We Are La Cocina: Recipes in Pursuit of the American Dream
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About this ebook
Recipes and stories from more than 50 successful La Cocina entrepreneurs
With 100+ recipes that span the globe from the United States, Mexico, Japan, Brazil, Senegal, Vietnam, and many more: Powerful stories. Beautifully evocative visuals. More than 100 recipes for all occasions, from many cultures. Here, in La Cocina's first cookbook, more than 50 successful La Cocina entrepreneurs share their inspiring narratives—and their delicious recipes!
- 2020 IACP Awards Finalist – Food Issues & Matters.
- This is the book for cooks who love great global recipes and support organizations that make a big difference.
- More than 150 photographs from award-winning photographer Eric Wolfinger capture the spirit of the people, the mouthwatering food, and the diversity of the immigrant experience.
- La Cocina is an incubator kitchen that provides affordable commercial kitchen space, industry-specific technical assistance, and access to market opportunities to women of color and immigrant communities.
This cookbook reflects the flavors and foods of the city where La Cocina was founded. It will help you find inspiration in your own kitchen, in the kitchens that you pass on your way to work, and in the neighborhoods you've been meaning to visit.
- Delicious recipes will make your kitchen smell like you've traveled around the world
- Mouthwatering global recipes include Golveda Ko Achar (Tomato Cilantro Sauce), Mafé (Peanut Stew), Kuy Teav Phnom Penh (Cambodian Noodle Soup), and many more.
Caleb Zigas
Caleb Zigas is executive director of La Cocina. He lives in San Francisco.
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Reviews for We Are La Cocina
2 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I loved the stories, the recipes, and the successes we see in this book. It's part American Dream, part cookbook, and part(this is what I want to eat for lunch).
Book preview
We Are La Cocina - Caleb Zigas
This book is dedicated to all of those who have passed through our kitchen and to all of those who will. You are all the inspiration any of us need.
Text copyright © 2019 by La Cocina.
Foreword copyright © 2019 Isabel Allende.
Photographs copyright © 2019 by Eric Wolfinger, Sarah Peet (pages 206–7), and Leticia Landa (page 277).
Illustrations copyright © 2019 by Jackie Ho (pages 20–21), Sophie Morro (page 67), Samantha Novak (page 87), and Monica Martinez (page 121).
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available.
ISBN 978-1-4521-7200-2 (epub, mobi)
ISBN 978-1-4521-6786-2 (hardcover)
All inspiration from and credit to the entrepreneurs of La Cocina past and present, who are the heart and soul of this book.
Design & typesetting by Alice Chau.
Food & prop styling by Alma Espinola.
Chronicle books and gifts are available at special quantity discounts to corporations, professional associations, literacy programs, and other organizations. For details and discount information, please contact our premiums department at corporatesales@chroniclebooks.com or at 1-800-759-0190.
Chronicle Books LLC
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San Francisco, California 94107
www.chroniclebooks.com
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10
FOREWORD
12
INTRODUCTION
20
LA COCINA AT A GLANCE
22
LA COCINA: THE KITCHEN
24
MENU IDEAS
27
VERONICA SALAZAR
El Huarache Loco
Caldo de Gallina 30
Ensalada Doña Luz 33
35
MARIA DEL CARMEN FLORES
Estrellita’s Snacks
