Please Wait to Be Tasted
The Lil' Deb's Oasis Cookbook
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A 2023 JAMES BEARD AWARD FINALIST
AN AIGA "50 BOOKS | 50 COVERS" WINNER
Foreword by Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello.
Home cooks will love serving up bold-flavored tropical comfort food from Please Wait to Be Tasted, the first cookbook from Lil' Deb's Oasis, the James Beard Award-nominated hotspot in Hudson, New York. More than a recipe collection, it's a big-hearted celebration of food, love, and community.
For flavor-craving, art-loving, community-celebrating home cooks, Please Wait to Be Tasted serves up tropical comfort recipes, alongside musings on wine, music, love, sex, friendship, and fashion. At Lil' Deb's Oasis in the Hudson Valley of New York, chefs Carla Kaya Perez-Gallardo and Hannah Black, both art school graduates, have created a bright, welcoming, rainbow-colored, LGBTQ+ inclusive community, where guests are treated to "hot, sticky, juicy, moist fever dreams of flavor." Their recipes mesh respect for cultural traditions with a twist: Ceviche Mixto with Popcorn; Charred Octopus in the Ink of Its Cousin, Sweet Plantains with Green Cream, Abuela's Flan, and more. With "Please Wait to be Tasted" (a phrase featured in the restaurant's waiting area), you can bring these recipes home.
In addition to some seventy recipes, Please Wait to Be Tasted shares the knowledge and love that go into making memorable meals at Lil' Deb's Oasis: essays on the restaurant's beginnings and the chefs' navigation of the colonial histories entangled in their recipes' origins; tips on techniques, tools, and pantry; and lessons on how to eat well together.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 2016, Perez-Gallardo and Black took over a diner in Hudson, N.Y., and began slinging "tropical comfort" food on a menu that oftentimes includes nonfood items like a five-dollar Spanish ballad sung tableside. Like the restaurant, this joyful collection has personality to spare. The tone is playfully provocative, with loosely organized chapters tagged "Arousal" and "Climax," and suggestive photos that border on NSFW. That said, the authors take their dishes seriously. Instructions for crafting tamales with a shiitake filling are as thorough as they are encouraging ("Find beauty in the imperfection"), and surprising flavor combinations abound in such recipes as seared tuna with Vietnamese-inspired grape dipping sauce, and a tamarind sauce that offsets the sweetness of pork marinated in dulce de leche. Elsewhere, an eye-catching ambrosia salad sees pineapple, avocado, and radish slices shingled on a plate. Cultures cross willy-nilly: a slow-roasted beef shank, for instance, is accompanied by a combination of "mole negro and bordelaise," while an ice cream sundae is generously topped with Burmese-style fried bananas. Thoughtful wine-pairing advice—"A good frizzante rosé is the ideal ‘yes and' wine for any fried-food moment"—is sprinkled throughout, alongside wacky wine poems and tips for the lovelorn. The result is a cheeky work that's got as much "chutzpah" as it does culinary expertise.
