It’s been two weeks since we arrived in Puerto Rico and the experience has already been much more than I expected.

My kids have been so immersed in Spanish at every level and in so many settings that a couple of days ago Vanessa actually came up to me and out of nowhere asked: “Mami, ¿qué tal si me olvido mi inglés?” I wanted to laugh at her ingenuity, but I just reassured her that this wouldn’t happen. Truth is she wasn’t so much worried as she was curious. I guess she’s finally old enough to grasp the huge difference between living in a country where English is dominant and in one where Spanish rules. And I couldn’t be happier.

The best part of our trip, so far, has been the chance Vanessa got to attend the same summer camp her cousin has been enrolled in since the beginning of the month. Although Vanessa only got to go for two weeks, these were jam-packed with all kinds of fun activities and even two field trips.

From 8:00 a.m. until 3 p.m., Vanessa was immersed in the kind of Spanish setting that is very hard for me to offer back home: the one of play, of children and of fun. While she may have gotten this here and there — especially when she was younger — thanks to our bilingual playgroup, the reality is that she’s never experienced something like these past two weeks of summer camp in Puerto Rico.

Every day at pick up time, Vanessa had nothing but great things to say about her experience. Of course, it didn’t hurt that her cousin, who’s only two months older than her and with whom she clicked immediately (despite it being three years since the last time they saw each other) was with her to help her navigate her new environment.

Although she joined the summer camp halfway through, Vanessa was really lucky in that they saved the best two field trips for the end. On her first day of camp, she got to go to the Arecibo Observatory — the world’s largest and most sensitive radiotelescope, which happens to be located in my husband’s hometown. As a science-lover who’s particularly interested in planets, stars and space in general, Vanessa came back fascinated with all that she had learned… in Spanish!

The second field trip took her to the Arecibo Lighthouse and Historical Park — the last lighthouse built by the Spanish government in Puerto Rico before it became a colony of the United States after winning the Spanish-American war. Vanessa was taught a lot of historical information about the beautiful faro and had a blast in the water park.

On the last day of the summer camp, there was a special ceremony and Vanessa got to perform a song from the movie “Wrecked Ralph” with the other kids in her age group. As I took her home, she told me she never imagined it would be so much fun and thanked me for bringing her to Puerto Rico and enrolling her in the summer camp!

This week for our The Culture of Food  Weekly Round-up we searched the blogosphere for delicious meals that cover breakfast, lunch, a snack, dinner and even a simple dessert! Some of these dishes consist of a little twist on traditional recipes. Check them out below to find out what they are. 

Easy Egg Muffin {healthy to-go breakfast}

Mari of Inspired by Family Mag shared this very smart way to feed a family on the go. Instead of bitting into a typical muffin when running out the door, how about getting some protein and veggies in with these egg muffins! Check out the simple recipe here.

Marinated Mushroom and Jack Quesadilla

Who doesn’t love a good quesadilla? They’re so easy to make and tasty! This recipe for a marinated mushroom quesadilla was shared by Carla of Simply Food Love. It’s a simple way to give a traditional quesadilla a little twist.

Apricot Walnut Energy Bars

If you need a little extra something between lunch and dinner check out Fabiola’s recipe for an apricot walnut energy bar. These energy bars are easy to make and very nutritious. Fabiola blogs at Not Just Baked.

Pollo Guisado – Puerto Rican Braised Stewed Chicken

If you’re in the mood to change up your chicken recipe try Elena’s Puerto Rican pollo guisado. Elena shared this recipe on her blog The Posh Latin Cook.

Tejas de Chocolate

Time for dessert! Bocadillo Suculento shared this super easy recipe for a chocolate bar that includes berries and nuts. Check out the recipe here.

Living in downtown Orlando gave me some opportunities to speak Spanish, but it turns out that they were miniscule compared to the practice I’m going to get in my new neighborhood. A month ago, my family moved to the south side of town, closer to where I grew up. I feel comfortable living over here, everything we do is more convenient to our house, and we found a great Montessori school for Isaiah. I didn’t expect to be surprised by much, least of all the presence of such a large Spanish-speaking (mostly Puerto Rican) population. After all, they jokingly call this part of Orlando “little Puerto Rico.”

It has managed to surprise me, however. I officially feel like the minority, and my gringa status has brought plenty of questions to the surface already. 

