Beetroot Maftoul

by Diana


I am not sure if it’s just me (over)coming to the age or actually paying more attention but I seem to be surrounded by new mums, each of them with their very unique approach and conviction about postnatal nutrition. Last week I learnt that sugar and salt was not recommended during the first year of the newborn, and later on, I discovered that any form of lactose does not marry well with breastfeeding. My mother works with neonates and it took her years to develop the miraculous ‘new mum’s diet’ which comprises a long list of unappealing restrictions. Nevertheless, results are surprisingly positive if obediently followed. I am confident dieting alone is not the only risk factor for postnatal depression but a bland meal can certainly contribute to a saddened heart. Therefore, my challenge this week is to offer that lactose-free-devoted new mum of mine a flavourful and colourful recipe that would hopefully make her meal times more attractive so her tummy can be satisfyingly ‘refilled’.

© The Teaspoon

Chocolate & Coconut Loaf

by Diana 

When I chose ceramics as my specialty creative medium during my BA in fine arts, I never imagined that many years later, the closest I would get to the kiln experience would be through my kitchen oven. Back then, I fell in love with the magical alchemy and uncertainty of the process. Learning to be patient cost me several broken pieces and a few tears. It was a painful but therapeutic process -as it tends to be. 

I remembered discussing with my tutors the so many similitudes between ceramic practice and baking. The later would always be somehow more replicable and accessible but, to me, the transformative quality of ingredients through careful measurement and specific procedures and their choice-less  submission to elevated temperatures would forever remind me of my now forgotten ceramist side. This neglected persona emerges on those counted ocasions though, when the outcome of my kitchen experiments turn into textured, volumed and proportioned shapes worthy of brief contemplation, remindding me that it's my choice to see the world throgh the lens of art, either using clay and brushes or relying on flour and baking powder.  

Ps. The lack of ‘interior’ images is not just me conceptualising the cake as a sculpture but it was another office birthday intended cake so giving it sliced was going to compromise the lack popularity I have already achieved. 

© The Teaspoon

Creamy Pumpkin Curry

by Diana

Halloween always makes me think of those very simple yet essential privileges that living in London offers. We never celebrated this 'feast', not necessarily because it was pagan, but possibly because it was dangerous. I never drove my pink tricycle in the streets around my neighbourhood as even in the 1990’s my overprotective parents, rightly so, feared for thieves and kidnappers. I cannot really imagine what could happen now if a bunch of children are out and about in the streets in Caracas, knocking on strangers doors and demanding sweets. Furthermore, with so many basic foods shortages, it’s hard to think of what could people give away, if they can afford to be generous at the moment. There is one other thing in my mind, very much linked to the previous idea, and that is food waste. I am creative, don’t take me wrong, and I strongly support pumpkin carving as with any other art activities, it could be good for your wellbeing, specially if it's done as a family. But if on the following day you could use your spooky sculpture leftovers to cook something together, then that would not just balance out your kids' nauseating sugar intake, but could also give you an excuse of another family gathering during which, in the back of your mind, you could be grateful for those very simple, yet essential moments of freedom that other families are not able to afford. 

© The Teaspoon

Citrus Loaf

by Diana 

It’s very difficult to unlearn those things that are an intrinsic part of the way you see the world. As my multiple grammatical mistakes reveal, English is not my first language and no matter how hard I try, Spanish would always flourish one way or another.

In (Venezuelan) Spanish the word for lemon means actually lime. We call ‘limón’ the smaller, green more bitter variety of citron and ‘lima’ the big yellow one. This knowledge is so embedded now in my stubborn adult mind that it comes with images and flavours which makes it even harder to deracinate. I know I am not dyslexic so perhaps I am just obstinate.

Last week I was searching for a recipe calling for the ‘limes’ I had lying around in the kitchen and found one that solved all my problems and actually called for both. As I didn’t have ‘lemons’ I just used limes and to make things  even more confusing I covered the cake with almonds so my citric problems would never be revealed. I told everyone at the office that because of the almonds, it was a deceiving cake, and inconsistently described it as both lemon and lime when people dared to ask. Perhaps I’m just a liar. The cake is really good though, so I hope you like it too!

© The Teaspoon

Cornbread

by Diana

My mother is the kind of person that when an idea gets into her head there is no power on earth that can persuade her to give it up. When her projects don’t demand my time (as I treasure every minute to do the exact same thing but with my own little projects) then I do admire her determination and extreme insistence to reach her goals. Most of the time we are talking about meaningful and important projects she sets herself to do  but sometimes it’s just a recurrent thought she transform into a task for all of us to deliver. As the passionate psychologist I know she is, I am convinced she sees this as ‘bonding’ time. There was one summer she (meaning my  husband) would spend every day on the hunt for the perfect blue pair of shoes that would match the exact colour on the blue dress she fixated with on the previous year. These last few months the theme is cornbread as all the other types of flour in the world are just wrong of course. It doesn’t matter what we have on the agenda, where we are or who we are with,  if she (meaning we) could stop and enquire about cornbread then that would make her happy. And what’s the point of having a food blog if I can’t help my own mother fullfill her bread related fantasies. So just to see that smile on her face (and so we could get some rest) then I am making her a American southern style corn bread that I am sure I’ll be making over and over and over again at least until the next idea comes up. 

