Generations of Spanish Family cooking – A reflection on how I became in love with food

I grew up in Spain with a family of talented cooks, starting of course with Abuela Ino who was a Chef, who taught her 2 daughters: my Godmother Valentina and my aunt Paqui and also her youngest son, my Dad, how to cook deliciously.

I started very young to be a foodie, but can you blame me? with such talented cooks around me, I was well fed and learned to adore Mediterranean food from as young as I could start eating solids.

My 1st favorite food at Age 1 was Chorizo, the old lady that used to take care of me during the day while my parents worked, was from a small town in the South of Spain and made her own chorizo. Yep I was eating the good stuff from early on, and you probably guessed right, that was one of the 1st words I could pronounce very well!

As I was a little older (around 6ish) I wanted to know how exactly throwing all these ingredients together made something so mouthwatering.

So I adored to be in the kitchen with Dad, or any of my aunts when we went to Caceres for a visit during the holidays; there I was in the kitchen just hanging out, taking in all the smells, occasionally fetching ingredients from the pantry or fridge and all and all absorbing the how they made the food that I adored to eat.  As traditional (old school) women in my family my aunts and Abuela would shoo me out of the kitchen saying kids should be playing, but I had a hidden motive for helping, I wanted to be like them and cook finger licking, mouth watering, scrumptious food when I grew up.

When at Age 10 we moved to Caceres and I got to live with my Abuela for some time, lets say I spent a lot of time in the kitchen and learned a lot from her.  As a teenager I spent more time in the kitchen with Dad and when I could with Abuela. When I finally moved away from home I tried to replicate everything I had learned, and Dad shared a lot of recipes with me so I wouldn’t feel home sick. Abuela unfortunately never really shared her recipes completely, and now as an adult I know why – A chef never shares their secrets!

I’ve now perfected my style of cooking, have adjusted and learned from other people, exposure to other cultures, from my travels, from my love to go out and eat at restaurants and lately from watching my favorite Chefs on Food Network (Iron Chef Michael Symon & Bobby Flay and Rachael Ray and Ina Garten – Barefoot Contessa mostly!).

And the best and perhaps most dear to my heart is the best weapon: Now that Abuela is getting older (she’s 97), she sees the need to make sure that Dad and I know some of her secrets, so we can endure her legacy that I will make sure that lives on to Carolina, who has already developed an awesome sense of food love and critique…