What exactly is an embelequera?
A delicious Mexican cocktail and why the things that make life complicated are also what make it good.
In Puerto Rican slang, an embeleco roughly translates to a complication, usually an unnecessary one. An embelequero/a (x?) is somebody who engages in emeblecos. It’s also one of my childhood nicknames.
Despite my best efforts, I have never been an organized cook. No matter how much I prep and mise, I make a mess. Like a captive turtle, I manage to expand my mess to fill the space I occupy, leaving every corner of my relatively large kitchen dusted with flour. I am always making things I could just as easily buy in the store. The most delicious things come from these embelecos, yes, but so does a giant pile of dishes I don’t want to wash and cupboards brimming with specialty ingredients I’ll never use again.
Like many millennials, I was seduced by the promises of minimalism. As a physically chaotic person, I fetishize a life free of clutter and mess and fantasize of the peace that comes with it. It’s hardly a surprise that many of us are drawn into the idea of a perfectly clean home, with everything neatly organized, and a life where we have only what we need. I once read article about a man who could fit all his belongings in a backpack and take off at any moment and I found it highly aspirational until I remembered that I could not fit my beloved Kitchenaid in a backpack.
The appeal of minimalism extended beyond the limited accumulation of things. I wanted to keep every aspect of my life free of unnecessary complications—I wanted to stay in a small, manageable apartment walking distance from work (no car!). I wanted to continue living apart from my partner. I sneered at my friends with dogs when they complained about the amount of money and work they required, gloating internally that I did not need to worry about a dog sitter when taking off on a weekend trip. The embeleco-free life meant I could pick up and leave whenever I wanted. I can’t say I ever achieved close to what the minimalist ideal was, but I strove for it, believing my adult life would begin the moment my perfectly chic self-styled work uniform was hanging in my closet and I had successfully achieved inbox 0.
The phrase “and then the pandemic hit” has become such a writing cliche, but well.. then the pandemic hit. Suddenly I was confronted with a problem I hadn’t considered: What is my life when I can’t just pick up and leave? During that phase when we were still afraid to even go outside, the confined space of my boyfriend’s apartment felt small. We passed the days fantasizing about yards, about barbeques with friends, about the chaos of the airport (one of my least favorite places during normal times). My friends with more complicated lives than mine would complain about how hard quarantine was with children/pets/a house to maintain/ a huge family to attend to. I don’t doubt it, and let me make crystal clear that I had it relatively easy. But when I stripped a life from all the meticulous plans and order, I started to realize my world was actually quite small.
So I leaned in hard into my embelecos. Meals were the only way we were able to mark the passing days, and I would spend hours making a mess with overcomplicated recipes in my boyfriend’s tiny and underequipped kitchen. Despite my protests that it was totally unnecessary, I found myself giving in to the sourdough bread trend, not because I didn’t have access to yeast or excellent nearby bakeries, but because the process of making an unnecessarily complicated bread over the course of two days put my mind at ease. I found comfort in the idea that no matter how messy the kitchen got, there would still be something delicious at the end of it—I would be taken care of even if in the thick of it everything was chaos.
A little over a year later, I now live with my boyfriend, making plans for a kitchen renovation 3 years overdue. I’m running on very little sleep, because our new 10 week old puppy still isn’t old enough to hold his bladder, and the apartment is chaos (there is flour in every corner of my kitchen, again). I still haven’t done my taxes. I think I just pulled out fibers from the jute rug that might be the fanciest piece of home decor I own out of the puppy’s mouth. And yet my mind is at peace for the first time in a long time.
It turns out that the very things that make life complicated are what make life good.
Recipe: San Miguel Sunset, inspired by a cocktail from Rosewood Hotel
6 years ago, my mother, my grandmother and I took a trip together to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico to celebrate my graduation and take some Mexican cooking classes. One of my favorite memories of this trip was an evening where we went to the gorgeous rooftop bar of the Rosewood Hotel, which has an amazing view of the town. We drank this cocktail that is forever imprinted in my memory—refreshing cucumber, sweet orange with salty Tajín, topped off with a subtly smoky Mezcal. The hotel was kind enough to share the recipe with my me and, in honor of Mother’s day, I’m providing my adaptation below.
In a cocktail shaker, muddle half a cucumber (chopped), half a lime (chopped), and a pinch of sugar. Add a tablespoon of agave or honey and as much Tajín as you like (you can replace Tajín with a mix of equal parts salt and chili powder), and two shots of Mezcal (I like Monteoblos Joven, because its smoky without being overpowering), or tequila and top it off with ice. Mix super well and divide between two ice-filled glasses. Top off with fresh orange juice. Garnish with limes, cucumber spears and a Tajín rim, if you’re feeling fancy.
Hits, no misses
This delicious beef and sweet potato curry is a cinch to make and is hearty and comforting without being too heavy.
In continuing my misadventures in sourdough, I made these Birote from Bryan Ford’s New World Sourdough. As always, my end results look NOTHING like the pictures, but I like to think I made some lookers this time.
The May issue of Bon Appetit has some gems in it. This vegan salt and pepper cauliflower by Justin Lee of Fat Choy is delicious, even if you skip the last step of making the garlic crisp, and is a great way to try your hand at making creamy sauces using silken tofu. I also loved the bulgur lettuce cups from Yasmin Khan, whose new cookbook Ripe Figs: Recipes and Stories from Turkey Greece and Cyprus I hear is really good.
I’m continuing to work my way through the recipes of Roxana Jullapat’s Mother Grains and so far there has not been a dud of a recipe. The buckwheat fruit-nut sourdough is time consuming but otherwise foolproof. The dried fruit makes the slices look like gorgeous stained glass, and it is heaven toasted with a slice of ultra sharp cheddar.
Check it out
I have long been a fan of Eric Kim’s writing in Food52, especially his series on cooking for one. I am excited to see the buzz he is getting from this essay in NYTimes cooking about learning his Korean mother’s recipes and I hear that his Chicken with Fish Sauce Croutons is absolutely delicious.
Speaking of cooking for one, this profile on Nigella Lawson, the OG queen of the art of cooking for yourself is a good one. I think the general public just see her as a tv personality and fewer people are familiar with her writing, which is a shame.
As we go back to traveling, it’s interesting to think about the role of tourist-oriented “development”. This essay by Kevin Vaughn about his recent trip to Jujuy, Argentina, is uncomfortable for anyone who loves to travel, but is a must read as it questions whether we commercialize to the point of destruction the very cultures we want to preserve.
This might seem like an ironic recommendation considering the theme of my essay this month, but if you buy one recipe magazine this month, check out the May issue of Real Simple, which should still be on stands now. Life has been busy, but this make-ahead baked ravioli, slow cooker chicken tostadas, and these one-bowl chocolate hazelnut blondies helped me eat well without too much effort.