Pupusas 36
Curtido 36
41
GUISELL HARITH OSORIO
Sabores del Sur
Empanadas de Pollo 43
Alfajores 46
49
DIONNE KNOX
Zella’s Soulful Kitchen
Cream Biscuits 51
Breakfast Sausage 52
Strawberry-Hibiscus Jam 55
57
KELLY ZUBAL
Inticing Creations
Espresso Chocolate Ganache Cake 59
Baked Butter Mochi 63
65
ISABEL CAUDILLO
El Buen Comer
Mole Verde con Puerco 69
Albóndigas 70
Sopa de Fideo 73
75
MARIA CASTILLO
Botanas Felicitas
Pepitas Callejeras 76
79
DILSA LUGO
Los Cilantros
Sopes 81
Esquites 85
87
KOJI KANEMATSU
Onigilly
Onigiri 88
Miso Nasu 88
Spicy Shrimp 88
Sha-ke 90
93
ELVIA BUENDIA
La Luna Cupcakes
Pastelitos Tres Leches 94
97
ALICIA VILLANUEVA
Alicia’s Tamales Los Mayas
Tamal de Frijol 100
107
LA COCINA’S KIOSK
Peas of Mind:
Forbidden Rice Krispy Squares 110
NeoCocoa:
Rose Petal Bark 110
Kika’s Treats:
Pão de Mel 111
Clairesquares:
Apple Crumble 111
Love & Hummus:
Crispy Chickpeas 112
Sal de Vida:
Quesadilla de Flor de Jamaica 113
Sajen: Jamu 113
115
GABRIELA GUERRERO
Delicioso Crêperie
Crepa de Cordero en Adobo 117
121
MONICA MARTINEZ
Don Bugito
123
FERNAY MCPHERSON
Minnie Bell’s Soul Movement
Mac and Cheese 129
Rosemary Fried Chicken 131
135
GUADALUPE (LUPE) GUERRERO
El Pipila
Comida de Pobreza 137
Nopales Guisados 138
Pozole Verde 141
143
BINITA PRADHAN
Bini’s Kitchen
Momos 146
Golveda Ko Achar 148
Kwati 150
153
MARIKO GRADY
Aedan Fermented Foods
Miso 155
Miso Shiru 157
Jardinière’s Miso Compound Butter and Miso Vinaigrette 158
MISO COMPOUND BUTTER 158
MISO VINAIGRETTE 158
Bi-Rite Market’s Steamed Manila Clams with Miso 159
161
HEENA PATEL
Besharam
Haldar Puri 163
Batata Nu Shaak 165
167
CHARLES FARRIER
Crumble & Whisk
New York–Style Cheesecake 168
171
STEPHANIE FIELDS
Sugarfoot
Bourbon Buttermilk Grits Pie 173
Cheese Grits 175
177
SHANI JONES
Peaches Patties
Beef Patties 179
Jerk Chicken 182
185
NITE YUN
Nyum Bai
Bai Sach Chrouk 191
Kuy Teav Phnom Penh 192
Neorm Sach Moan 195
197
REEM ASSIL
Reem’s
Fattoush 199
Sfeeha 200
Muhammara 203
207
SAN FRANCISCO STREET FOOD FESTIVAL
Endless Summer Sweets 208
D’Maize 208
Hella Vegan Eats 209
211
TINA STEVENS
A Girl Named Pinky
True Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting 212
215
NAFY FLATLEY
Teranga
Teranga Bissap 217
Mafè 219
221
GUADALUPE MORENO
Mi Morena
Tinga de Pollo 224
227
LAMEES DAHBOUR
Mama Lamees
Maqluba 231
Samak Mashwe Bilforn 234
237
AISAN HOSS AND MEHDI PARNIA
Oyna Natural Foods
Kuku Sabzi 239
Kashke Bademjan 240
243
ROSIE ORTIZ
Mission Boricua
245
HANG TRUONG
Noodle Girl
Phở Bò 247
Cá Kho Tộ 250
253
ALMA RODRIGUEZ
Mixiote
Mixiote de Carne 255
259
AILEEN SUZARA
Sariwa
Binakol na Manok 261
Lumpiang Gulay 262
Ensaladang Talong 265
267
ROSA MARTINEZ
Origen
Chilito de Puerco 273
Frijol Molido con Cholitas de Masa 274
276
ABOUT THESE RECIPES
278
MASTER RECIPES
Masa Dough Two Ways 278
MASA DOUGH WITH OIL 278
MASA DOUGH WITH LARD 278
Tortillas 279
Chicken Stock 279
280
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
281
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
282
RECIPE INDEX BY COUNTRY
283
INDEX
La Cocina is a nonprofit business incubator dedicated to supporting* talented, working-class food entrepreneurs, primarily immigrant women and women of color, in building successful food businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Our vision is that everyone will be able to make a living doing what they love to do.
*We do this by providing access to an affordable commercial kitchen, business consulting through a network of industry volunteers and mentors, sales opportunities, and connections to capital.