First, there are the countless service personnel who have shown up of late: the pest control guy, the cable guy, the refrigerator delivery guys, the lawn maintenance guys. All Spanish speakers, all assuming I speak Spanish when they read my last name but then immediately struggling to use English when they see a white woman answer the door. When I indicate that I do, in fact, speak Spanish, they respond in one of two ways: 1) use a few words of SLOW Spanish and wait to gauge my level of understanding or 2) take a full-on nosedive into a Spanish-only conversation and appear relieved to be able to use their native language.

The reason this has me questioning my mode of interaction is that sometimes I want to feel comfortable and not be the one doing the “work” of speaking a second language. If I reveal that I speak Spanish, then it seems a given that I MUST thereafter respond only in Spanish and sometimes struggle with vocabulary I don’t regularly use (anyone know how to say “weed eater” in Spanish??). If I don’t reveal that fact, I feel like I’m being disingenuous and rude for making the person fight to speak English.

Another situation in which I’ve found myself feeling surprisingly uncomfortable is when I’m in public and not really trying to eavesdrop, but I am. Por ejemplo, in line at the grocery store, when the cashier is speaking to the customer in front of me in Spanish. The other day, I got somewhat patronizing smiles as two women had a long (too long for the checkout line!) Spanish conversation about Hispanics and the election. The second I stepped up to check out, the cashier switched and said “Hello, how are you today?” I felt awkward having understood every word of her previous conversation, but she had no idea. There’s clearly no need for me to say that I speak Spanish in that moment, but I always feel a fleeting conflict. Especially if said conversation seems to be what’s making the difference between my picking my son up on time and showing up just late enough to be last in the car line.

Perhaps what I am truly dealing with is the ever-present tendency we have to judge each other’s ethnicity and change our communication styles accordingly. While this can be a great skill, there are times when it can backfire. I hope that the shock of finding out that I speak their language has made some of my neighbors think twice about assuming that gringos do not understand them or, more importantly, do not want to meet them halfway.

Is it too much for me to ask, though, for them to meet ME in the middle? Somehow, talking about drain lines and water bugs in Spanish feels harder than writing a college paper for Spanish grammar class!

What do you think? Should I feel obligated to speak Spanish just because I can?

{Image via digitizedchaos}

Puerto Rico announced yesterday that it aims to make all its public school students bilingual by the year 2022. To that end, Gov. Luis Fortuño has proposed a plan to require all public schools to teach all courses in English instead of Spanish — except for Spanish grammar and literature, of course. On the surface, this might seem like a good plan, after all, we all know the power of bilingualism. But once you look at it for what it really is — a political move by a governor who wants Puerto Rico to become the 51st state of the Union — it’s very difficult for me to stand behind this proposal.

Before I continue, let me disclose (for those of you who don’t already know) that I’m married to a Puerto Rican whose entire family still lives there. I’ve visited Puerto Rico countless times since I met my husband back in 1997, as well as a journalist covering all types of stories for Univision. I’ve had the pleasure of spending time with people with completely different views regarding what should happen with their island, from those who want to become the 51st state to those who want to become independent. And so, although I’m not Puerto Rican, my views have been tainted by the time I’ve spent there, the people I’ve met and, more than anything, my husband’s family.

As a huge proponent of bilingual education — particularly of dual language immersion programs — I found myself between a rock and a hard place after I found out yesterday that Puerto Rico announced to the world that it wants to become fully bilingual within 10 years. On the one hand, I obviously believe wholeheartedly that bilingual is better. Here at SpanglishBaby, we’ve spent the last three years exalting the benefits of speaking more than one language and, as most of you know, we just got done writing a book all about this topic. And yet, I can’t support bilingual education when it’s done for political motives, at the expense of another culture and in a forceful manner. It has to be an option, not an imposition. Many Puerto Ricans, including my husband, feel the same way.

In fact, although she supports bilingual education, even the president of the Puerto Rico Teachers Association feels that teaching all courses in English is extreme. “This is wrong,” Aida Diaz told The Associated Press. “This leads us to substitute our own language for a secondary one. It should not be that way.”

The politics behind Fortuño’s proposal are as complicated as the contentious history between the U.S. and it’s one and only colony, Puerto Rico. Suffice it to say that, for many Puerto Ricans, the idea of imposing a mostly all-English curriculum in public schools puts them one step closer to statehood. While about half the islanders support this, many others want to remain a U.S. Commonwealth. A very small minority, wants independence.

