food – Fake Flamenco

bilingual, food, Spanish, Spanish Culture and Language

5 Nearly Foolproof Ways to Learn Spanish

So, Spanish is on your bucket list? ¡Qué emoción!* How exciting! You’ve chosen well. It’s a useful and beautiful world language and you are not alone on your learning journey. Over 500 million people speak español across the world. So, how do you get from saying tortilla, burrito, cerveza, to enjoyable fluency? May I make a recommendation? […]

food, Spanish, The Americas

Can We Help the Bahamas Rebuild?

The day after Hurricane Dorian hit, José Andrés of World Central Kitchens and his team were already serving 10,000 meals to people in the Bahamas. World Central Kitchens’ 227-foot boat, called Global, traveled from Fort Lauderdale filled with supplies for the aid mission. I talked earlier this year about World Central Kitchens (WCK), in my […]

food, Spanish Culture and Language

How Do You Say Waffle in Spanish?

Hmm, it didn’t sound right to say, el wafle, as several books and translation sites suggested. When dictionaries came up empty on this breakfast essential, we invented a name. Once the term stuck, I learned that Spaniards use the word el gofre. En nuestra casa es pan cuadrado – In our home it’s bread of […]

food, Mexico, Spanish Culture and Language

Pipián Sauce, a la Gringa

This sauce is based on pumpkin seed mole, called mole verde, or pipián. The Nahuatl word, molli, is the origin for mole, the Mexican word for this traditional Mixteca sauce. You may have tried mole made of chocolate, almond and chile over chicken in a restaurant. This pipián mole also has rich flavors. Although traditionally […]

food, Gardening

Gardening Staycation

Our garden is growing in leaps and bounds. Every spring in Madison we begin with bare ground and by June every surface is green. Time to step away from the computer and play in the dirt. We weeded the vegetable garden yesterday afternoon and harvested greens: spinach, chard, and amaranth. We picked purslane and dill […]

food, Spanish Culture and Language

Are Nachos Really Mexican Food?

We ate nachos this week for our Tuesday Spanish conversation dinner. The language during the meal was to be the main focus of this post. Then, I began to wonder if it was a double Spanish dinner. Do nachos originate in Texas or Mexico? I wanted to tell readers with culinary confidence. For many years […]