Laylita

She needed to buy one bottle of red and one bottle of white, and this is the white I suggested she gets for her targeted USD $5 price point. After living in the US for a few years I noticed that US wines tend to lead their labeling with the grape varietal, while wines from Europe tend to lead with the region or the vineyard. Sometimes French wines don’t include the grape type at all on the bottle, even if it’s 100% the same grape and not a blend. It makes it easier for the consumer to get an idea of what they are buying, what the wine might taste like, especially for export markets where people know what a Sauvignon Blanc can taste like, but may have no idea about white Bordeaux.

There are things that a red wine needs to avoid in order to come out with the flavors and intensity that makes it quintessential: excess rain, excess cold. Generally this is a good thing for food products: olive oil, fruit juices, all keep nutrients, flavors and in the case of fruits, fiber, compared to their filtered counterparts. In our tasting we poured two glasses, one directly and one through an aerator and Layla found the decanted glass slightly more acidic than the non-decanted glass. Overall we like the bottle, although we prefer an even smoother Rioja, Viña Real from Cerro de la Mesa – Laguardia.

While my grandmother’s food was delicious, I always found myself missing the Ecuadorian food that I grew up with, so I had to learn how to cook these dishes myself and adapt them based on the ingredients I found in the US. I started documenting quantities and cooking times when friends asked me to share recipes, then my husband suggested that I start a blog to post the recipes to make it easier to share. My mom’s cooking could be described as combination of New Mexican influence (think spice), Ecuadorian recipes and ingredients, but always with a healthy twist (olive oil instead of lard, homemade yogurt instead of sour cream, whole wheat flour, brown rice). This is futbol (soccer) situation in our home: we all support Ecuador (and the US and sometimes France, unless they are playing against Ecuador), I am a supporter of Liga de Loja (my awesome hometown team) and Emelec.

Here is a list of some of my favorite Spanish and Latin food blogs. The authors of these blogs are people who I wouldn’t mind having a cup of coffee with (or a glass of wine, margarita, mojito, capirinha, pisco sour, etc), while we talk about food. I also have a list of favorite food blogs that are mainly in Spanish (and few in Portuguese) on the Spanish section of my site. I would love to keep adding more Latin American and Spanish food blogs to this list.