Cruz Isabel - The Latin table: easy, flavorful recipes from Mexico, Puerto Rico, and beyond

Praise for The Latin Table The Latin Table is more than cookbook; it is a compilation of beautiful photographs from the past to the present, easy-to-follow recipes that our family have all delighted in at our home celebrations, and beautiful stories revealing the human spirit. A nice combination of love in creation. Deepak and Rita Chopra This book should be called The Latin Friends & Family Table because its everything youd want to make for people you love. From her must-have Black Beans to the Shrimp Boil Latina Style and the Ropa Vieja, youll get a real sense of the dishes that have influenced Isabels lifedishes youll want to make and share forever. Sam the Cooking Guy Isabel, can you adopt me, please? Isabels boundless, infectious enthusiasm pairs with dead-simple recipes that are long on flamboyant flavor and color. This quintessential gateway book lets us get up close and personal with a delicious cuisine many of us already adore from afar.

Brigit Binns, author of Williams-Sonoma: Cooking in Season , Sunsets Eating Up the West Coast , and The New Wine Country Cuisine A seat at Isabel Cruzs Latin Table is an invitation to a world of flavor, fun, and nostalgia! Her recipes are healthy, vibrant, and filled with color. Isabel brings to life the sights, smells, and tastes of the cuisine from Latin America woven with their cultural roots and heartfelt stories. The Latin Table celebrates food, family, and life. Chef Bernard Guillas, executive chef/Maitre Cuisinier De France, Acadmie De France, and author of Flying Pans and Two Chefs, One Catch

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Skyhorse and Skyhorse Publishing are registered trademarks of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., a Delaware corporation. Visit our website at www.skyhorsepublishing.com. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file. Cover design by Jenny Zemanek and Mona Lin Cover photo credit Jaime Fritsch Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-2866-0 Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-2867-7 Printed in China To the sweetest, best person I will ever know. How did I get so lucky that you are my momma! Guava Rum Punch for Two, contents Introduction I am obsessed with Latin America: the warmth of the people, the architecture, the music, and especially the food ! Latin cuisine is easy to make, tastes amazing, and is healthyyes, healthy! I havent always appreciated it, though. Growing up in a Puerto Rican family, I remember my mother, my two brothers, and I ganging up on my father because we wanted to eat like our friends and our American neighbors.

We wanted TV dinners and the easy, fun packaged foods we saw advertised on TV and overwhelmingly present in the grocery aisles. Back then, one of my mothers favorite ways to cook included dumping a can of cream of mushroom soup on pork chops and baking it in the oven or pouring a package of sloppy job mix into a pan of ground beef. Our vegetables were out of a can or frozen, too. Of course, its okay to use canned or frozen food on occasion (its so convenient), but during my childhood, this was an everyday thingthe way people regularly made home-cooked meals. The four of us loved that particular period of our food history; it was our Americana phase. My dad, however, couldnt stand it! He made his own food, roasting whole fish or chicken in the oven with garlic, cilantro, and chilies.

Hed make steaming rice and pots of beans. Why would we (the new American eaters) want that when we could have moms mushroom soup pork chop, or a TV dinner with that little apple pie? He even had a garden, where he grew his own tomatoes and herbsand this was way before the urban garden thing became trendy. As much as we loved our Americana fare, the novelty soon wore off. Over time, my mother stopped making packaged food, and my brothers and I started to like what my dad was cooking up. We even grew to love cilantro, despite screaming about it constantly because my father used to put it on everything . If you havent already figured this out, my family loves to eat.

I mean, really loves to eat. To this day, every Sunday we get together at my moms house and have dinner with my cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandma. Over the years, the tradition has grown to include new people almost weekly. Sometimes I invite a friend or two, or someone else brings a friend, and it goes on from there. Im lucky that, as much as we love to eat, most of us love to cook, as well. I took advantage of this to test many of the recipes in this book.

My eleven-year-old niece even made many of these recipes herself. The foodthese recipesis simple. Latin food is simple! Just like our beloved rice and beans. I can say with some certainty that if you grew up in a Latino household, you ate rice and beans. Even though the basic ingredients are the same, the variations are endless, and the little differences make every version unique. This goes for empanadas, tortillas, and even flan, churros, and more.

If you have churros in Mexico, they will probably be slightly different then the churros in Portugal, but I am sure every version will be delicious. Across Latin America, the food and ingredients are similar and so is the warmth and hospitality of the people. They enjoy good food and good drink, and they want to share it with everyone. In Latin communities, it is common for someone you just met to invite you to a home-cooked meal with their family. The recipes in this book demonstrate the way I cook for myself and my family, but also, most importantly, the way I cook in my restaurants. Growing up in Los Angeles, Ive enjoyed foods from all over Latin America, and the indelible influences of these culturesas well as my fathers, mothers, grandmothers and aunts cookingis present in each dish.