A few weeks back in a conversation with some fellow bloggers I mentioned that eventually I might run out of Dominican dishes to write about. Oops. Hit the panic button! Not really. I have four words for you: morir soñando ice cream. In 12 years doing this I have gone through about a little over a
I have been receiving requests to add this recipe for a long time, years in fact. I have to say that it isn’t just procrastination that has caused this, if you know me well, you know that I am not a big fan of fried foods. As a food blogger that documents a lot of
A bunch of years ago, about 10, I think, I was a regular in a news and travel website about the Dominican Republic. Through the forum I got in touch with somebody who also lived in Santo Domingo and who, coincidentally, picked up her groceries every week at a business very close to where I
How has the year treated you so far? For me last year was a year of professional growth, and some personal challenges. I saw some more of our beloved country, met new people, networked with some awesome colleagues, got a lot of new clients. In all, the balance was good, and it seems like this year
If nostalgia were a disease, I would be immune to it. I have yet to remember any time in which the past seemed like a place I wanted to go back to. I live by the philosophy that if we spend our lives yearning for the times gone we won’t find the energy to make our present the best
About ten years ago I was in Denmark, where my husband hails from, spending the holiday season with his family. With a full schedule of eating and more eating ahead, I had the “brilliant” idea of treating everybody to an “authentic” traditional Dominican pre-Xmas Xmas meal on the 23rd, including a delicious pan de batata (sweet potato cake) for
In an a recent interview for a magazine I was posed a question: “Where do you get your recipes?”. I’m not going to reproduce my answer (the interview hasn’t been published yet), but this recipe is perfect for exploring some of it. Inspiration sometimes comes from odd places. But let me mention that these mini-tart shells (tarticos in the DR)
Quick, before the last strawberry is gone from the shelves! This delicious, and unusual dessert is made from the two crops for which the Constanza region is best known: strawberries and potatoes. The idea came after an email asking if I had any “gluten-free” recipes inspired me to make one that was entirely free of wheat.
September arrived and I breathed a sigh of relief. For a moment there I could feel its absence. I was looking forward to its departure, and excited about its replacement. But then, like a bad guest, it decided to stay a “little” longer. And here we are in mid-september and it hasn’t left us. Go
In an introduction to Dominican party food for our book, Jill Wyatt wrote: “Just as a child’s birthday cannot be appropriately celebrated without a sugary fruit punch in which banana slices are set adrift, it appeared that mourners could not properly grieve, nor could merrymakers effectively make themselves so, without some alimentary offering”. Jill has a talent for capturing the
In my head paleta de batata (sweet potato popsicles) and summer are indelebly connected. When I was a kid I spent many a summer in the Santo Domingo neighborhood of San Carlos, where one of my aunts lived. Back then it was the kind of old-fashioned middle class neighborhood you see in movies depicting the
Welcome to our new front page. No, you didn’t accidentally click on the wrong link. We have changed a few things around (and will do some more). I am in the process of simplifying a lot of things in our blogs and of rethinking others. I must. I need to. Summer break always means having
Unless you have travelled or lived in Central America, you will probably have never heard of the pitahaya, also known as ‘pitaya’ or ‘dragon fruit’. It is widely cultivated in countries such as Nicaragua where it is mainly used in making a popular natural juice with a distinctive beetroot-pink colour. It is also grown in other
Coming from a coastal town in an area defined as “Tropical Desert Forest” my first visit to Constanza in my early teens came as a real shock. Geographically and climate-wise you would have a hard time finding two places so different and still located on the same small island. To my 13 (or 12?, can’t
Valentines Day is approaching, as the media keeps on relentlessly reminding me. I’ve also been told that my husband can apparently only prove his love by showering me with gifts of flowers, perfumes, sparkly stones and other mostly-useless objects. But we are an odd couple, we are. In the 15 years or so that we’ve
One too many dulce de coco (coconut fudge) later: “These extra pounds have to go!” I exclaim looking at myself in the mirror. Normally this would not be much of a problem if it wasn’t because I was in the middle of the holidays. Ah, the holidays. Time to overeat, overindulge, and find excuses. Not
I always wondered how the parents’ occupations influence their kids future career choices. In my case my own parents’ choices (teacher/principal and accountant) are what I call my “nightmare careers”. Trust me, I know the world needs accountants and, even more, it needs teachers, but I have neither the talent nor the inclination for these. It
