Cooking Puerto Rican with Illyanna Maisonet

Plus: Catered Fit, Dinners at Damian and Mes Amis, and Links.

Hey everyone,

We have a very exciting guest on the podcast this week: Illyanna Maisonet, author of the brand new cookbook Diasporican. It’s a great talk about all things Puerto Rican cuisine, from achiote oil to sofrito, with a stop at persimmon cookies. Listen anywhere that you listen to podcasts or listen to the whole thing here:

Now before we get to other newsletter stuff, I have a favor to ask you!

If you’re one of the many generous people who’ve ordered Give My Swiss Chards of Broadway and you’re enjoying it, can you do us a big favor and write a nice Amazon review? Apparently it makes a big difference to have lots of positive reviews on the Amazon page. If you do that for me, I’ll be your best friend forever!

Thank you so much. It’s a huge help.

Okay… food stuff.

I have to confess… I haven’t been cooking much this past week because (*gulp*) confession time: I’m trying out this meal service called Catered Fit.

Now I know that looks a little like airplane food and maybe it does, but I’m doing this because I’m trying to lose weight (high cholesterol, people!) and I have a hard time, when cooking “healthy,” with portion control. I’ll make a whole tray of roasted broccoli and eat every piece; same with farro salad, cauliflower curry, etc.

So I’m trying Catered Fit (which isn’t sponsoring this by any means) because they portion everything out so it’s a certain amount of protein, carbs, and vegetables. I’m calling this the “research and development” phase of my losing weight agenda… don’t worry, it won’t last long because (a) I love cooking too much and (b) I’m going back to NY next week. But my goal is to get a sense of what a well-balanced meal looks like calorie-wise/protein-wise/and carb-wise. Stop judging!

Especially because I’m still eating lots of meals out with friends. Like this dinner I had with Ryan at Damian.

We ate guacamole and the most incredible tamale with fresh corn:

The steak was out-of-this-world:

As was this dessert with hibiscus and pomegranate (plus a charred fig cheesecake):

But wait! I also had dinner with Craig’s cousin David at Mes Amis:

We ate steak tartare and crudite and then I had another steak, this time with frites (since when do I eat so much red meat? Am I a werewolf?):

Plus there was this wild St. Honoré cake with pecan mousselline:

Now do you believe me that I’m not on a drastic diet? Good!

Winston and I watched The Shining yesterday and guess who was the biggest scaredy cat?

Let’s look at some links:

• Dorie Greenspan makes Phantom of the Opera Cakes from our new book and calls it “The Funniest Cookbook Ever”! (XOXO Dorie)

• Making an egg yolk omelette James Corden would hate (Grub Street);

• NFT reservations? NFthanks. (NYT);

• Kendra Cleary cooks their way through Swiss Chards (Subjectify Media).

That’s all for today, folks!

See you back here on Thursday….

Your pal,
Adam

P.S. Please please please review us on Amazon! If not for me, do it for Winston!