© The Teaspoon

Spicy Apple Soup

by Diana 

Not a lot of people can claim they had their very own mango tree when growing up. We were lucky to have access to an amazing tropical garden but, as it often happens, the priority was to drive my pink tricycle around the heliconias rather than harvesting the fruit. I self-reproach not having fully appreciated that privilege, as living in London has taught me to be content now with just a few not very exciting indoor plants. 

The farther you live from the city though, the higher the chances you ever have to shop for fruit again. My friend Patricia is at the moment overwhelmed with an abundant autumnal produce as she wisely chose to exchange the city commodities for a wide range of trees and a happy family life in the countryside. We visited her last week and were mesmerised with the colours and generosity the season brings to her garden. Not surprisingly she fed us with exaggerated portions of delicious apple crumble and waved us goodbye with equally generous fruit-full ‘goodie bags’. I used her apples for a heart warming soup inspired by a cold version my sister-in-law did for the blog a few years ago.

© The Teaspoon

Turmeric Chai Latte

by Diana

Trying to incorporate in our diet every single ingredient that claims to hold the magic key to longevity and overflow us with miraculous natural benefits can be an obsessive-compulsive triggering thing to do. Everybody knows there is not such thing as a formula for healthy lifestyle; it’s a combination of habits -and spice mix alike!

One element that most trendy ingredients and have in common is undoubtedly their aesthetic quality. Without its absinthe-like, psychedelic appearance it would be harder to have Matcha so imposed on us everywhere we go for example, nonetheless we would just spontaneously prefer it over our instantly gratifying vanilla latte, no matter whether its frenetic consumption would feed our longing of everlasting youth. Turmeric is another one of those ‘good-looking’ roots that promises to forever save us from all distress. The small captions that nobody ever reads explain that we need to ingest absurd quantities in order to begin to grasp its medicinal properties.

When it comes to food and taste there is something quite obvious that we can’t ignore. We are talking about senses and it’s hard to indulge the body and yet remain fully rational and pragmatic. We may not pick turmeric because it’s delicious, we want it because we are convinced is good for us, but ultimately, we go with it because is just stunning and, within its pigmenting beauty, we are essentially pleasing our senses, at least one of them. 

I’ll leave you with this recipe that I am confident won’t fulfil you with antioxidants but that for sure will successfully please your sight and taste.

© The Teaspoon 

Heirloom Tomato Salad with Parsley Pesto

by Diana 


I have a tendency to (sentimentally) preach about the importance of noticing beautiful things in daily life in order to overcome joy-consuming low mood and boredom. People blame my often annoying happy attitude on the ‘latinamericanism’ but everyone knows I have quite a mixed heritage so I wouldn’t be so sure.  Stopping and appreciating what would otherwise be insignificant, requires only our willingness to do so and can indeed contribute to some emotional tranquility, very much needed in the hecticness that overflows the city. Mindfulness is so trendy now and there is so much written nowadays about it and so many approaches,  resources, apps, support groups and self-help tools that makes finding out about it overwhelming in itself. My take on it is quite simple though: look up, stop, absorb, smile.

A couple of days per week I work in one of the most chaotic of London’s boroughs. It’s busy, noisy and with the ocasional stabbing. I like it though, despite the cannabis smell in the park, as there is a fruit and vegetable market in the high street every day and on my break I go for walks in search for cheap avocados and just to be as curious as a foodie can be. The other day, whilst looking up I found bowls of green tomatoes, which I’ve never seen before, perhaps for not noticing enough but possibly because they were simply out of season- if there is such thing as ‘unripe fruit season’. It may be quite basic but I was able to find my daily beauty dosis in the Autumn fallen green tomatoes. I doubt that staring at fruit bowls is at the heart of mindfulness practice yet it’s all about being able to get away from yourself, at least for a moment and to contemplate.. or cook! This is my attempt to preserve the instant. 

© The Teaspoon 

Raspberry & White Chocolate Cake

by Diana

If there is a non plus ultra to stepping out of one’s comfort zone then (for me) emigrating gets the golden prize. My parents are both quite careful and over-thoughtful about making decisions, particularly when it comes to uncertain outcomes. As a child I valued the safety and stability they provided us with and expectedly, as a teenager, I resented it. I sought challenges and found in art the best unpredictable journey, until I decided to restart my life in a new country, away from home, and from the new land, I unconsciously sought to reach stability and safety one more time. I learnt to value the commodity of knowing but as a therapist I had to learn how to appreciate the beauty of not knowing all over again. I now try not to label myself as I can certainly relate to both aspects which makes me feel somehow balanced. 

