I was recently invited to cook with celebrity chef Sunny Anderson. I know. Shut up. Of course I was going to attend! The surprise was that she was kicking off The SPAMERICAN!TM Tour and would be cooking - wait for it - with SPAM®. FYI: The SPAM Brand invited me to the event and provided me with a gift bag like the one I'm giving away. All the ...
Food and Drink
Celebrating Mother’s Day with My People
I love nothing more than gathering around a laden table full of delicious food and my favorite people. As a matter of fact, my favorite people happen to be my kids. Mother's Day weekend felt like it should have a lot of those moments. But of course, I wanted to spend as much time as possible just visiting with Amy and Adam. And enjoying ...
My Mother’s Day of Perfection
I was feeling a little sorry for myself because Mother's Day is coming and half of my kids are scattered all over the map. See this story. For us Cubans, as is true for most Hispanic cultures, Mother's Day is like a High Holy Day. Am I right? Either way, I was still going to celebrate with the 2 that are still here and of course, ...
The Quinceañera Story and A Homemade Mayonnaise Recipe
My mom just recently celebrated her 101st birthday. (It's still weird to say that.) As people do when they get older, she repeats stories that she particularly likes or maybe it's that the memory gets fresher as time passes. Either way, as her birthday approached, she would tell the story of her 15th birthday. In Cuba, as in other ...
Hipster Baby Shower
Welcome to the 2nd installment of Over-Sharing About My Parties Week. As you already know, I have a beautiful grandson who was born in August. His name is Asher David-Edmund and he is a gorgeous creature that we are all head over heels in love with. Behold the besotted grandparents: Before he arrived, we had a really fun Hipster Baby ...
Celebrating Gratitude
In my family of origin we have the custom of always sending out invitations to events that people already know about and are coming to anyway. Welcome to our own special brand of crazy. Thanksgiving is always on the 4th Thursday of November. My sisters and I are pretty much in constant discussion for weeks ahead of the party. Who will bring what? ...
The Random Italian Thing or Mac and Cheese for All
We're getting ready to celebrate my mom, Luza's 100th birthday in another week. And of course, as we're trying to put this thing together, we've tried to include her in as many decisions as possible. She doesn't care much about the decorations, she says. She trusts us with those, as long as they are bright, not just one ...
Taking the Cake
It's not often that the entire family has the same craving at the very same time, but occasionally it happens.The dinner conversation started innocently enough. "Best dessert you've ever had. Go!""Mom's Chocolate Mousse.""The triple layer chocolate cake from the Daily Grill.""Lemon bars.""Pastelitos de guayaba. Duh.""No. Wait! Remember the warm ...
The Best Baked Potato Soup EVER®
For the holidays many of us get one of those beautiful spiral hams. You set it out on your table and it always gets oohs and aahs. There's nothing like a fabulous ham. Am I right? For Thanksgiving we served two turkeys - one smoked, one roasted, and then there was also the spiral cut ham. Because we Cubans like an abundant table. There are a ...
Here, have some “Pi”
Do you love fall? I truly do. Although, here in Southern California, Fall is a little schizophrenic. We have very cool and blustery days and then the sun will come out and suddenly it's just a regular beach day. It even rained one day in September. We didn't know how to act, of course. We just don't know how to "do" weather. However, the calendar ...