VERONICA SALAZAR 27 MARIA DEL CARMEN FLORES 35 GUISELL HARITH OSORIO 41 DIONNE KNOX 49 KELLY ZUBAL 57 ISABEL CAUDILLO 65 MARIA CASTILLO 75 DILSA LUGO 79 KOJI KANEMATSU 87 ELVIA BUENDIA 93 ALICIA VILLANUEVA 97 GABRIELA GUERRERO 115 MONICA MARTINEZ 121 FERNAY MCPHERSON 123 GUADALUPE (LUPE) GUERRERO 135 BINITA PRADHAN 143 MARIKO GRADY 153 HEENA PATEL 161 CHARLES FARRIER 167 STEPHANIE FIELDS 171 SHANI JONES 177 NITE YUN 185 REEM ASSIL 197 TINA STEVENS 211 NAFY FLATLEY 215 GUADALUPE MORENO 221 LAMEES DAHBOUR 227 AISAN HOSS AND MEHDI PARNIA 237 ROSIE ORTIZ 243 HANG TRUONG 245 ALMA RODRIGUEZ 253 AILEEN SUZARA 259 ROSA MARTINEZ 267
FOREWORD
by Isabel Allende
Traditions and dreams . . . these are what being an immigrant is all about. I have lived in the United States for more than 30 years without losing my culture, language, sense of family, or Chilean customs. This has allowed me to adapt easily; I am richer because I am bicultural. People like me, who bring traditions and dreams from afar, contribute to the strength and resilience of this extraordinary place that is America. And traditions and dreams are exactly what La Cocina harvests, transforms, and offers to the community at large.
Food is a vital part of our lives. In most countries, and certainly in Latin America, the kitchen, or any place where food is prepared, is the soul of the home. My mother died recently—she was 97 years young—and left me a precious legacy: her recipes and her lifetime love of and curiosity about food. She taught me to use cookbooks as inspiration only; a true cook trusts her or his intuition, innovates, improvises, and can devise a meal with whatever is available in the moment. This is certainly true of most women who feed their families with scarce resources.
After my daughter Paula died, when I needed to pull myself out of darkness and despair, my mother came up with the idea of writing about the opposite of mourning: the joy of life. And that’s how my book Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses came to be. It’s about food and love, gluttony and lust—the only deadly sins that are worth the trouble.
Maybe this explains why I love La Cocina and the We Are La Cocina cookbook, which contains the distilled wisdom and experience of this extraordinary enterprise. I have been connected to La Cocina since its incubation, when Caleb Zigas came to my foundation in 2004 to tell us about a crazy project the community had envisioned: an industrial kitchen to empower low-income women of color, especially immigrants and refugees, to cook and market their products so that they can become financially independent. Although Caleb looked like a kid—he still does—I saw immediately the potential in the idea because, as a Latina, I can relate to cooking at a heart level. Often the memory of our extended families at the table sharing a meal—a tradition that usually takes a couple of hours or more—is all we have when we come to this country.
The dream was not so crazy after all. Leticia Landa joined La Cocina in 2008, and the organization’s surprising growth continued. Today, it is the most important food organization in San Francisco, a city known for its excellent cuisine from all over the world. It has also enabled hundreds of women to start their own businesses. To see a group of women handling fresh ingredients, chopping, dressing, frying, baking, grilling, and gossiping happily in different languages is a feast for the senses. If you were to watch them, as I have, they might offer you a taste of their dishes—which hail from Latin America, Africa, South Asia, East Asia, the Middle East, and Europe—and then you would discover the secret of their success: this is food prepared with love.
La Cocina is much more than an excellent business. It is a place of work and stories, a warm and fragrant hearth where women (and some men) prepare food from their countries of origin and share their lives. For most La Cocina entrepreneurs, a few recipes handed down from mothers and grandmothers were their only capital when they came to the United States. It seems almost magical that they can use those recipes as a means of self-expression, making a living, supporting their families, and preserving their culture. Through food, they too can aspire to the American dream.
Cooking brings people together. The kitchen is a safe place to tell our personal stories; no matter how tragic they might be, there’s always room for some laughter. We all need to be heard; we all want to know more about others. While cooking, women open their hearts and share their sorrows and joys; no one feels lonely in a communal kitchen. In many of my novels, food has an essential role because it helps me to define the characters and to give flavor and authenticity to the story. Eating brings people together as well, especially when food inspired by other cultures arouses our curiosity.
Today, as has often happened in the past, we live in hard times; division, distrust, and fear are rampant. But I have lived long enough to know that these hard times will pass and, eventually, the best of the human condition will prevail. In the meantime, maybe we can start to heal by listening to one another’s stories and sharing the food of diversity that La Cocina offers.