My beloved friend Carla sits comfortably on the stable side of my life in London. She is the personification of reliability and, like me, she both embraces and resents routine. We joked as she would always demand the same cake for dessert when invited over to ours for a meal, no matter the occasion. I admire her determination and her proud approach to security and stability. You need a friend like that when everything else continues to feel like an adventure. You need a friend like that in life, full stop. When Carla was offered the opportunity to challenge herself and re-emigrate to Italy to be part of an amazing project then our safety poles conglomerated to make an uncertain choice. A month or so after her departure I wanted to say ‘arrivederci’ with the recipe of the white chocolate and raspberry cake she so long adores, hoping that in the middle of the uneasiness, she’ll hold on to the stability of our friendship, found in the well-known flavours that the cake will always bring her for breakfast.

© The Teaspoon 

The Teaspoon Relaunch

by Diana

Lots of things have happened since my last post about four years ago, including loosing the web’s domain to a family-owned lunch spot in Texas! We wish them good luck though and welcome our new British identity as theteaspoon.co.uk

The Teaspoon began in 2012 as a platform to celebrate our family’s ever-changing migratory identity, and to narrate multiple stories shared with homemade flavours and cuisine. In 2014 the blog was somehow used to protest about the socio-political situation back home in Venezuela. I would have loved to relaunch with a hopeful and comic post of a tasty recipe but I can’t do that knowing that the country’s economy has crashed, the hyperinflation is expected to reach one million per cent by the end of 2018, that crime continues fragmenting families, that Venezuela is the focus of an unprecedented Latin-American exodus about to reach humanitarian crisis levels and that everyone that’s left in the country is starving. It’s estimated that 64% of Venezuelans have lost 11kg (about 1.7st) of body weight last year, including my dad, due to the crisis. It’s not a secret that families are stretching their supplies and skipping meals in order to survive.

I couldn’t think of any recipes to post here which ingredients could be currently accessible for the average Venezuelan household. Food shortages mixed with hyperinflation make it impossible for people to cook themselves a treat. I am not hoping the empty set below will make a difference or have an impact but it’s just a coping mechanism I am using to transform the sadness and frustration into something more meaningful that helps promote awareness.

The Teaspoon will continue embracing multiculturalism in the kitchen, whilst tracing back our ancestor’s journeys in time and combine them with our own, but not today.

© The Teaspoon

Caraway Seed 'Half-Pound' Cake

by Diana

When I am not cooking, thinking about recipes or addictively buying ingredients to cook new dishes, and most importantly, to photograph them, I work in museums. Yes, disappointingly as it might sound for some of you, starting with my own brother, art is my real and true passion. The thing is that it can be really difficult to combine museum practice with the love of cooking, unless a weird contemporary hybrid is discovered, something absurd and ridiculous like museum-cooking-therapy, which I am sure already exists somewhere. 

However, by pure and wonderful coincidence, about two weeks ago I was trying to explain to some children who William Kent was, so they could get going and design their own garden and I surprised myself reading the briefing and affirming with loud conviction that he was a 'famous 18th century designer of houses and gardens and a lover of good food'. I stopped all of a sudden and rewinded fearfully, wondering if that last phrase was about William Kent or just about me. So I double checked that my unconscious didn't betrayed me, secretly using visitors to promote my blog again and so I discovered that this 18th century fellow was in deed a promoter of good eating in Georgian times. What I heard from kind volunteers is that William Kent was the first one to incorporate the dining room to interior design and that's when a dedicated space to eat in the house was firstly created in England about 300 years ago, impacting the traditions of the time and refining food taste forever.

So after this pleasant discovery I thought that the best way to celebrate was by posting a genuine recipe from the Regency period: Caraway Seed Pound Cake. So here it is for you all, simple, tasty and full of history. Please notice that a pound cake was going to be too much, even for my husband, so I took the liberty to reduce it by half and to make just half a pound.

Finally, if you want to get all your senses involved, not only try out the recipe but save a piece of cake to enjoy it after visiting the William Kent exhibition at the V&A. 

I hope you like it!

© The Teaspoon

Shuku-Shuku -Nigerian Coconut Biscuits

by Diana

A few weeks ago we published a recipe for Matooke, Uganda's national dish, in support of Malaria Mission fundraising campaign. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) Malaria affects half of the world’s population in 106 countries and territories. Since Malaria Mission campaign's deadline is now looming and they have reached over 60% of their target, we thought it could be a good idea to keep encouraging them with another tasty treat, this time from the worst malaria-affected region worldwide: Nigeria. 

Shuku Shuku is a Nigerian sweet delicacy, we could say that it is the equivalent to our well-known Western truffle, but of course somehow less pretentious. Although they may look a bit humble in appearance, they are deliciously soft inside, with a contained coconut explosion, awaiting for your bite. I can guarantee that they will cheer up the rainiest and most miserable of days. We also heard that it is a favourite snack among children in Nigeria and my experience tells me that they know more about these matters that we adults do.

For the record, Malaria is a risk for 97% of Nigeria’s population and 86% of these cases are unfortunately our little experts. 

If this worries you as much as it worries us, there is something you can do about it. Please give your contribution to Malaria Mission and show some support to the world.

We hope you enjoy this one!

© The Teaspoon