Have you ever heard of the word “scrumping”? No? You’re not alone. As it happens, neither have most of the world’s non-British English speakers, as far as I could find. And when they have, most of them think of a completely different activity than the one in the minds of Brits. Allow me to explain
There is an enormous variety of pumpkins, but in the Dominican Republic the best known is the auyama (West Indian pumpkin). A vegetable that has many uses in our cuisine: from desserts to rice dishes, from food coloring to filler in stews. This is a less-common presentation, but no less delicious. Auyama is recommended as
Every nation has its rules about what goes and what doesn’t when it comes to gastronomy. Coffee here as we know is drunk sweeter than sweet. Those of us who decline any sugar at all are considered eccentric at best. In the same way as Italians who react with horror at ignorant foreigners who flout
Lost in translation: It isn’t only an acclaimed movie that I could not bring myself to like. The language barrier is one of the biggest problems we have when writing articles, and even more so when developing and writing recipes. Not only do you have two people here who speak different variants of English, and
A popular item in the Dominican diet which is not always everyone’s favourite is the papaya, known in the DR as ‘lechoza’. And most popularly consumed in this delicious batida de lechoza (papaya milkshake). Several countries in the region seem to shy away from the word papaya, which has – it appears – other connotations. Venezuelans
Things are changing around here, most of the changes are in the background, but they slowly start showing. Switching from our old platform to our new blog format is something that we discussed, and something I (Aunt Clara) particularly thought pretty hard about. Our old format served us well for many years, but things needed
After a few days during which our very hot summer gave way to intense and seemingly-random rain, we are back to sunlight and hot days. Fortunately we Dominicans have a few weapons in our arsenal to help us survive the heat. Fermented drinks are not uncommon in the Dominican Republic. I’d dare to say that
For the last 3 days it has been raining in our corner of the world. Does anyone have the number for a good ark builder? Luckily it hasn’t been raining non-stop, something we have experienced in the past, but the sun hasn’t been out that much lately. Up to some point it is a nice
For the last few days my family and I have been in Europe, Denmark more specifically, as we visit relatives and catch up with what’s new since our last visit. Although May is not our time of choice to visit (still a bit too cold for our taste), at least we got here in time
Oh, how time flies my friends! Today we finally change the very last of the tiny, lo-res pictures we used in the first version of this site, made with a 3 mp camera in the kitchen of my old apartment. Time flies and so does technology. When I first started this site, as a way
Life moves in circles, doesn’t it? And never is this more evident than when you have kids, and one day you look at yourself in the mirror and your mother (or father) stares back at you, while that kid loudly demanding your attention reminds you of that child that used to look at you from
Sometimes I think we should change the name of our site to Dominican Cake and Other Recipes. A good percentage of the people who come to our site do it because they are searching for this recipe, this recipe generates more questions than any other, and it’s the one that seems to give most people
Yesterday I was talking on the phone with Sagrario from the magazine Vainilla y Azafrán (@VanillayAzafran) about the changes in the ways people learn how to cook these days, specifically the ways they learn to cook our food. Whereas a couple of generations back most Dominicans learned how to cook from their moms, aunts and
It may surprise you that my favorite part of keeping these sites is not trying all the yummy dishes that I write about. Sure I like cooking, and I like eating what I cook, I also love writing about food and our adventures with it, but most of all I like making pictures of food.
I have always wondered why some of our dishes have been relegated to obscurity. Perhaps is the humble provenance of those dishes, something we have written about before, that keeps them away from the refined table. Maybe it’s time the revolution reached the cupboards. Jalao is one such humble dish that still languishes as colmado
At first glance this childhood favorite might not seem a good fit as a recipe for our Two Weeks of Valentine. Maybe if you give it a second glance you’ll see how it totally is. These lollipops were kids’ favorites a couple of decades back, although they didn’t seem to be so common in my
Aunt Clara's Kitchen is a collection of traditional Dominican and Dominican-inspired recipes, home ideas, crafts, and the chronicles of Aunt Clara and Aunt Ilana's adventures.
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