The Sobremesa Cookbook is here!
It is with much pride and joy that I announce the arrival of The Sobremesa Cookbook, just in time for the holiday season!
This project has been many years in the making. Ever since I started Sobremesa in 2014, guests at my classes, events, and culinary tours have been asking me for a cookbook. Alas, I never had the time to sit down and write it; I was way too busy teaching and running a business. Life has a way of doing that.
As soon as the pandemic hit, I lost my regular work and knew it was the right time to carry it forth. Determined to a fault, I managed to keep myself busy from day 1; having a project and a goal also helped me stay sane throughout these crazy times.
The Sobremesa Cookbook is a collection of 45 Spanish recipes, most of which have been tried and tested throughout the years of teaching workshops to wonderful students in the U.S. and in Spain. My focus is mainly on traditional regional Spanish cooking; however, each recipe bears my own personal seal. The book is very produce-centric and seasonal. There is a section with recipes from the sea, with fish and seafood as my only source of meat. My cooking style could be described as seasonal, fresh, and unfussy. My health-supportive culinary background is there, but as I believe that you can’t separate health from pleasure, every recipe aims to please the senses.
Because my role at Sobremesa is to be a culinary translator, and use food as an expression of culture, I also write some pretty long headnotes (something that certainly challenged my book designer at times!). I aim to offer you some delicious, unfussy recipes for you to enjoy at home, but also the story of a culture, and the story of my life in Spain over the past two decades. I hope you enjoy the storytelling as well.
There’s a chapter on picnics, and a chapter on gathering at home. These are two of my absolute favorite pastimes. I look forward to a not-so-far future when we can return to intimate gatherings with friends and loved ones, without that representing a threat to our health. I believe there are few things as pleasant and healthy as lingering around the table (or on a picnic blanket) with good food and company.
I am so very grateful to everyone who became a part of this project, whether through our crowdfunding campaign, or the many wonderful professionals I was lucky to cross paths with throughout the process. I have learned new things along the way: publishing a cookbook is about so much more than sitting down to write up recipes. Self-publishing is quite an endeavor, and though I was convinced this was the way I wanted to go, I didn’t suspect how complex it really was. Self-publishing has allowed me to in order to maintain control of e every creative aspect of the book, as well as timing and schedule -or so I thought. Wishfully thinking life would go back to some kind of normal sooner rather than later, I set a -somewhat ambitious- timeline for myself so that we could make it happen before things got too busy again. Little did I know, even self-publishing doesn’t always depend on one’s own timelines, as there are many other figures involved: a photographer, a book designer, a printer, etc. etc. etc., all with their own busy schedules to reconcile. Thanks again and again to those of you who set aside precious time to help me stay on track, you know who you are (and I mention you by name in the book).
The Sobremesa Cookbook is available for pre-order here in both hard and softcover versions. Please consider gifting yourself or your loved ones a copy this holiday season. We hope to release an ebook early in 2021.