I am not sure what changes as one grows older. Slowly our taste in foods change, and things that we would have considered “gross” or that we didn’t like as kids slowly become acceptable foods, enjoyable even. I have yet to meet a kid who doesn’t love pasta, or one who enjoys eggplants. Likewise, I
For today I had a rich dish that included a cup of butter in its preparation. There was a change of plans. The night I was supposed to go in the kitchen to make this dish I woke up at 3AM with a dull pain in my stomach. Don’t worry, nothing more serious than an
A few years back, as part of an advertisement campaign, a certain local company had a funny commercial in which a newlywed husband called his wife on his way home to ask what she was cooking for supper. We never see the wife, but the husband gleefully repeats what she says: – “Pastelón de arroz?!”
Not long ago I got two emails from readers asking if I could give them ideas on how to cook brown rice. About a week later we hear the alarming news that government agencies were warning consumers in the US that rice might be contaminated with arsenic. Shortly thereafter another warning: brown rice was even
If you’ve been around for a while you may have noticed that my versions of traditional recipes, like this one for locrio de pica-pica (rice and spicy sardines), are often modified to make them healthier, and sometimes some extra vegetables are included. There is a reason for that: I write the recipes the same way I
Yesterday I got the call from school that every parent dreads: the school doctor told me Nadia had fallen in the playground. Before I went into full panic mode, and with a swiftness that I suppose comes from either training in handling freaked-out parents, or the experience of doing so, she informed me that other
Before I get another word out let me clarify something: This is not like the Christmas rice you know. And I know this because I have yet to taste two that are the same. Everybody seems to have a different idea of what it contains and how it should taste. Having said that, I have
There is more to the history of arroz con fideos (rice and fried noodles) than you think. It’s a story of immigration and travel. One of the greatest things about running this site for over 9 years is, that due to a strong web presence, our site has become the virtual Dominican gastronomic embassy. In
“What do you mean you ‘don’t like it’?” How many times have we been the source – or target – of that baffling question? Taste is a weird thing, and the old adage “there is no disputing about tastes” encapsulates perfectly the pointlessness of such arguments. Perhaps the wisest approach to life is to …
Dominicans are not the only ones to serve rice and beans, or to make moro, in fact this dish seems to exist in different incarnations in several Caribbean nations. Of course each country has its own flavor and combination of ingredients, just like each household in the Dominican Republic probably has its own version of
This weekend a friend and I visited Santo Domingo’s Chinatown, an uptown section of Santo Domingo that Chinese immigrants (recent and old) have made their home. Some of the ones we met didn’t yet speak any Spanish, some spoke Spanish with a heavy accent. We met two of them that were listening to, and enjoying,
I was 12, and I fell in love. It was all new to me and I was smitten: I ate moro de guandules con coco for the first time. It was my first trip to Samaná, and I remember with a smile the horror on my brother’s face when he found out that the food
We were guests in the home of Dominican friends. Three weeks passed without incident, until one day Mr. Rivera took ill and went to the hospital with who-knew-what stomach ailment. His wife stayed by his side morning and night, and I was thrust in the role of “Ama de Casa”. I decided right away that
Cooking rice and cultivating houseplants. I have the kiss of death when it comes to these things. I don’t know what it is about me, but sooner or later every plant that comes into my care meets a sad, withered demise. I have even been known to kill cacti. But that’s another story. Rice is
It’s fair to say that I have learned as much from my readers’ comments and emails throughout these years than I may have taught them. And I have discovered a treasure trove of new dishes in our cuisine that I did not know existed prior to my starting to write about Dominican cooking. A million
Speaking of locrio de Pollo (Dominican rice and chicken), let me tell you a story… There are some cooking disasters that nobody but us knows, secrets that we keep as if they were bedroom secrets. Others, well, those others nobody seems to forget. My most infamous ones you ask? They seem to all involve rice.
An estimated 30,000 people of Chinese origin live in the Dominican Republic. Migration from China began in the second half of the 19th century and continues to this day. Many Chinese immigrants also came to the DR from other parts of the region like Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Peru and Ecuador. The early Chinese immigrants to
Now and then you come across food snobs who make a distinction between ‘haute cuisine’ delicacies and what they consider to be comida de pobre, inferior foods. This is usually connected to social class and custom, and almost always with economic necessity. As time goes by many of these distinctions have become blurred. Dominicans have
Let’s get our rice fix in a much lighter way: with a delicious asopao de camarones (shrimp and rice pottage). We’re not quite half-way through 2004 yet, but now is as good a time as any to sit back and reflect on whether the good intentions expressed at the beginning of the year have turned into
This is written with children in mind but much of the advice applies to adults as well. Accidents in the home – especially in the kitchen – can be avoided if you apply several commonsense measures. My first and central tip would be: if at all possible, keep children out of the kitchen when you
School is about to start, and children everywhere are going to be asked to speak or write about what they did on their holidays. Why should I be any exception? The difference is that I’m not going to go on at length about what I did, but what I learned. I spent the first couple
Arroz con Leche se quiere casar / Con una viudita de la capital / Que sepa tejer, que sepa bordar / Que ponga la aguja en el mismo lugar. – Children rhyme Arroz con leche is one of the most popular and simple-to-make of Dominican desserts. To the naked eye it could look like same
I like to think I’m a pretty good cook. But it wasn’t always so… At the debut of my marital career I was only 23 and my recipe repertoire consisted of little more than grilled cheese sandwiches, toasted marshmallows, and the quintessential Kraft Dinner. To complicate things further, I was in Sosúa. Foreign food names
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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