Getting Started

Welcome to my cooking and travel blog; a place for home cooks to share ideas and recipes, ask questions, and just chat about all things kitchen related. I love cooking foods from a variety of cultures and I hope to share that passion with you. I also love to travel and learn about local cuisines.

I am NOT a trained chef. Sure, I've taken a variety of cooking classes over the years but in no way do I profess to be a professional chef - I am a home cook who enjoys putting my own "spin" on existing recipes.

My other passion is travelling. I've worked both onboard and shoreside for two major cruise lines, and I was a flight attendant with a major airline for 16 years.  I had the opportunity to travel to many places throughout the world. Everywhere I go I try new and, sometimes, exotic foods. The more I travel the more I love what other cultures have to offer through their cuisine. I particularly enjoy the Latin American countries and I'm on a personal quest to speak Spanish fluently. It's been a long process but something I really enjoy.

I was born &  raised in New York and then I moved to South Florida where the lifestyle is very different. Now I'm embedded in a community where words such as pastelitos, pan de bono, churasscarrias and arroz imperial are the norm. I also met my husband here in South Florida. He's a NY-Dominican, and that opened a whole world of foods, seasonings and methods of cooking that I'd never heard of before.

I'm of Irish descent, have 4 sisters and the greatest parents anyone could ask for. The foods I ate growing up are still my comfort foods; Beef Stew, Corned Beef & Cabbage, Irish Soda Bread, Jelly Roll, Steaks and Burgers on the grill, Bread Pudding, Roast Beef with Mashed Potatoes and so forth. My parents both worked full time for as long as I can remember and yet we all sat down to dinner every night at the kitchen table. When I was in 7th grade I took a Home Economics class and from then on I was hooked on cooking. I loved "getting dinner started" for my mother. To this day I still use the cookbook and recipes I used back then and will always treasure them. The pages are yellowed and many of the recipes are very simple but they hold so many good memories for me. My sisters and I share recipes and we're always looking for something new and exciting to cook.

For over a decade now we've lived in South Florida and this in itself has influenced the way I cook and the foods I eat even more. (Imagine my impression the first time I saw a whole pig being roasted in my neighbor's backyard, and to learn that they had "picked out the pig" from the farm that morning!).

My husband did not grow up eating the foods I did. His comfort foods are Locrio, Arroz con Gandules, Pernil, Chicharrones de Pollo and so forth. At first these were all foreign to me but at the same time intriguing. I learned to cook all them by asking questions and watching other people; and also by trial and error. These dishes are delicious and, in most cases, easy to make. Over the years I have falled in LOVE with the Dominican Republic and we travel there as often as possible. The people, the culture and the beauty of the country are irresistible and we've made a decision to retire in there; hopefully sooner. I like nothing more than to travel through the DR trying local dishes and learning more about the people.

I like to try the local foods when I travel and then recreate the same dishes at home. Has it worked right every time? No. Sometimes I've had to change things 3 or 4 times before it brings back memories from the trip. However, there have also been many times a new recipe was born by "mistake" as well in my kitchen.

Travelling has opened my eyes to so many great things and I have a lifetime of memories that I will share with you through this blog. There are many funny stories and lessons learned.

Cooking is not rocket science; there are endless ways to make the same dish and allows each cook puts his or her own personal touch into it. That's what makes it exciting. 

I invite you to post comments, share a story or ask a question here. I will share my recipes with you and hope that you too can "travel to other places" through foods. If you've been intimidated by trying to cook ethnic foods I'm going to show you just how easy it is. I'll be honest with you - I don't do a lot of gourmet cooking. We love to entertain and I enjoy cooking all the food when we do, but we like to eat simple, everyday foods that taste good. You don't know what you're missing unless you've created your own Paella from scratch, cooked Thai Red Curry Chicken, or nibbled on homemade Pernil (pork roast).

My husband, for better or worse, is a very picky eater. However, I don't let it discourage me. Instead, I welcome the challenge to cook foods that he likes and to introduce him to new dishes. He's come a long way over the years and he's been my guinea pig every time I try a new recipe. He's both my biggest fan and, by far, my biggest critic. Some of the recipes he loves and others he'll politely tell me never to make again. That's part of cooking. Not everyone enjoys the same foods. We've had a lot of laughs in the kitchen and I'm on a quest to teach him to cook. Talk about a challenge! I'm determined to get him to a point that he can make a full meal on his own, although I truly doubt it will be any time soon.

Again, I want to welcome all the home cooks out there and I hope that you'll join me in learning to love foods from around the world.

Buen provecho y que tengan un buen viaje!

Colleen (AKA Mrs. Mangú)