Here’s the thing: Both English and Spanish are the official languages of Puerto Rico, but about 96 percent of the island’s 3.9 million people speak Spanish at home. In others words, Spanish is, undeniably, the majority language. I think that’s one of the biggest misconceptions about Puerto Rico. While a lot of people over there — including my husband’s family — understand, speak and even read and write in English, they conduct themselves in Spanish all day long and in every aspect of their lives. To all of a sudden switch to teaching all courses in English instead of Spanish and to make it mandatory is, in no uncertain terms, an imposition. And becoming bilingual because you’re forced to, is no good — regardless of the benefits. 

Interestingly enough, even many of those who are in favor of statehood and are themselves bilingual feel this way. For them, it’s like they want to become the 51st state, but not at the expense of what it means to be Puerto Rican and one of those things is their native language, which is tied to their traditions, heritage and most of all, their music. And that’s the one thing any Latino who reads SpanglishBaby should be able to identify with. After all, isn’t that exactly what we’re all trying to do?

In the end, I guess you have to be Puerto Rican (or married to one) to truly understand the intricacies of their past and see why imposing English in public schools is such a sensitive issue.

{Image via Joe Shlabotnik}

How do you feel about a government imposing bilingualism on all children?

{Photo credit: JavierD.O1996}

Editor’s note: During the next few weeks, we’re going to be doing things a bit differently here as Ana and I concentrate in meeting the deadline for the forthcoming SpanglishBaby book. We hope you bear with us.

Because we’ve been around for almost three years (wow! when did that happen?), we’ll be sharing some classic posts from when it all got started. This post was originally published on February 6, 2009.

It’s 2:30 in the madrugada and the rooster won’t stop crowing. I thought this only happened at the break of dawn! What is going on? It was okay the first few days, but after all the late nights celebrating Año Nuevo and the first days of 2009 and just life in general – as they do on this beautiful island on a regular basis – I want to kill the stupid rooster.

But then, I remember how Vanessa’s face lit up when she first heard it the morning after our first night in her father’s homeland, Puerto Rico. “Mami, cucha! Ki-ki-ki!” she instructed me to listen unable to contain her excitement. For the first time in her short life, she was hearing the sound of a real rooster just outside her bedroom window. Later on, after she got dressed, we went outside to take a look at the culprit and we were all surprised to see not only one, but two roosters, a bunch of hens, and about ten tiny chickies.

My husband’s family lives in the northwest part of the island and even though we’re staying in a a recently constructed community, it’s still el campo. So – to my daughter’s delight – our next door neighbor is somehow allowed to raise farm birds. And even though I’m annoyed (to put it lightly) with their crowing at ungodly hours, I have to admit nothing makes my heart sing more than not having to explain to my daughter what it means to grow up in el campo.

A celebration like no other

The night before Reyes Magos – one of the biggest celebrations of Epiphany in any Spanish-speaking country I’ve ever had the fortune to experience – we were awoken in the middle of the night by a parranda at a neighbor’s house. This is basically when a group of friends armed with maracas, cuatros, güiros, palitos – among other instruments –quietly gathers in front of a friend or family member’s house late at night and when everyone’s setup, they start singing and playing typical música navideña de Puerto Rico, waking up the household members to the sound of music, loud music. This goes on for a while and then the group and the members of the house move on to another house and so on until the group is small no more and they reach the last house around 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning.

The night in question, we were all startled by the festive music. Vanessa woke up and asked: “Qué eso?” To which her father responded: “Una parranda!” And she immediately started dancing! What can I say, she has it in her blood… Anyhow, a few minutes later and because I had never heard or seen a live parranda – and since you only live this particular life once and we were already awake – we decided to check it out. So, in the middle of the night and in our pj’s, we got in the car and took Vanessa to experience her first parranda. When we got there, my husband explained that it was probably the last house because of the amount of people and the smell of asopao – a type of delicious chicken soup that has to be served by the last house to receive the parranda.

We weren’t there long – and I don’t know how much of it Vanessa will actually remember – but I’m glad we did it. It is so much better to teach our kids about our culture through actual experiences.

What do you know about parrandas? Have you ever participated in one?

{© SpanglishBaby Media}

As you all know, we’re celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month until mid October. Ana and I wanted to do something a bit different this year and so we came up with the idea of dedicating one whole week to the time-honored Latin dessert that unites us all: FLAN.

