Arepa Cookbook Giveaway & Quick Bites
August 26, 2023 by JennyEnter our US/CA/UK giveaway to win one of two copies of Arepa: Classic & Contemporary Recipes for Venezuela’s Daily Bread by Irena Stein. The author has an event scheduled and it is shared on our Calendar.
Arepa: Classic & contemporary recipes for Venezuela’s daily bread by Irena Stein shares over 50 recipes celebrating Venezuela’s irresistible and most popular street food: the arepa. A crisp round pocket made from corn flour – the arepa is one of Venezuela’s defining foods. Gluten-free and dairy-free, arepas are endlessly adaptable, unarguably delicious and fun to eat.
The book starts with a basic recipe for an arepa, followed by variations. Chapters include: Appetizers; Seafood Arepas; Vegetarian Arepas; Meat Arepas; Butters and Sauces; Desserts and lastly Cocktails. Irena also provides us with a section on sourcing ingredients. The photography in Arepa is plentiful and beautiful.
Recipes include a Pork crackling arepa, Fried fish arepa with pickled beetroot; Hoisin-glazed ribs arepa with Korean slaw; Venezuelan-style flan; Churros with chocolate sauce and Corn cake.
Our 
takes you inside this beautiful book and features the following 
: Goat cheese and roasted vegetables arepa (photo below).
I love a book devoted to one subject as it provides a deeper understanding of a particular dish and encourages us to spread our wings and experiment with new and exciting meals for our families.
Irena took some time to answer a few questions for our Members:
The author of Arepa: Classic & Contemporary Recipes for Venezuela’s Daily Bread, Irena Stein is a photographer, restaurateur, immigrant, sustainability advocate, and humanitarian. Irena came to the United States from Venezuela on a Fulbright Scholarship to Stanford University where she graduated with a Master’s in Cultural Anthropology. Since then, she has merged her passion for art, food, community, and environmentalism into a seamless blend in a city that craved it—Baltimore, Maryland. Irena was the first to bring contemporary and highly imaginative Venezuelan cuisine to the United States at her restaurant Alma Cocina Latina. Alma continues to lead the Baltimore food scene with innovative and transformative ideas, not only with their cuisine, but in shaping how we view food in our society. Irena lives in Baltimore with her husband and continues to build meaningful cultural connections in the Baltimore area and beyond.
Q: What first triggered your interest in cooking?
We moved to Europe from Venezuela when I was 15. My father told me (we are talking 1968) that I needed to help my mom in the kitchen, as she had no more help of any kind. As a premature feminist, I demanded that my brothers help cook as well. So it became mandatory that my brothers and I help her with daily dinner preparations. Each one of us had our favorite thing to make. Mine was baking and making crepes every Sunday morning, a LOT of crepes… I had three insatiable brothers. We were all food lovers. At the time, all young people cooked in Europe, for family or friends. We were no exception. This is the way we all learned to cook.
Q: If you had to describe your cooking style, what would it be? What types of recipes will we find in your new book?
I would say that my cooking style combines Mediterranean and Latin flavors. I love combining abundant herbs and spices in all dishes. I like to go full flavor.
This book is an introduction to Venezuela, my country of birth, and to the core of our culinary tradition, the arepa! Arepas are Venezuela’s daily bread. They can be described as a round patty, crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and made of pre-cooked cornmeal that can be combined with a great range of fillings. The book shares 50 recipes for arepas, including classic ones, Mediterranean variations, and some inspired by ingredients and flavors of other cultures. It also presents delicious appetizers, cocktails and desserts from our kitchen at Alma Cocina Latina in Baltimore.
Q: Are you a cookbook collector? If so, tell us about your collection?
I started collecting cookbooks when I was an artist in San Francisco in the 80s and could not afford to go to the wonderful restaurants the city had to offer. So the books of those places became my teachers. At the time, I started by following most of the recipes of Joyce Goldstein, in her book Back to Square One: Old-World Food in a New-World Kitchen. Emily Luchetti taught me to explore the most delicious desserts. Alice Waters taught me sustainability. Patricia Quintana’s books trained me in Mexican cooking. At the same time I explored mostly local authors, I kept a solid connection with my Venezuelan and French upbringing. So Armando Scannone, author of Mi Cocina a La Manera De Caracas, kept me cooking essential traditional old Caracas (my city of birth) dishes at every holiday. Pierre Hermé made me look great for desserts. 40 years later, I have 253 books that include every culture I have been surrounded by. But among the cookbooks most used in recent years, those of Yotam Ottolenghi have been a hit. They have the sexiest vegetarian recipes.
Q: Do you sometimes feel like working with food all day keeps you from wanting to get creative in the kitchen?
Since my husband and I are at our restaurant Alma almost every day, I enjoy making most of the lunch meals at home. It has become harder to make elaborate dinners for friends in the evenings. I miss those terribly. And when they do happen, it is heaven.
Q: What is your go to for a quick dinner – quick dessert?
Quick dinners are made with whatever is in the fridge. I also use leftovers to make new meals, not just reheating them. For example, leftover chicken and small potatoes becomes a salad the following day, adding caramelized onions, basil, red peppers and balsamic vinaigrette. A quick dessert is a tart. I make several tart doughs at a time and freeze them. So I defrost one when I have a great seasonal fruit in abundance. I love fruit tarts so much!
Q: Tell us about this cookbook or any future projects you are working on?
This cookbook, Arepa: Classic & Contemporary Recipes for Venezuela’s Daily Bread, is a true labor of love. It took four trips to Venezuela to photograph and test all the recipes. During these trips, I also photographed markets, landscapes and people, to show the arepa’s natural habitat. The chef and co-author of the book, Eduardo Egui, lives in Barcelona, Spain. We flew in and flew out from our respective cities (I’m based in Baltimore) and met in Caracas those four times.
Arepas have become an essential ambassador for those millions of Venezuelans that have left the country due to very difficult circumstances. Arepas exist in 90 countries now, and they are becoming increasingly popular around the world. The arepa, made with pre-cooked cornmeal, is also gluten free, super easy to make at home, and is a great “bread” for any flavors and ingredients you want to stuff it with. Please enjoy and play with them in your own home! You may follow Irena on Instagram at @ai_rei_rei and @almacocinalatina.
Special thanks to the publisher for providing two copies of this title in our promotion. Entry options include answering the following question in the comments section of this blog post.
Have you ever made an arepa?
Please note that you must be logged into the Rafflecopter contest before posting or your entry won’t be counted. For more information on this process, please see our step-by-step help post. Once you log in and enter your member name you will be directed to the next entry option – the blog comment. After that, there are additional options that you can complete for more entries. Be sure to check your spam filters to receive our email notifications. Prizes can take up to 6 weeks to arrive from the publishers. If you are not already a Member, you can join at no cost. The contest ends at midnight on October 26th, 2023.
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