Last week, I attended a cocktail reception to celebrate the release of food personality Marisel Salazar’s first cookbook, “Latin-ish.” Our hostess, Caroline Hachett, invited a small group of food editors to her minimalist-maximalist apartment and cooked up some of the recipes from the book. We had a time!
Born of Cuban, Panamanian, and Peruvian heritage, Salazar’s appreciation for Latin-ish foods developed when she was a teenager, from traveling around the world with her parents because her stepfather served in the U.S. Navy. In that formative time and into her adult years of travel, Salazar began to recognize Americans abroad who were missing the Latin-based regional American foods like Tex-Mex, Cal-Mex, Southwestern, Floribbean, Latino Southern, Latino Midwestern, and—of course—our wonderful NYC Latino. Latin-ish celebrates all of the American Latino cuisines, from breakfast to dessert and all of the spices, sauces, sides, and staples in between.
As I arrived, our hostess greeted me with a warm hello and some Texas Ranch Water (p. 168), a cocktail of blanco tequila, Topo Chico, and lime with a salt rim. Effervescent, bright, and fun, it was the perfect way to welcome me in and pique my appetite, too.
Latin-ish dishes were spread all over the fabulous Mid-Century Modern artistic apartment. I said a quick hello to those around the table (because…food) where Esquites herb salad (p. 88), collard green empañadas (p. 66), and Dominican spaghetti (p. 59) lived. I cannot lie: I went in on that salad a couple of times. It was like elote in a bowl but brightened with tons of herbs. I will definitely be making that one.
Kysha Harris photos
The coffee table housed good ol’ American guacamole (p. 202) and fresh corn tortilla chips (p. 206) that were a bomb together. There were also Puerto Rican party sandwiches (p. 41), made with canned lunch meat and jarred cheese on crustless white bread—think pimento cheese but make it Latin-ish.
Dessert was Salazar’s plantain upside-down cake (p. 137) with vanilla ice cream, and I ate every bite of it (because I love anything banana-ish). It was moist and not too sweet. All I needed was some dark chocolate to make it Kysha-ish.
Thank you to Caroline Hachett for the gathering and congratulations again to Marisel Salazar for this little piece of food joy. “Latin-ish” is due online and on actual shelves on August 20.
Happy eating and thanks for reading!
Kysha Harris is a chef, food writer and editor, culinary producer, consultant, and owner of
SCHOP!, a personalized food service in NYC for more than 22 years. Follow her on Instagram at
@SCHOPnyc and on Facebook at @SCHOPnyc.
Questions, comments, requests, feedback, invitations! Email at AmNewsFOOD@SCHOPnyc.com. Follow on Instagram and Facebook @NYAmNewsFOOD.