Daisy Martinez - Daisy

Bringing Your Family Together with Everyday Latin Dishes

D AISY M ARTINEZ
WITH CHRIS STYLER

Photographs by Joseph De Leo

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Copyright 2010 by Daisy Martinez

Photographs copyright 2010 by Joseph De Leo

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Designed by Dana Sloan

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Martinez, Daisy.

Daisy : morning, noon and night : bringing your family together with

everyday Latin dishes / Daisy Martinez with Chris Styler.

p. cm.

1. Cookery, Latin American. 2. Cookery, Puerto Rican.

3. Cookery, Spanish. I. Styler, Christopher. II. Title.

TX716.A1M237 2010

641.598dc22 2009027568

ISBN 978-1-4391-5753-4

ISBN 978-1-4391-9932-9 (ebook)

Frontispiece: Shrimp Tacos with Tomato-Avo Salsa (),
Mango and Black Bean Salad ()

I dedicate this book to the memory of my grandmothers,

Valentina Martinez Perez
and
Clotilde Rodriguez Gonzalez

Abuelita, tus refranes me hacen reir!

WILLIE COLN

Asparagus with Brown Butter and Pecans ()

To say that I am a bit obsessed when it comes to Latin food would be the understatement of the year. Ive been known to chase people down the street in pursuit of the perfect tamale or to engage the cashier at my corner supermarket in a conversation about healthier refried beans. (If you were behind me, sorry!) But even though I took every opportunity to ask, probe, research, and eat in New Yorks incredibly diverse Latino restaurants, I found that, with time, I had begun exhausting my resources. At least, I hope that that was the case and not that people ran the other way when they saw me coming!

A new source of inspiration and way to feed the fire of my curiosity occurred to me when my youngest child, Angela, turned eight and Santa Claus, coincidentally, stopped visiting our house. I sat my children down (all four of them!) and said that in previous years, my husband, Jerry, and I had spent a small fortune on gifts for Christmas that were all but forgotten within two weeks. From now on, Mom and Dad would be giving them memories as holiday gifts. You could have heard a pin drop in that room. Before they could shake off their shock and begin to protest, I explained that starting the following year, we would travel as a family to a different country each year during the week between Christmas and New Years Day in order to experience that country through its food, historic sites, and culture. The whoops and hollers were exactly the response I had hoped for.

Since that conversation, I have been able to gift my family with visits to Barcelona and Madrid, Cuzco and Lima, Oaxaca and the Yucatn, Puerto Rico, and, most recently, the beautiful city of Buenos Aires. I am positive that my children cant remember what they received for the Christmas of 2003, but I can guarantee you that they can tell you exactly what we had for Christmas dinner in 2005 in the enticing city of Cuzco, Peru.

Of course, as time goes by, and the children grow up, go away to college, and move out on their own, it is more and more challenging for me to get my family to sit together and share meals and memories. But never let it be said that Im not one to rise to the occasion and meet a challenge head-on!

During all those wonderful trips, I kept careful notes on the food we enjoyed, including what dishes were whose favorites. Im not above making Eriks favorite chocolate dessert, Tierrita Dulce (Sweet Earth, ; pull up a chair, Markie!) so the boys can laugh about the ice-cold waterfall in El Yunque while we pass the plates around. Angela and Jerry are the two I can rely on to share dinner with me almost every night, so they are subjected to a constant flow of experiments and recipe testing, thereby reaping a lot of benefits. Its a tough gig, but they put themselves on the line and take one for the team!

Recapturing the flavors and dishes we shared when traveling as a familyand keeping those memories alivewas the inspiration for writing this book. I find that whenever I re-create dishes from the trips we have taken, my family not only enjoys the fruits of my labor, but also shares the memories, stories, and laughter from those trips. It occurred to me that with everybodys crazy schedule, these trips were really the only time when we were all together as a familymorning, noon, and night. Throughout the book, I share memories of our trips, the people we met, and the food we ate through a series of travelogues. What better way to organize the book than around the meals that we relished during those memorable holiday vacations?

You will find that the majority of these recipes are simple, nutritious, user friendly, and easy on the wallet, which in these chaotic times is a comfort. I am still on a mission to teach the world how to achieve the perfect pot of rice, and while I feel that I have made some progress on that front (you all know who you are!), I believe that there is still a way to go.

When I first embarked on this excursion into the Latin kitchen, I was so excited to learn about the similarities within the entire community. But when I stopped to think that Latin America is made up of thirty-eight countries, I realized that I had to be ready for some diversity as well. Today, I know that while some of us in the United States still think of Tex-Mex as Latin food, many more people have come a long way in regard to their understanding of the diversity of the Latino kitchen. I even like to think that maybe in a very small way I have had something to do with that. I could even go so far as to compare it to the phenomenon that we witnessed with Italian food, where peoples understanding evolved from red sauce and cheese to embracing the complexities of Italian cuisine and the specifcities of all of its regional cooking. And thats just one country! Multiply that by thirty-eight, and then by the different regions within those thirty-eight countries, and you can see how that translates into a beautiful mosaic of color, flavors, and aromas!