LatinLover Food & Travel Magazine

Article

The Arepa's Saving Grace

ArticleGuest UserComment

As a vegetarian, non-drinking gringo with poor Spanish language skills and two left feet, I tend to fall out of just about every ritual of warmth and welcome my Peruvian wife’s clan plans for my benefit, which tend to involve drink, dance, meat-centered feasting and fast chatter. Finally, here is a place where we can all share.

Francisco Parreño: From Valencia to New York

ArticleNatalia Chamorro1 Comment

Growing up in Valencia, Francisco Javier Parreño, current head chef of La Nacional Restaurant in New York, didn’t know he would grow to love cooking, travel the world and come back home every time with a new cooking book or magazine to add to his library collection. With 25 years of experience as of today, he started his profession as young as 15 and later on opened a restaurant in the center of Valencia that offers cuisines of the world. Currently, Francisco puts his experience, knowledge, and love of cooking in each paella, patatas bravas, and other traditional Spanish dishes, that he crafts for La Nacional Restaurant’s clients.

The Beautiful Belief of Candle 79

ArticleGuest UserComment

“Hasn’t aged a day in all these years!” Bart Potenza exclaims, indicating the small Buddha statue that presides over the entrance of Candle 79, the upscale Upper East Side restaurant that he and his partner, Joy Pierson, opened in 2003. Tongue in cheek, he adds, “Must be the food.”

Mirasol's Food for the Soul

ArticlePatricia CodinaComment

We continued chatting over tacu tacu topped with a seafood stir-fry, a slow-roasted goat shank, Mirasol risotto and shellfish in an herbed butter sauce. The sun started to sink into the ocean, as we ended our meal with Andres’ mother’s home-made ice cream. I walked to my car and headed home, my stomach, content, and my heart, full.

Mercados of Madrid

ArticleAdriana MatusComment

“Aren’t those the loveliest eggs you’ve ever seen? Plucked right out of a fairytale! If Humpty Dumpty had offspring, this is what they’d look like!” I exclaimed to my husband. After a year of living in his homeland I still gush over the novel discoveries I make, and he still chuckles at my enthusiasm.

Peru Homemade: Ají de Gallina

ArticleSajda WaiteComment

Although going out and experiencing new restaurants in Lima has been extraordinary, there is something to be said about a good old fashion homemade meal. We’ve been blessed with the option if we ever we are in need of food we are always welcome to take a 15-minute walk over to Bae’s aunts’ house, and we will be met with food abundant. One such day we walked over to have a family lunch, and I was introduced to one of Peru’s classic meals, Ají de Gallina.

Visiones de ayahuasca

ArticleBenny Chueca5 Comments

Entrevista a Oscar Naters

Durante 30 años, el grupo Integro, dirigido por Oscar Naters, ha extendido los límites de disciplinas como el teatro, la danza y la performance. Y en esta búsqueda ha ganado reconocimiento en el Perú y en el extranjero. En setiembre, Naters estuvo en Manhattan invitado por la Universidad de Nueva York (NYU) para ofrecer una conferencia acerca de Ino Moxo, montaje que nació de experiencias espirituales mediadas por el ayahuasca, la planta de los chamanes de la Amazonia.

The Raquel Rivera Impact

Article, StoryMolly Rockhold

Raquel Quiñones Rivera officially started her music journey in high school, but she’s always had an instinct for the melodic expressionism that is apparent in her vast repertoire. It’s been a journey of self-discovery that began in her early years in Puerto Rico. “Music was a big part of the culture, so it was almost an automatic familiarity with it,” she shares, now reminiscing and reflecting on her past in the midst of a bustling Williamsburg winery.

