Born in the 80’s to a Nuyorican mother and African-American father on the Lower East Side of NYC, I knew at a very early age that I had the best of both worlds—comida criolla and soul food. I am cuchifrito, chuletas fritas, baked macaroni and cheese, yams and then some.

So needless to point out, this blog is about a 26 year culinary journey of my life that began in New York City and flourished in Puerto Rico.

The happiest moments of my life took, and continue to take place around food. I know what you’re thinking, “This girl must be overweight!” Not at all! But I do have it going on in the kitchen!

My first cooking experience was around the age of five and it entailed the complex ingredients of peanut butter, grape jelly, Wonder bread (and a dull butter knife). In my 5 year old world nothing was more exciting than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich after school. Since I could barely see over the edge of the dining room table, I either stood on a chair or stool and carefully crafted my sandwich. From the kitchen I moved on to the living room to watch T.V. (the whopping 7 channels we had-2,4,5,7,9,11 and 13 and if you were lucky maybe 25 and 31). Thank God for Channel 13 after-school programming! While I enjoyed Sesame Street I would much rather watch Mister Roger’s Neighborhood where on any given day you could take a tour through a food factory, Jacques Pepin and…Julia Child! Yeah Bob Ross was there too but he was good for the “after-snack itis” (if ya know what I mean). I remember going through the kitchen cabinets trying to find every single ingredient to mimic or pretend that I was cooking up everything I had seen on those shows—not to mention I was making a mess! Oh boy did I get in trouble but it was all in the name of good food.

Lucky for me my grandma, who by the way is an excellent cook, saw my interest and encouraged me to learn how to cook. See, her grandmother taught her how to cook when she was a lil’ girl in Alabama. My great-great grandmother was blind and she would let my grandma stand on a stool and administer all the ingredients to her recipes. So I guess I was following in her footsteps. I baked cakes with my grandma (and licked the spatula), snapped the ends off of green beans, peeled potatoes—anything I could do to be in the kitchen with her. I didn’t know that what I was experiencing was “Soul Food”. To me Soul Food is about more than the food. It’s about sharing stories, bonding, and good times. With that said, I’ll write again soon about those stories…