Dare to do more...!

I am sorry I have been in blog hibernation for the past two months but my life has been crazy busy with new potential projects for this new year, and lots of holiday parties I have been cheffing for. I also traveled to Florida for my brother's wedding, I can't believe my little brother is married... love you Mariano and wish you a lifetime of happiness with your girl. Anyways as I wipe off my tears, I will be starting a series of cooking techniques each month in my blog and share with you all the great cooking info I learned at culinary school. As I cook more and more I realize that a great dish is not about complicated ingredients and lengthy recipes but good quality ingredients and proper cooking techniques with less ingredients combined brilliantly to create that umami deliciousness that makes you go Oh my God! this is um, um, umm something your body language can express better than words.
In this holiday season our family tradition is to eat "hallacas" on Chistmas eve it is similar to a tamale but its dough is lighter and its filled with a guiso a combination of pork, beef, chicken, sofrito, capers and wine. This all gets wrapped in a plantain leaf and is cooked in boiling water for about 45 minutes. Last week a group of 5 women(my dear friends) including my mother and I decided to embark in what I called the "hallacation event" we made the guiso or filling on Wednesday let it rest for about 48 hrs and on Friday we made about 96 hallacas I called it event because it's a 3 day thing that is done with love, passion and lots of wine... eventhough I have always been a cheap date where after my first glass of wine I get tipsy I drank about 2-3 glasses and I started seen double and everything started spining in my head and I say things I would not dare to say ever!!! Thank God I can't remember what I did the next day otherwise I would be in confession at church the next day! We probably finished at about midnight on Friday I was exhaustedly tipsy but they turned out delicious! Making hallacas is very special to all the women in my family we get together talk about the past year all our experiences, what we learned, what we cried, what trully challenged us, magic moments and magic memories that we will treasure forever. Later of course the men come whom we love so much and inspire us to cook great dishes "to help" however what they end up doing is have the honor to try the first hallaca and give us their opinion, yeah great boys thanks for all your help! Just kidding we love you.
I wish you all Merry Christmas and a Happy New year and get ready to cook with me next year!...I will post some pictures from the hallacation event for you all to see,

Warm Wishes,

Adriana