Childhood recipe for Arepas and Jose-luis Orozco

We just stumbled upon a great blog  "Wanna jugar with migo"  through a friend, who by the way, is ready to have a baby very soon and is so excited to try to raise him bilingual in Spanish.  

(her blog is Piñata )    

Tati, at "Wanna jugar with migo" is involved in homeschooling her children and together with her mom, they have put together this blog to bring spanish ideas to others.  (Ginny, Tati's mom has 22 grandchildren  and has homeschooled her own too.   I thought that was AMAZING!)

  

This week they have a great  "Wanna jugar with migo contest "

and they are giving away a "De colores" music CD by Jose-Luis Orozco!   Tati recently had a chance to interview Jose-luis Orozco, and you can read the interview here.   

"Jose Luis Orozco  is a is an author and recording artist whose work draws upon the rich heritage of the Spanish-speaking world. Through his music José-Luis Orozco has sought to expose a wider audience to Spanish language children's traditions and promote Latin American culture. It is his desire to pass on this heritage to the children of today so that they may take pleasure in passing it on to the children of tomorrow. "

My sudden interest in bilingual education for Honeypie has come from the fact that well... I am spanish.  (Grew up in Colombia , South America).  The sad part of that realization is that the more I do not practice speaking it, the harder I feel it will be to teach it to honeypie and the further away my roots seem to drift from me.  I seem to loose my vocabulary daily... as well as my memories of living there.    All of my family speaks spanish, their children were raised bilingual and spouses who were concidered "gringos", learned a bit of spanish to support.  

I, for some reason was reluctant. Honeypie learned to talk very early on.  She was nine months old when she began to say Elmo, car and  book.... I feared that I would confuse her or my husband for that matter, since his spanish is limited to ordering coffee in Spain.

I feel a sense of regret.  For my lack of research or effort.  

I feel a sense of regret for the richness of my culture and all that it was for me ... my childhood.

These songs of Jose-Luis Orozco bring me back.

The beautiful song "las mañanitas" was a song my mother sang to me every birthday morning. She would come into my room and that was how she would wake me up. 

"Estas son las mañanitas que cantaba el rey david, 

hoy que es el dia  de tu cumpleaños  te las cantamos a si."

 The song "Los Pollitos" is probably my earliest memory, of my mother singing it to me.  It is a very sweet baby song about baby chicks and their mamas bringing warmth and food for them.  I loved her singing it to my daughter when she was born. My mom became honeypie's ñaña.

The song "Sana, Sana" was sung often when I had scraped knees or if I fell down.  A very funny translation which goes something like..."heal, heal, frog tushies, if it doesn't heal today...  it will heal tomorrow".   And the song "Nanita nana" was a sung as a lullaby to me.  I was called  "la nana" all though out my childhood as my nickname.

So I can't begin to tell you the pleasure this CD has brought to me and to be able to share it with my child.  We also have 2 song books that were suggested by my sister and the pictures in the song books are gorgeous, drawn by Elisa Kleven.  Honeypie loves staring at them and talking about everything she sees.  They are rich in detain and color... every nook of the page is filled with something new we find each time.

"Sana, sana culito de rana...si no sana hoy sanara mañana!"

In this memory lane being traveled, a couple of weekends ago I decided to share with Honeypie one of my absolute favorite recipes of my Colombian background.  Arepas.  

Arepas are a very traditional corn griddle cake that is  eaten in various parts of latin America.  It can be prepared in many ways... and this is just the way I remember my mother making them.  I had Honeypie helping me form them and I was telling her a story of my childhood as we made them... eating them with "chocolate caliente"(hot chocolate), or with "cafe con leche"  (yes!! even children drank colombian coffee for breakfast!! )... for breakfast, lunch or dinner, stuffed or plain!  YUM!

I am posting This recipe for the crafty crow, which is focusing this week on crafts and recipes from your childhood.

To make arepas you will need this kind of flour.   (white corn meal/ masarepa).  This can actually be found in most supermarkets, and many brands make them...i happen to have found "GOYA".   The flour is pre-cooked so that all you need is to add warm water and salt and your dough is ready to be formed.

This is a colombian white farmers cheese that one can shred into the dough or stuff the griddle cakes with.  But any cheese will do too!

Honeypie forms the dough into small balls.

She pats them down into patties.

We place them on a hot pan with a bit of oil for frying.

We flip them when they are brown on one side.

We pat them down with the spatula just to make sure they are cooked through.

All done!!  Delicious!!! We put some colombian cheese for my roots, some mozarella cheese for daddy's roots and some American cheese for Honeypie's.  And some butter on top of others because melted butter on them is delicious too!!

Arepas recipe

2 cups of masarepa flour

1 tsp of salt

3 cups of  warm water

and butter or oil for grilling

In a bowl combine masarepa, salt and water.  When the dough is mixed, let it stand for 5 minutes.

Form the dough into patties about 1/2 inch thick.

Coat the griddle with small amount of oil/butter

Cook on medium heat until they are golden brown on each side.

Serve with things like mozarella cheese, cream cheese, butter...etc.  possibilities are endless!

Enjoy!