Viva Daisy! (Updated, with video)

Daisy Martinez, star of “Viva Daisy!” which premieres Saturday, January 10, 9:30am on Food Network. Click on the Picture above to watch the promotional video (Source: Food Network)

Web Site: http://www.foodnetwork.com/viva-daisy/index.html

I’ve been keeping this news under wraps for longer than I can remember, and now I’m finally relieved I can tell everyone about it — my friend Daisy Martinez is going to become the star of her own show on Food Network — which will be produced by no other than Food Network’s #1, Rachael Ray herself.

I first got to know Daisy in the spring of 2006, after approaching her to do a podcast for Off The Broiler.  I was a big fan of her PBS show, which featured an intelligent, educating,  full-spectrum view of Pan-Latino cuisine, and found her bubbly and Brooklyn girl personality intoxicating.

Daisy only did one season of Daisy Cooks! on PBS, but I  knew some day she would be a huge star, so I started consulting for her and helped  her launch her own website, DaisyMartinez.com, as well as her personal blog, Boriqua Blog. I hope you head over there and see what we’ve accomplished over the last two years — It’s a goldmine for anyone who wants to cook bold, Latin flavors, or who wants to know the real Daisy behind the camera.

I’m privileged to be one of the few who will be able to say “I knew her when.”

Good Luck, Daisy — and break a leg!

A Jew-yorican Thanksgiving

This is by far the most colorful Thanksgiving plate I’ve ever seen.

So after visiting Guavate, Rachel and I knew that we had to try making Pavochon ourselves, the real Puerto Rican way. This year, it happened that Thanksgiving was only going to be 4 of us — my in-laws and the two of us, so we were assigned to doing the cooking. So if we were in charge, we decided why not mix it up and do it Puerto Rican style?

Click to read the rest of this post on Daisy Martinez’s Boriqua Blog.

Guavate, Puerto Rico: Where it’s Thanksgiving and Christmas 365 days a year

Last post, we talked about seafood and all the myriad of ways Puerto Ricans like to eat them. But I would be amiss if I didn’t talk about a very special place on the Island — a land where it’s Thanksgiving and Christmas 365 days a year. The place I’m talking about is GUAVATE.

A view of the Guavate mountain and forest region in Puerto Rico from a popular Lechonera.

Guavate is an area that is designated as a district as part of the larger town of Cayey, which is in South-Central Puerto Rico. It’s a mountainous, forested area that has become known over the years as a favorite recreational spot for Puerto Ricans — and as a result, has created an entire culture dedicated to eating traditional holiday foods, such as Lechon (Roast Pork) and Pavochon (Roast Turkey — see Daisy’s Recipe).

A single road which passes through the town, Highway PR-184, also known as as the “Pork Highway” has many restaurants which specialize in these two dishes and all their accompaniments. Which one is the best? It’s hard to say, but Rachel and I visted two of them and if we picked the two worst ones, then I can’t imagine what the two best taste like. Your best bet — and our overall strategy — was to see which parking lots are the busiest and have the most amount of people eating there.

Read the rest of this entry on Daisy Martinez’s Boriqua Blog.

Puerto Rico: the magic word is MARISCOS!

In my first post, I talked a bit about the basics of Puerto Rican and Caribbean Latino cuisine, and focused particularly on the platano — the plantain fruit, and tostones, one of the most common but tasty staples you will see while while visiting the island. Today, we’re going to talk about seafood — or as Puerto Ricans like to say, MARISCOS!

Fisherman’s dock, Las Palmas, Humacao, Puerto Rico.

In the States, you don’t normally think of seafood being an integral part of Latino cuisine, but in Puerto Rico, being an island and smack right in the middle of the Caribbean, seafood and shellfish are extremely common and are amongst the most loved things to eat, although much of it unfortunately has to be imported from other countries, such as the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas. A small amount of fish and other creatures are caught locally, but the Puerto Rican fishing industry is relatively small nowadays. Still, this doesn’t stop a huge amount of the stuff from being consumed on the island itself.

Want to read more? Continue by clicking here to see the rest on Daisy Martinez’s Boriqua Blog.

Puerto Rico: La Venganza De Los Tostones

Palmas del Mar, Puerto Rico.

I recently returned from a trip to Puerto Rico with my wife, Rachel, and we stayed in the Palmas del Mar resort near Humacao, which is on the Southeast side of the Island. The majority of the places we visited were along the Southern and Eastern side of the island, so if my report looks a little skewed for not featuring cuisine and culture on the West and Northern parts, you’ll understand. While not as large as its two other prominent Caribbean islands such as Cuba and Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles, Puerto Rico is still pretty big and is really too large to try to get a full sense of in just one week — it’s still the size of Connecticut, and despite having several autopistas it still has a lot of one lane roads which prevent fast cross-country travel. A trip from Humacao to the east to Rincon or Aguadilla in the western part of the island can easily take more than 3 hours, particularly if you need to go thru mountain roads for part of the trip.

Want to read more? You’ll need to visit Daisy Martinez’s Boriqua Blog for the rest.