your best potty training or diaper changing story.

A sneak peak:

EDITED March 11 — Giveaway Winners:

Using Random.org, this is what we’ve got…

Diaper coupons: Adriana and Ashley

Onesies: Jen, Kimmer, Kati and Sarah of bswebster e-mail.

Please e-mail me at the Boonie blog address so I can get your mailing addresses, or I can give you the Pampers rep contact.

Enjoy and thanks for supporting a good cause.

Complaining about cold days and hot links

Carrie — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:18:00 +0000

We woke up here Sunday morning to powdery snow. It was beautiful, but I covered my head with the blankets again. I long for Spring, warm breezes and nesting baby birds.

Aye.

The snow has mostly melted, but it’s still freezing here in the Boonies. And, I am beginning to think of myself as Jack Nicholson in The Shining, but instead of typing “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” over and over and over and over again, I would be typing “Que freakin

g frio, que freaking frio, que freaking frio, que freaking frio.”

I whine about the cold a lot.

It gets old.

I know.

Here’s hot stuff though:

Through Spanglish Baby I found this post by a writer whose kids do not speak Spanish. She feels judged by Spanish-speakers for her monolingual children. Be sure to read the comments. Yowza.

My opinion: Whatever works for you. No one should judge a family’s decision to speak a second language or not. But, if you want your children to be bilingual, it’s not that hard to speak Spanish to your kids. Even bad Spanish. If my lazy ass can do it here in Tennessee, you can too.

I feel strongly about it because my second language has opened doors and expanded my brain — not to mention avoid ordering tongue tacos and buy correct train tickets in Italy. I want my daughter to have extra skills and heart-ties to the culture that swims through her veins. Even her very American father wants that, so we work at it. Constantly. Check out this post too.

As an aside, last week I attended a Latina business women’s luncheon. It was in a popular restaurant. Lots of hip locals, lots of Music Row people. My former newspaper publisher was sitting in the next room. I do not think he heard the women break into a rendition of Los Pollitos Dicen — a loud rendition — as they passed the t-shirts around the table. It was very fun and a reminder that it’s a good thing “English-Only” did not pass.

OK, mira here. I found two Latino food blogs this week that have left me very excited and very hungry. Laylita is from Ecuador and she has a delightful and delicious food site. Excellent photography too. I found her when I was googling for a plantano and three-cheese casserole recipe. I never found the recipe, but found Laylita. (The picture to the left is from her fish ceviche recipe.)

And then there is A Little Cup of Mexican Hot Chocolate and More. I am going to make her albondigas soup. I love the pictures too.

Given that I have had Latino sites on the brain lately, please also allow me to introduce you to a blog portal called Blogadera. They just launched with the mission of gathering the best of Latino blogs. If you have a blog, be sure to submit your site if it isn’t already listed. They’re also on Twitter at @blogadera.

Have you heard the good news: Dulce de Leche Girl Scout Cookies.

Carrie — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 19:30:00 +0000

New for 2009: Dulce de Leche Girl Scout Cookies!

Deliriously happy over here about this cookie made of my favorite flavor in the world.

Seriously. I have two boxes coming from a little Girl Scout friend all the way in Colorado. Bless her mother for telling me about it this weekend.

Here is a recipe using the cookies in a dessert with chocolate. Me muero from delight.

And let’s hope it isn’t Pop Tart-like.

I don’t want to have to diss the Girl Scouts.

Anybody try these yet?