Book of the Month
ABUELITA’S MAGICAL MOLCAJETE
Author: Molé Mama
Publisher: Couves, LLC
ASIN: B0CMZ8BFB7 / ISBN-13: 979-8989127702
SUMMARY:
Abuelita’s Magical Molcajete is a fun, magical, heartwarming romance filled with delicious Mexican food and hope! The characters beam with sass, imperfection, wisdom, and love and will have you longing to connect with family and friends. It may also drive you to launch new cooking clubs where you’ll spend countless hours making family recipes with multi-generational, cross-cultural friends and family, eat countless pink conchas and fluffy flour tortillas, host a tamalada, and purchase a molcajete. Marisol, our protagonist’s twin sister, summarizes the story in the following paragraphs.
A magical molcajete, nine meddling ghosts, a grieving spinster, and fluffy flour tortillas in sunny San Diego are the main ingredients in this mostly true story of how my twin sister found true love after I, well, I died.
Dr. Maria Ybarra, my beautiful, 42 year old brilliant twin sister, was a hot mess after my fatal accident. She could barely teach her university classes, spoke to her dancing dogs non-stop, and saw no one socially but our big brother. He’s also a brainiac plastic surgeon who stepped up to help her, but this job was too big for him.
Maria needed heavenly intervention, and thankfully, my Abuelita and Tias took on her case. They have some impressive connections here in the afterlife and got clearance and approvals in record time. My Abuelita and Tias are sassy, tech-savvy, sometimes ill-tempered, tequila-drinking, cigar-smoking cooking divas, and they’re unstoppable.
Okay, pour yourself a margarita, grab a pink concha or two, and put on salsa music. You might also need a few tissues, and Maria will take over from here and give you every juicy detail of her story.
About the Author:
Molé Mama. From her humble dairy farm childhood to Author, Silicon Valley Tech Executive, Blogger, Vlogger, Podcaster, and Food Network’s Guy’s Grocery Games competitor, Diana’s guilty of using delicious home-cooked food to connect with friends, family, employees, and strangers!
Cooking for others is her love language, and if you’ve been in her inner circle or worked with her, you’ve most likely tasted her salsa, guacamole, tacos, queso fundido, mole, enchiladas, Spanish rice, and chocolate cupcakes, fondly referred to as crack cakes because you can’t have
just one!
She believes home-cooked food can break down cultural and generational barriers, create a sense of belonging amongst co-workers, friends, and family and create real, meaningful
connections and magic!
During her Silicon Valley Executive tenure, Diana cooked countless meals for her employees
during all-night complex tech launches, hosted numerous potlucks, had less than 5% employee
attrition, repeatedly exceeded sales and growth targets by double-digits, and had many
employees follow her from company to company.
She attributes her success as a manager and business owner to her rich Mexican heritage, her
mother’s delicious recipes, her listening skills, and her ability to inspire others to soar at the
office or in their kitchens!
Instagram @mole_mama
Facebook: facebook.com/molemama
Conversations With Book
THE SALVISOUL COOKBOOK
Salvadoran Recipes and the Women Who Preserve Them
Author: Karla Tatiana Vasquez
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
ISBN-10: 1984861425 / ISBN-13: 978-1984861429
SUMMARY:
A beautifully photographed cookbook that celebrates the vibrant culture and community of El Salvador through 80 recipes and stories from twenty-five Salvadoran women.
“A heartfelt tribute to heritage, a testament to the power of storytelling, and an invitation to savor the true essence of El Salvador, one delicious recipe at a time.”—Hawa Hassan, James Beard Award–winning author of In Bibi’s Kitchen
In search of the recipes and traditions that made her feel at home, food historian and Salvadoran Karla Tatiana Vasquez took to the internet to find the dishes her mom made throughout her childhood. But when she couldn’t find any, she decided to take matters into her own hands. What started as a desire to document recipes turned into sharing the joys, histories, and tribulations of the women in her life.
In this collection of eighty recipes, Karla shares her conversations with moms, aunts, grandmothers, and friends to preserve their histories so that they do not go unheard. Here are recipes for Rellenos de Papa from Patricia, who remembers the Los Angeles earthquakes of the 1980s for more reasons than just fear; Flor de Izote con Huevos Revueltos, a favorite of Karla’s father; as well as variations on the beloved Salvadoran Pupusa, a thick masa tortilla stuffed with different combinations of pork, cheese, and beans. Though their stories vary, the women have a shared experience of what it was like in El Salvador before the war, and what life was like as Salvadoran women surviving in their new home in the United States.
About the Author:
Website: https://salvisoul.com/cookbook
Instagram @salvisoul
Twitter @salvisoul
