It’s funny how 908 days sounds strangely neat when written as a number.

But this number doesn’t account for the recipes I got wrong before I got them right (and still at it). The endless phone calls to my aunt, cousin, grandma, and extended family, asking questions. The days I could almost taste my mom’s recipe, only to be reminded that almost is as close as I will ever get.

It doesn’t account for the six no’s from literary agents or the one yes that made me believe that perhaps the hardest part was behind me. Or even the publisher rejections that have come after and made me realize I was just beginning again. And it certainly doesn’t account for how complicated it is to want something this badly and also know it might never come to fruition.

The truth is, there are days that I am certain this cookbook will exist. I often picture myself holding it, imagining opening the first box, seeing my mom’s recipes all bound together, and knowing that something I thought I had lost forever somehow made its way into the world. Then there are those days when I wonder whether believing in something for this long makes me resilient or simply afraid to admit that it may never happen.

This story, to date, has no triumphant ending I can package neatly for you. I don’t know whether a publisher will ever say yes or whether the cookbook will ever sit on a shelf.

I only know that I am not ready to let it go. So perhaps, instead of waiting until I know how this story ends, I’ll let you see what happens while I’m finding out.

Day 909 begins tomorrow…

📷 by @alcides.nyc & @mjrpics ...

Just saying. 🤭🤭🤭

A special thank you to my very talented friend @interior.shade (an interior designer you must follow) who sent me this trend bc clearly we speak the same language. ❤️

P.S. I don’t mind matcha or Pilates 😂 but I’d choose Puerto Rican food every time. ...

Arroz con gandules was never something my mom waited until the holidays to make. If we wanted it, she made it. It could be Christmas, or it could be a completely ordinary day of the week. It didn’t matter.

I recently wrote about where things stand with my cookbook (over on Substack), and the truth is that it is still an enormous unknown. I’ve spent years trying to recover my mom’s recipes. Years thinking there would eventually be a publisher on the other side of all this work. But lately I’ve had to think much more seriously about what it continues to look like when that yes still hasn’t come.

So that has made the “ordinary food” even more important to me.

Not necessarily the recipes tied to a holiday or a big family moment (although, to know me is to know I live for these as well), but the ones she made over and over again, almost too casually. The truth is, it’s the food I never thought I would one day have to work so hard to remember. To write down thoroughly so I’d never risk losing any of it again.

So, for now, I’m forging ahead… ...