Review: Waiting to Die, Dying to Live
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 1, 2013
Every once in a while, clear out of the blue somebody will send me a book that they think I might like, and so it was a couple of days ago that a notice arrived in my email from Amazon, telling me that somebody had sent meMofongoas a gift.  As it happened,Mofongoarrived on the very day that I needed something new to read - and read I did.  Straight through.Lola is a grandmother, one who has given up all that she enjoys in life so that her children can be sure that she is "safe" while she waits to die.  Sebastian is just a boy, one with a serious heart condition, one who looks longingly at all the things that he would love to do but can't so that he will stay "safe" while he's waiting to live.  At least that is who they are until the day that Sebastian comes in from school to find his grandmother unconscious on the floor.  That is when they both stop waiting.What Lola has given up is cooking. She's even given away all of her cooking equipment.  Instead of the traditional Puerto Rican food that has meant so much to her and holds so many memories, for ten years she has survived on meal deliveries from Meals on Wheels.  To her childrens' great chagrin, with Lola's resurrection from the living death of waiting to die, she begins to cook again, filling home and hearts with the very best of traditional food and family stories.  When your mouth starts to water, you'll not have to go searching for recipes.  Author Cecelia Samartin has thoughtfully included all 17 of Abuela Lola's Recipes in the back of the book.  You can access them directly from the interactive Table of Contents.Over the years I have been privileged to count as friends a number of women from Puerto Rico, all of whom have fed me.  (One I met the January day that I picked her and her two daughters up at the airport.  She had come to teach.  Our first stop was to buy winter coats!)  Sadly, Abuela Lola doesn't make my most favorite Puerto Rican dish - Pasteles - and her Sofrito recipe is the tiniest I've ever seen.  (Every Puerto Rican family has their own recipe for Sofrito, a base mix of onions, garlic, peppers, cilantro and more, and they are all different.  Mine makes about 5 quarts, which I portion out and freeze.) You'll love Picadillo, though - a  quick and easy ground beef dish something like Sloppy Joes but ever so much better - and dessert just doesn't come any better or any easier than Abuela Lola's Coconut Flan. And Mofongo!Grandma's $0.02 -Mofongois an enchanting read that will tug at your heartstrings.  Abuela Lola's recipes will linger on in my kitchen for many a year.  Don't forget to try the Mofongo!