We’ve invited fellow Latina bloggers to share their flan recipes and stories with all of us in the days coming up! And there’ll be something for everyone. Check out the list of blogueras and the flans they’ll be making:

• Morena from Peru Delights {Crema Volteada from Peru}
• Ericka from Nibbles & Feasts {Flan de Cajeta from Mexico}
• Maria from Mommylogue {Traditional Spanish Flan}
• Uchi from Latin Food Lovers {Malbec Flan Alfajor from Argentina}
• Bren from Flanboyant Eats {Surprise Flan by the creator of #FlanFridays}

“Es bien fácil“, or so says my mother-in-law as she’s melting sugar to make caramel and mixing a bunch of ingredients in the blender. She is trying to prove to me how easy it is to make flan de queso from scratch. Mind you, not only has she been cooking since she was born, but somehow she always fails to remember I couldn’t be more clumsy in the kitchen.

Unfortunately – and in what many would describe as in very non-Latina fashion – I hail from a long list of inept mujeres when it comes to the kitchen. I hate to admit it, but it’s my reality. Growing up, mi papá was the one who took care of our nourishment. It wouldn’t be fair to call him just a cook, though. He actually deserves the title of chef, for his dishes were always the most delicious treats. He had a knack for transforming a few mismatched ingredients into finger-licking meals. Food has always been extremely important in my family. My father firmly believed in “barriga llena, corazón contento” which loosely translates into eating well will bring you happiness. Coincidentally, he used to say the same thing as my mother-in-law about the ease of cooking – I’ll never understand why.

Flan de la Abuela: Y-U-M-M-Y!!!

Anyhow, my mother-in-law’s recipe for flan de queso has been posted on my fridge for at least a year now. I haven’t had the audacity to attempt making it. Truth be told, I’m afraid of failing. But, since Valentine’s is coming up and my husband has been more understanding than usual these last few weeks with the craziness my life has become in preparation for the launch of SpanglishBaby, I will go for it. And also, I have to admit, it’s important for me to learn how to make meals and desserts like this one, so Vanessa can learn more about our culture. After all, food is a huge part of our identity!

You might want to do the same with your children or maybe you’re just more skilled and adventurous in the kitchen than I am, so I’ve decided to share Abuelita Ivette’s recipe for what’s arguably the best flan de queso my palate has ever tasted…

Ingredients:

1 – can evaporated milk

1 – can condensed milk

3 – large eggs

1 – 8 oz. package of cream cheese

1 – tsp. vanilla extract (or liqueur of your choice)

sugar and water (for the caramel.)

Directions:

• Mix all the ingredients–minus the sugar and the water–in the blender. Set it aside.

• Pour enough sugar in a metal pan to cover its bottom and add just a bit of water on medium heat. Stir occasionally until it becomes a light brown liquid.

• As soon as that happens, pour it into a mold. Make sure you spread so it covers the bottom of the mold evenly. Wait until the caramel hardens, it will happen fairly quickly.

• Then, pour the mixture from the blender into the mold. Cover it with foil paper and take to the oven which has been preheated to 350 F. The mold needs to be cooked using a method called baño maria. This means you boil water in a larger pan and place the mold inside it into the oven for one hour.

• To check if its ready, use a knife to poke it. If it comes out clean, you need to take it out of the oven. Let it cool, this will take a while so be patient, and invert it so the caramel is exposed. Just writing about it makes my mouth water!

Good luck and, don’t worry, Ana has made this flan many times and if she can do it, anyone can do it! In the meantime, I’ll just sign off by revealing that the only other ingredient I didn’t include in the recipe is: LOVE. You see, whenever we asked my Dad how come his dishes were so delicious, he would always answer: porque está hecho con amor.

¡Buen provecho! And, by the way, gracias Suegrita!!

This post was originally published on February 13, 2009.

“Es bien fácil”, or so says my mother-in-law as she’s melting sugar to make caramel and mixing a bunch of ingredients in the blender. She is trying to prove to me how easy it is to make flan de queso from scratch. Mind you, not only has she been cooking since she was born, but somehow she always fails to remember I couldn’t be more clumsy in the kitchen.

Unfortunately–and in what many would describe as very non-Latina–I hail from a long list of inept mujeres when it comes to the kitchen. I hate to admit it, but it’s my reality. Growing up, mi papá was the one who took care of our nourishment. It wouldn’t be fair to call him just a cook, though. He actually deserves the title of chef, for his dishes were always the most delicious treats. He had a knack for transforming a few mismatched ingredients into finger-licking meals. Food has always been extremely important in my family. My father firmly believed in “barriga llena, corazón contento” which loosely means that eating well will bring you happiness. Coincidentally, he used to say the same thing as my mother-in-law about the ease of cooking–I never understood why.

Flan de la Abuela: Y-U-M-M-Y!!!

