Abuela's Avena

a special family recipe

I have quite a few cookbooks donning the shelves of my home, but there are three that I hold a little bit closer than the others. One is a hot pink binder filled with at least 100 recipes close to our family’s heart. My mom’s mom culled and organized some of our favorites like the family-famous rum cookies into a giant Word document (because it was the early 2000s) and printed binders for everyone. I lugged mine with me to college where I perfected my aunt’s banana bread recipe for friends, and it’s been toted from home to home over the last decade, collecting splatters and smudges along the way.

My second treasured ‘cookbook’ is actually a large PDF file that lives on the desktop of my computer in a folder titled “Mom’s Cook Book”. It’s a collection that my dad sent me of all of 111 of his mom’s recipes scanned together into one document. My grandmother was known for making the best briolata (Sicilian sausage bread) in the family and my parents still talk about the cannolis she made for their wedding (and thankfully, now I have the recipe).

The last cookbook was one I curated a few years ago to celebrate Martin’s grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary. When Martin and I fell in love, I was lucky to also fall in love with his family who welcomed me in with open arms. I also quickly discovered that they too were a family whose gatherings were centered around the kitchen. When we got engaged, Martin’s Abuela spent an afternoon teaching me how to make her Dominican red beans and I’ve learned how to make great flan from his mom.

As the years go by and bodies begin to weaken and memories begin to fade, I am so grateful that I can carry pieces of all of my family members with me through the splattered and tattered pages of these cookbooks and I find comfort in knowing that as I teach Marco how to make Sicilian taganu on Easter and Dominican avena as the weather turns cold, they will hopefully carry on for many generations to come.

and on the avena…

If you’ve never had avena before, you’re in for a treat. Similar to a thick hot chocolate, it’s a warm spiced oatmeal beverage. Abuela’s Dominican version of avena consists of simmering oats, cloves, and cinnamon until fragrant and then adding chocolate (in the form of the Abuelita’s Mexican hot chocolate tablets—a nonnegotiable) and milk before straining out the solids. It’s finished with butter and vanilla and a pinch of salt. It’s truly one of the coziest beverages and it’s perfect for nights huddled by the fire or decorating your Christmas tree.