Desserts

I think I’ve fallen in love with New York.

My first time visiting was actually earlier this year in April, when I  got to go on a work trip for two days, but I didn’t get to really experience much. This time around, I got to spend a full week, which was more than enough time to get a taste of all the sights, smells, and bites Nueva York had to offer.

We had noodles, dumplings, pizza, ice cream, even more pizza, arepas, bagels and lox, and of course…even more ice cream. I’m pretty sure I ate my weight in pizza and ice cream while I was there.

It was a super last minute trip, but we managed to snag a really affordable airbnb in Hells Kitchen  just two weeks prior to leaving, and it was great to see how close we were to just about most of the places we wanted to visit.

We had bagels and lox every morning, because out where I live in Southern California (Riverside), the only place where you can find a bagel, is at Panera. Brooklyn Bagel & Coffee Company was our go to spot while we were there.  We had their Nova sandwich which came on an everything bagel with nova lox, scallion cream cheese, red onions, tomatoes and capers. Every bite of this sandwich was perfect. I’m crying just thinking about how much I miss it.

We also had pizza, because you can’t go to New York and not have pizza and out of all of the places we tried, Prince Street Pizza was hands down the best we had. We stood in line for about 10 minutes, looking at all of the pictures of the celebrities who had eaten before, skeptical of wether or not the place would be worth the hype. But it was. The pepperoni was thick and plenty, and the crust was nice and crispy with just the right amount of cheese on it.

For ice cream, we tried Van Leeuwen’s which was nothing to rave about, Big Gay Ice Cream which became a melty mess as soon as the cone was handed to us, Amorino Gelato which was good, Seed + Mill which was also good, and of course Milk Bar which was very good.

I left the city feeling inspired, and very full and when I got home a few days later, I got to work and decided to make a cake inspired by our trip. It’s a take on Milk Bar’s Christina Tossi’s concept of her naked birthday cake with crumbs, but it’s even better because it’s horchata flavored! The cake itself is a moist cinnamon cake, drizzled with an horchata soak and topped with an horchata buttercream and topped with crunchy crumbs and sprinkles. The recipe is pretty easy, just make sure to give everything enough time to come to room temperature, or you’ll get stuck with a broken buttercream like I did!

I was trying to keep this post brief so I didn’t mention a few other places we ate at, but I couldn’t go without mentioning Xian Famous Foods and their amazing noodles, and Levain Bakery which had the softest and most gooey cookies I have ever had in my life.

This cake is a winner, and I hope you get to enjoy it as much as I did. Everyone was left asking for seconds, which is always a sign of success if you ask me.

Nos vemos pronto! Stay chingonx!

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Hola, I’m baaack–and I’m pretty sure you’re going to love this recipe, it’s a café de olla chocoflan! It is a cinnamon coffee flan, with a really fudgey cake bottom! If you’re curious, this is the pan I used for the chocoflan.

If you’ve never heard of chocoflan, it’s essentially a cake where the batters trade places during the baking process so you end up with flan on the top and a chocolate cake on the bottom.

I have so much to write about today that I have no idea where I even want to start.

I feel like like always has a way of changing things up in an instant just when you think everything is falling into place. Six weeks ago, I had the honor to deliver a keynote at Texas A&M for the The Student Conference on Latinx Affairs, and it was such a rewarding experience getting to speak to these college students, and getting to listen to their stories, giving them advice and them sharing what my work means to them.

It was a very emotional experience, and I think it was a bit of a therapy session for all of us. I got to share with them many bits and pieces that I hadn’t shared with anyone else; my coming out story, dealing with depression and the struggle with my parents disapproving of what I aspired to be when I grew up.

I left the conference feeling confident in my work, being proud of being able to represent my culture in a landscape where there isn’t much representation, and I left feeling with a sense of responsibility to keep doing what I’m doing to ensure our stories and voices are continuously heard.

And then, just 3 days after we got back from Texas, or dog Mose, unexpectedly passed away.

I wasn’t ready for him to go, and everything surrounding his passing was so frustrating. We had been taking him to the vet continuously to have his nose looked at because he kept having breathing issues, and every single time a vet would tell us he had an infection and would prescribe antibiotics and nothing ever worked.

He had a biopsy done for cancer that came back clear just a few days before we were supposed to head to Texas and we didn’t realize that a week later we’d be taking him in to get a bloody nose cleaned up, only to be told we had to put him down because there was in fact a cancerous tumor in his nose, or he’d bleed out at home.

I was so angry, and I was so hurt that I couldn’t take him to the park one last time, that I couldn’t feed him a loaf of bread because carbs were his favorite thing in the world. He was just laying in our lap, dazed and confused from having been sedated for his bloody nose, and I just couldn’t bare to look at him like that. I didn’t want that to be my last memory of him..

He gave us a lot of laughs, a lot of cuddles, and he will never be forgotten. It’s been six weeks since his passing, and I still find myself accidentally calling his name sometimes, singing to him, wishing he was still around.

I tried getting back to work and everything I kept making kept failing, and it was frustrating. I realized the other day that I needed to talk about him before I was going to be able to start developing recipes and getting to blog again.

Mose, I hope you’re somewhere out there getting endless car rides, making someone else laugh with your one-of-a-kind personality, getting to sleep on a comfy bed somewhere with plenty of carbs around.

Te extraño, y te quiero mucho.

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