Anyhow, my mother-in-law’s recipe for flan de queso has been posted on my fridge for at least a year now. I haven’t had the audacity to attempt making it. Truth be told, I’m afraid of failing. But, since Valentine’s is coming up and my husband has been more understanding than usual these last few weeks with the craziness my life has become in preparation for the launch of SpanglishBaby, I will go for it. And also, I have to admit, it’s important for me to learn how to make meals and desserts like this one, so Vanessa can learn more about our culture. After all, food is a huge part of our identity!

You might want to do the same with your children or maybe you’re just more skilled and adventurous in the kitchen than I am, so I’ve decided to share Abuelita Ivette’s recipe for what’s arguably the best flan de queso my palate has ever tasted…

Ingredients:

Photo by: Bill HR

1 – can evaporated milk

1 – can condensed milk

3 – large eggs

1 – 8 oz. package of cream cheese

1 – tsp. vanilla extract (or liqueur of your choice)

sugar and water (for the caramel.)

Directions:

• Mix all the ingredients–minus the sugar and the water–in the blender. Set it aside.

• Pour enough sugar in a metal pan to cover its bottom and add just a bit of water on medium heat. Stir occasionally until it becomes a light brown liquid.

• As soon as that happens, pour it into a mold. Make sure you spread so it covers the bottom of the mold evenly. Wait until the caramel hardens, it will happen fairly quickly.

• Then, pour the mixture from the blender into the mold. Cover it with foil paper and take to the oven which has been preheated to 350 F. The mold needs to be cooked using a method called baño maria. This means you boil water in a larger pan and place the mold inside it into the oven for one hour.

• To check if its ready, use a knife to poke it. If it comes out clean, you need to take it out of the oven. Let it cool, this will take a while so be patient, and invert it so the caramel is exposed. Just writing about it makes my mouth water!

Good luck and, don’t worry, I will tell you all about how incredibly easy it was for me–yeah, right!–in a future post. In the meantime, I’ll just sign off by revealing that the only other ingredient I didn’t include in the recipe is: LOVE. You see, whenever we asked my Dad how come his dishes were so delicious, he would always answer: porque está hecho con amor.

¡Buen provecho! And, by the way, gracias Suegrita!!

We hope you attempt to make this recipe and then come back and tell us how it went. Or, maybe you can share with everybody your own links or recipe for flan!

Photo by stephend9

Food has always been my favorite part of Christmas, especially because until my Dad passed away, I never had to worry about anything expect eating! I’m not a big fan of turkey, but his was always para chuparse los dedos. Silly me, I guess I thought he’d be around forever and I never learned any of his culinary tricks.

So, for the last five years we’ve just had to make do on our own – luckily we spent the last Christmas in Puerto Rico, where food was the main attraction, and a couple of years before that we ordered lechón from a Cuban restaurant back when we lived in Miami.

This year we are going to try something different. My eldest cousin is coming from Mexico with her family, so for the past few days emails have been coming and going between that city, Florida (where my sister lives part of the year) and Denver as we try to figure out what the menu should include.

It’s finally come down to this: since we all kind of hail from different places, we’ve decided to make it into a multicultural Noche Buena feast. What exactly does that mean? Well, we’re each going to be responsible for a dish that represents our culture/country.

My husband, who is from Puerto Rico, will make the lechón asado, arroz con habichuelas and his famed and delicious Coquito. He’s only cooked lechón once before and it was actually pretty good, so we’ll have to see how it goes this time.

My sister and her husband – who’s family is part Greek – will be making the turkey plus some kind of Greek salad.

I will be in charge of the salads that we’ve always had for Christmas – the ones my Dad used to make. I know they’re not Peruvian, but they’re a tradition in our family. One is a Waldorf Salad and the other one is Ensalada Rusa. I used to have platefuls of both these salads growing up. Hopefully, they’ll turn half as decent as my Dad’s.

Although it’s not one of our family’s tradition, arroz arabe is a dish typically eaten during Christmas in Peru and since my sister-in-law has made it in the past, we’re asking her to do it again this year.

My cousin, who was born in Perú, but has lived in Mexico most of her life, will be making a pastel de elote dulce which I don’t think I’ve ever tasted and she swears is exiquisito! And, I believe her because the recipe calls for condensed milk and anything with leche condensada has to be delicious…

Finally, we’ll also be having the traditional panetón and hot chocolate which will go perfect with what we’re all hoping will be a white Christmas! Se me hace agua la boca just thinking about all this food!

I love the idea of creating new traditions while keeping some old ones and I can’t wait to get my daughter involved in the process. Ya falta poco…