Raquel Rivera Collective. Photo - Sara Ontaneda Loor

Pair successfully directs "Chavela," the story of an idiosyncratic star

ArticleEmilie PonsComment

How does one pay a cinematographic tribute to an icon such as Mexican singer Chavela Vargas, who embodies utter simplicity and utmost complexity at the same time?  This is what filmmakers Catherine Gund and Daresha Kyi achieved with their documentary Chavela, a moving and thought-provoking portrait of the enigmatic singer who helped change the way we see ranchera music and who redefined what it means to be a female singer in the macho world of Mexico. As one of Chavela’s friends explains in the film, in order to survive, Chavela had to be more macha than the most machos. Photo © Excelsior / Imagen Digital

Eclectic Montreal Jazz Festival strikes again

ArticleEmilie PonsComment

Another characteristic of the festival is how international it is. It brings in artists from all over the world: Australia, Austria, Spain, Cap Verde, France, Japan, Belgium, Israel and Congo…and the list continues. And unlike the Newport or the Detroit Jazz Festivals, Montreal features non-jazz acts. This year, rock artists such as Jethro Tull or pop singers such as Charlotte Gainsbourg and Finley Quaye were invited. Finally, on top of featuring the world’s most famous musicians, the eclectic Montreal Jazz festival is also a place where one can discover new artists, who, in turn, are given a chance to present their work in front of a rather large audience. Colombian vocalist Lido Pimienta is one of these breathtaking talents the festival scheduled this year. She performed at the Club l’Astral. In spite of being 8-months pregnant, she brought tremendous energy on stage. She also spoke very openly about having been abused in past relationships, because she believes women have to tell their stories.

The "Branding Lover" is here to help you!

ArticleChris Yong-GarciaComment

We came across to an exciting project of a good friend of ours!

Juan Carlos Orosco worked for 12 years at a major advertising agency from the WPP group: J.Walter Thompson, and 17 years in digital marketing in various companies. The main focus of his job, both offline and online has been building brands or as he likes to tell us “seeking love for old and new brands.”

Speaking of love, recently he just fell in love with the concept of personal brand building.

V Festival de Vino, Paella, Pinchos y Tapas

ArticleAldo SánchezComment

Latin Lover tuvo el privilegio de asistir a una experiencia gastronómica y cultural en San Miguel de Allende: el V Festival de Vino, Paella, Pinchos y Tapas. El viaje fue organizado por la agencia de Relaciones Públicas Gloss Media Group encabezada por Rose Ruiz y Alberto Cinta y la primera parada fue este gran festival que tuvo lugar el sábado 16 de abril en Casa de Aves, a las afueras de San Miguel donde chefs de México y España se reunieron para presentar su mejor paella y fideuá y promover sus restaurantes ubicados en San Miguel de Allende, Querétaro, Acapulco y Ciudad de México. 

Mi Hogar es Jarabacoa

ArticleYumilka Pamela Ortiz6 Comments

"Necesitaba tiempo para poner mis pensamientos en claro, y buscarle sentido a todo esto. Salí con el corazón revuelto y desencantado de un pueblo diferente. Me salí de la perspectiva vivida y me puse a analizar quien era yo interiormente y porqué me afectaba tanto este cambio. Soy una persona criada en los Estados Unidos, solo visitaba a mi país los veranos cuando niña, en aquel entonces no tenía una definición en el papel que juego aquí como persona. El dominicano de allí me ve como ¨Dominican York¨ o gringa sin tener una mínima idea de quién soy. "

Ancient Fibers, Organic Future for Peru

ArticlePatricia Codina1 Comment

Dr. James Vreeland was an archeologist studying pre-Columbian textiles on the northern coast of Peru, when he noticed that the ancient fibers he was observing under the microscope appeared to be naturally pigmented, not dyed. The existence of colored cotton had been all but forgotten and was really only known to local peasant farmers of that region. 

Cumbia Loves New York

ArticleMichelle Christina LarsenComment

Bareto is performing for hundreds of grinning fans crammed into Stage 48, a large venue frozen to the skirts of the Hudson River Piers. Concert-goers in their 20s and 30s are frantically waving their arms in the frost, singing along to modern renditions of classic Peruvian cumbia, or chicha, a genre which, until recently, carried a lower class stigma that many Peruvians turned their backs on.