recipe | Dos Gildas

Black Beans for the Young and Restless

February 5, 2011 By Gilda (Dini) Karasik 1 Comment

I have a friend, Liz, who is a half-Egyptian, half-Cuban beauty. Tall and fit, she more like glides when she walks, ever mellow but always in step with the world around her. The color of her eyes exactly matches her burnt-caramel skin. The corona of springy, black curls that frames her face is her signature feature. She is blithe, guarded and possesses a disarming, sardonic wit. And she reminds me of beans, so hard and stoic until you cook them down, slowly. Patiently. What is impenetrable at first eventually becomes velvety smooth, full of texture, hearty and dependable. Also, we ate a lot of black beans and rice together when we were low-budget law students living in Baltimore. It was 1995. Our first year of law school. We spent time on campus feigning self-confidence, eating free pizza and drinking cheap beer in the student lounge, and surreptitiously stalking the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Beans, Entrées/Platos Fuertes, Gilda (Dini) Karasik, Side Dishes Tagged With: black beans, recipe, vegetarian

La Media Naranja in Old Nuevo Laredo

January 29, 2011 By Gilda (Dini) Karasik 4 Comments

Before the proliferation of drug cartels and at a time when the peso still stood for something, one of my great aunts had a food nook on Avenida Guerrero in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. The avenue was a one-way artery heading north to the Gateway of the Americas International Bridge connecting Laredo, Texas and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. In those days, the street was lined with storefronts and restaurants for miles, bustling with shoppers, families, and tourists. It’s where we, as teenagers, avoided Texas’ underage drinking laws, danced at discos until the early morning hours, flirted with each other across cultures. Now, wary of the potential for unpredictable violence, most Laredoans venture to the Mexican side of the Rio Grande only out of necessity. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Entrées/Platos Fuertes, Gilda (Dini) Karasik Tagged With: ground chicken, nuevo laredo, picadillo, recipe, taco filling

Remembering a Mesquite Tree and a Recipe

January 26, 2011 By Gilda Valdez Carbonaro 2 Comments

A venerable, old mesquite tree grew in front of our yard, almost obstructing the so-called street. This unpaved street would remain that way until 30 years later when I was long gone and far away from my hometown. The ubiquitous mesquites that grew near the Rio Grande were usually shrub height, but this one was old, its branches reaching probably 15 feet up into the blue skies. There was nothing better on a hot, dry day than biting into the red-striped mesquite pods that dangled from its branches to get to the sugary juice. The wood from it's fallen branches was perfect for our wood fires, and some of my father's carpenters sometimes made boxes for us out of this hardwood. In recent months, I've had the faintest of memories about that mesquite appear, like little pieces of the puzzle of long ago events. A white dishtowel blows softly from a branch, hung there by my mother in … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Breakfast/Desayuno, Gilda V. Carbonaro, Musings Tagged With: huevos a la mexicana, recipe, tortillas

Answer: Totopos

January 24, 2011 By Gilda (Dini) Karasik 2 Comments

From time to time, too-far-away cousins email me questionnaires that solicit information about my favorite things, likes and dislikes and other random trifles. What socks are you wearing right now? Great Dane or Chihuahua? When was the last time you cried? I take these inquiries very seriously, knowing that my relatives are trying to bridge the distance between us. None. Great Dane. When I chopped onions this morning. Then there are the questions about my favorite book, movie or food. These stump me. I agonize over the answers. These questions are like asking me to choose between my children or to decide what I want to be when I grow up (other than the proud owner of a Park Avenue penthouse. See Much Ado About Mucho post). It’s much easier to articulate answers about the books I have no interest in reading, the movies that put me to sleep in the first twenty minutes … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Appetizers/Aperitivos, Gilda (Dini) Karasik, Recipes Tagged With: chips and salsa, guacamole, recipe

The Tale of the Breakfast Taco Craving

January 14, 2011 By Gilda (Dini) Karasik Leave a Comment

I'm dreaming ideas, day and night. The ideas spark memories and, the next thing I know, I'm scanning my computer and tucked-away boxes for old photographs to use on the Dos Gildas website and calling my aunts and uncles to see if anyone has written down my grandmother's recipes. I'm on a treasure hunt. But this project isn't just about recipes on a page; it's about good, soulful food and what makes it that way. Take, for example, the breakfast taco (See my recipe below!), a seemingly simple creation. Usually a warm, flour or corn tortilla wrapped around steamy scrambled eggs and diced potatoes. Easy, right? Hard to get it wrong. Anyone can scramble an egg with potatoes, no? No. Recently, on a trip home from Los Angeles while I waited for my plane to board at LAX, I wandered into a Mexican cafe. It was 8:00 a.m. and, even though I was completely aware of the fact that I was about to … [Read more...]