INTRODUCTION
by Caleb Zigas
We’ve had the unique opportunity at La Cocina to build the world that we most want to live in. It’s a world, a kitchen more specifically, that welcomes anyone and everyone. We have done so in the name of economic opportunity and with the belief that everyone deserves an opportunity to make a living doing something that they love to do.
The act of writing resembles cooking in its intimacy—from us to you. With this cookbook, we hope, in some small way, to invite you into that world with us. In these pages, we hope that you will sense the power that drives these businesses and the truly impressive volume of work that the entrepreneurs at La Cocina accomplish. We write so that you might find not just something new to cook but also some small part of yourself, some scent or story, that will resonate and remind you of what has brought you to where you are today. Then, may you share that meal with others.
La Cocina was born out of San Francisco’s Mission District in the 1990s, a vibrant neighborhood with an active informal economy; people, mostly women, selling food on the streets and out of their homes as a way to patch income—a dollar here, a dollar there—in an uncertain environment. The most basic belief of our organization is that in the often-forgotten corners of our cities—dense immigrant neighborhoods, low-income high-rise apartment buildings, the blacktops of taxi depots—talented food entrepreneurs thrive by making use of what’s available to them. Given access to affordable commercial kitchen space, high-level business advice, places to sell, and access to capital, those cooks and artisans are able to transition their side gigs into the formal economy (licenses, permits, and taxes . . . oh my!) and, in doing so, create real and lasting ownership opportunities for themselves and their families. This simple act of creation can inspire, and very often employ, the people around them.
In the years that we’ve been working in these communities, it remains abundantly clear the ways in which the world we live in is deeply inequitable. If opportunity were distributed evenly and everyone was given equal access to the marketplace, the food world would look a lot more like La Cocina. The food industry has never been more celebrated, and yet, this is a country where 75 percent of food businesses are owned by men and where women in kitchens make, on average, 73 cents to a man’s dollar, even before accounting for race. Because race, too, affects opportunity in our industry. According to the Aspen Institute, lack of access to capital and race-based discrepancies in wealth unduly disadvantage aspiring entrepreneurs of color as they pursue their culinary visions. As customers, we also bear responsibility; we’re willing to pay top-tier prices for handmade Italian pastas without flinching, but chafe at a bowl of hand-pulled Chinese noodles that costs more than $10.
This isn’t a book about restaurants, or even exclusively about food. Instead, it’s about the people that make your food, who open restaurants; not merely a glimpse behind the kitchen door of a talented chef but also a sustained and passionate argument for wider opportunity. These entrepreneurs, in the quiet work that they do in hidden kitchens across the country, represent the best of what our cities have to offer. San Francisco was built on the backs of Native Ohlone farmers, Mexican tamale vendors, Italian fishermen, and Chinese noodle vendors, and every American place has a similar story. Our collective obligation, in an inclusive world, is to value all of these contributions honestly and equally.
We are all citizens of places built by immigrants and the dispossessed, all of us carving small moments of ourselves into the shifting sidewalks, cul-de-sacs, and driveways of the neighborhoods in which we live. The entrepreneurs in this book popped up in homes and on street corners before pop-ups had brokers and websites. These are the entrepreneurs that sold carne asada and carnitas from taco trucks before we started calling them food trucks.
In other words, these are the innovators that our cities so desperately rely upon. Our failure to elevate or to properly value these entrepreneurs threatens to strangle the very innovation and vibrancy that our country, and world, requires.
The recipes that you find in this book reflect the tastes and foods of the city where La Cocina was founded but they also speak to something larger, something that we hope you might reconnect with—finding inspiration in your own kitchen, in the kitchens that you pass on your way to work, in the neighborhoods you’ve been meaning to visit. We offer a book of short stories—lives intertwined every day in our kitchen and the place that those moments build. We offer not just another tamale, bowl of pho, or chocolate cake, but, instead, our world in all its moments, impossible to truly measure or ever repeat. Every community’s stories are buried in recipes like the ones in this book. The talents and tastes of your community are all around you. We hope this book will inspire you to work a little harder to find them and perhaps even to join them.
The stories in our book collide. We know that Veronica Salazar’s caldo de gallina and Reem Assil’s sfeeha make for odd page fellows, but such are the geographic intersections that give birth to tacos arabes and al pastor. These collisions are true to our kitchen and to the world we choose to live in. We hope that in