La Kitchen Chicana or Brown Hands

My abuelita's hands making her delicious enchiladas

As I have been an official blogger for at least a month now, I thought it might benefit my readers if they knew a little bit about how this blog emerged. Specifically, a conference paper on Gloria Anzaldúa was the initial inkling that I might want to engage with the issues of food, identity and family in a meaningful way. For those of you who know me are probably in no way surprised by this revelation, because her seminal text Borderlands/La Frontera defines my life and my approach to so many things. But as I begun to think about these ideas, A's mother, my wonderful mother-in-law J or as I often refer to her as, The Lone Baker also started a blog a little bit before mine took off and she really made me think that it was worth a go. I briefly mentioned in my last post about the ways that I feel trapped in the Borderlands as an emerging food blogger. By this, I mean, I don't feel my recipes are necessarily going to win any major food awards anytime soon, but it's always been more about the process and what goes on behind the scenes that has been important to me. What was it that made a hot dog in a tortilla so good? I laugh to think of how I define my own identity as the ways that Mexican food (tortilla) and American (hot dog) come together to form Mexican American? I promise this is not the last that you will read on the topic, but I love the ways that my identity can be traced through both enchilladas and pot roast, meals served to me by my abuela and my grandmother respectively. I am so happy that I created this blog as an outlet to explore my identity through food and perhaps share a recipe or two.

The real reason for this post is that I wanted to put a link to a piece that gives a little more into the backstory behind this blog, well, a little piece of the puzzle so to speak. I am going to be a regular contributor for a new online ezine called LuchaVista Magazine the inaugural issue just came out today and has a poem and piece about my family and the role of food in their lives. I urge you to check it out because it goes hand and hand with my blog, if you're interested. Check it out by following the link: Brown Hands, Comida & Love

Thanks for reading.