Guillermo Gómez Peña’s Live in America Cocktail

With photos from the performance slide-showing in my mind, I watch Gómez Peña from across the room. Shorter than I imagined. Good rings. He leads with a discussion of how many brujas he senses in the house. He exhibits a deep appreciation for good beans. Offers a dick joke. In a short time, he is unapologetically holding court around our dining table. And of course, he wants a cocktail. And of course, the only liquor we have is that bucketful of Fireball shots. 

A Recipe for Night Beans, in this case vegan borracho night beans

by Carra Martinez | June 11, 2023

Making night beans is an act of faith. Faith in the power of onions and garlic and jalapeño. Faith in my own ability to release, leave both time and the beans unmonitored, unwatched. Faith that my ancestors’ centuries-old culinary brujería still lives in the present, inside my fingers as I chop and inside my taste buds as I lift the spoon to my mouth and blow across the soup before sipping the bean juice. Faith that those very oldest of magics can still transform a humble dried bean.

Recipe for an Unanticipated Thanksgiving Casserole

by Carra Martinez | January 31, 2023

This is not the recipe I intended to write for the Thanksgiving season. My intention was to write a thoughtful meditation on the culinary journey of learning to nixtamalize corn for tortillas. But thoughtful corn tortillas were not what happened on Thanksgiving.

Martinez Avocado Tomatillo Salsa

by Carra Martinez | November 9, 2022

The key to mastering this salsa is a total pleasure-button—just eat a lot of it.

Untested Recipe for Growing Blackberries

by Carra Martinez | October 5, 2022

Cutting out sod is not my favorite job, but the eight, six-inch blackberry canes must be planted. And maybe I plant them around Lone Rock: a large, flat-top rock that lives in the least trafficked spot in the front yard.