Seriously fun audio and books
Daisy: My husband knew the pleasure that I gained from entertaining friends and family, and he would often see me, wistfully looking through the ads in the back of the cooking magazines. In appreciation for all the energy that I had devoted to raising my family, he wanted to reciprocate, and offered me the opportunity to be totally selfish and immerse myself in an intense culinary program at the French Culinary Institute.
Chica Lit: Were you intimidated? I ask because I’ve considered culinary school and with my humble cooking background, it’s a bit scary!
Chica Lit: Are your kids cooking, too?
Daisy: All of my children cook. I am the very proud mother of four incredibly fantastic kids, which range in age from 25-12 years old. They can all carry their weight in the kitchen, which has made the boys very popular on campus!
Chica Lit: How did you meet Rachael Ray and what is it like to work with her?
Daisy: I met Rachael at a New York Times event which was hosted by Amander Hesser, and which featured Rachael, Dave Leiberman and myself, on a panel discussing food and the direction it’s going. One would think that all that energy would be too much for one room, but Rachael and I share a very similar sense of humor, so it worked really well together. We stayed in close touch and became fast friends very quickly. It is always fun to work with Rachael because of her thirst to learn about Latino ingredients and cooking.
Chica Lit: What misconceptions about Latin cooking do you want to dispell?
Daisy: Latin food is NOT Tex-Mex, as great as Tex- Mex is! There is incredible diversity within the cuisine of any Latin country (think Spain, Mexico, Chile, Peru, etc), not to mention the diversity with the Caribbean, Atlantic South America, Pacific South America, Andean South America, Incan South America, Spain, etc. We are an exercise in diversity, passion, flavor, heat, and spice!
Chica Lit: My great grandma was the cook in my family and unfortunately, many of her recipes were lost to us because she refused to share her secrets! Do you share all of your family recipes or are there some that you keep for sentimental reasons?
Daisy: YES!! I share my secrets, because this is the inheritance and legacy I leave to my children. I am a firm believer in the “you don’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you came from school”. When I teach my recipe, you can be sure that they are completely and genuinely reproducible…what kind of a teacher would I be, if they weren’t?
To read Daisy’s column, check out Mucho Gusto.
Two best friends find themselves switching lives in “Switchcraft” by Mary Castillo.
Aggie is living the single life, running her own clothing store and debating on whether or not to strike up a romance with her friend, Kevin. Nely is the former business manager turned stay-at-home mother who is fighting for supremacy in her marriage and daughter’s life against her meddling mother-in-law who lives right next door. Aggie thinks Nely has the perfect life and Nely envies Aggie’s freedom. A weekend retreat with a spirit guide leads to the two switching bodies. Now Nely is Aggie and Aggie is Nely until the next full moon.
Nely soon finds that Aggie’s business is in trouble, a property manager is stalking her, and Kevin doesn’t want to take no for an answer. Aggie learns Nely is being mowed over by her domineering mother-in-law, taking care of a toddler is not as easy as it looks, the local mommies group is headed by the ultimate mean girl, and her husband is feeling neglected. Sometimes it just takes someone else to sort out your life, which is exactly what Nely and Aggie do, with hilarous results.
Nely and Aggie are both highly relatable characters you can’t help but cheer on. They both are tough in the face of adversity and go for exactly what they believe their friend would want for their life.
This book is a fun love letter to all women and the bond of sisterhood that is best friends.
“Switchcraft” is published by Avon, an imprint of HarperCollins. It is $13.95 and 282 pages long.
When I was in college, a friend of mine told me that her mother would say to her and her sisters that when it came to sex, they had to sit like they were holding a dime between their knees. My mom never put it that way, but it was understood that I would die if I came home and told her that I was pregnant before I got married.
Even though us Latinas are portrayed as spicy sex-kittens who render men powerless, most of us walk around with the specters of our disapproving parents looming over our shoulders. When I saw the cover for Juicy Mangos, my first thought was: what would the authors’ mothers think?
So I had to ask the editor and one of the contributors, Michelle Herrera Mulligan about her experience.
Chica Lit: You write in the Editor’s Letter that Johanna Castillo approached you with the idea. How do you know each other?
Michelle: Johanna contacted me because she liked the work I’d done on Border-Line Personalities, a new generation of Latinas dish on sex, sass and cultural shifting. The anthology had a raw, honest sexuality, and I think she liked it and wanted to tap me to edit Juicy (not to mention the fact that she heard I was a slavedriver editor!).
Chica Lit: How did the story of “Juan and Adela” come to you?
Michelle: Juan and Adela came to me as I started reflecting on characters I hadn’t seen before. I started to visualize this woman who fascinated me, a complex, sexy older woman who hadn’t had the opportunity to realize her dreams, someone like my mother. I wondered what would happen if her world got shaken up by a younger man. I experimented with a lot of voices for the narrator that would tell her story and once I had that down the rest just flowed.
Chica Lit: Did you have any fears about writing erotica? How did you overcome those fears?
Michelle: my fears about writing erotica were that one: my work wouldn’t be taken seriously and two: people would judge or speculate about my sex life personally. I definitely had the subconscious Catholic bad girl fear thing…I was so worried about what my family or my boyfriends family would think if they found out. Ultimately it was doing good work that got me over those fears. When you write good sex scenes, it is hard work and it was a great challenge to my writing.
Chica Lit: How did you find the contributors?
Michelle: We found the contributors by seeking out diverse authors we admired. We didn’t look for “erotica writers”; we wanted incredible authors who made sex and sensuality pivotal parts of larger works. We wanted the sex to reveal something deeper about their characters. Once we had a small list of people we wanted to target, it was surprisingly easy to get people to agree–the writers were really excited to write about sex in an unexpected way.
Chica Lit: What were the challenges you faced while editing the stories?
Michelle: The editing challenge was for all of us to find the patience to go through many drafts together–these were erotic novellas and I wanted the stories to be really strong on their own, without the sex. I really loved doing the anthology and the challenge of writing amazing love scenes. I would consider doing another–but when my schedule frees up some day! (I don’t want to give my agent a nervous breakdown!)
Me with Actress Eva La Rue of CSI: Miami. Believe it or not, I’m wearing five inch heels and I’m still short!
Me again with Actress Lidia Peres, starring in Ladrón que roba a ladrón.
After getting a new do, I drove up to L.A. to sign stock and attend Catalina Magazine’s Essence of Latinas party in West Hollywood. (hosted by Deloitte, Volvo, Southwest Airlines, Eden and Exxon Mobile). Last year ,I was showing some major chunk in the arms, but after checking out these pictures, my workouts at Curves have paid off!
Leaving the Little Dude at home with the hub, I relived my L.A. youth by getting a bowl of red beans and rice at the Gumbo Pot in the L.A. Farmers Market. I then had a tarot card reading by Pauline at the Tea Garden on Melrose, across the street from the Bodhi Tree bookstore and Urth Cafe. (She pulled a lot of success and money cards … woo hoo, the Little Dude may go to college yet!).
But the one thing I’d forgotten about L.A., or at least on the west side, is that everyone seems to be dressed in costume. There are the hipster guys with tats, snappy attitudes and names like Fritz. Women in velvets, lace and spangles with dramatically curly hair piled atop their heads, or shoved under news boy caps. And everyone has some “project” they’re putting together.
Anyway, if you’re looking for a copy of Switchcraft, I left signed copies at Barnes and Noble at The Grove. A big thanks to Jameson who tracked down my books and then took them out of the boxes for me to sign. Us authors love booksellers like you!
