It wasn't Alton Brown, but 1st FN host interview!

One of the wonderful things about having a writing outlet is that many others enjoy reading what I have to say. And while it still dumbfounds me that people and companies not associated with Alton Brown, in any way, want me to write about them while AB still is completely against giving me a shot, I am one thousand percent (or more) grateful to those people who are willing to give a review book, sit for an interview, etc.

If anyone would have told me the first interview with a Food Network host I landed would not be Alton, I would have call that person nuts. After all, why or who else would want to talk to me other than Mr. Brown? Well, it has happened. My first interview with an FN host! A few weeks ago I had the wonderful pleasure of talking with Daisy Martinez. She is the host of ¡Viva Daisy! on FN and ¡Daisy Cooks! on PBS. Her newest cookbook from Atria Books, Daisy's Holiday Cookbook, is a wonderful guide to making holiday meal planning and execution easier. All with a Latin spin.

Daisy brings her Puerto Rican heritage to her cooking style. She trained at the French Culinary Institute in New York City and worked as a prep kitchen chef for the PBS show Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen before having her own shows.

The best part of the experience was talking to Daisy. From the start she was warm, bubbly and fun. It was like talking with an old dear friend, though I had never met her before that phone call. We talked a lot about Latin cuisine, although most of that didn't make into the final article, the misconceptions from people the United States, the broad scope of the cuisine, the diversity of seafood and the ethnic influences from the unexpected. Like, did you know there's a huge Chinese population in Cuba and the Dominican Republic? Or a huge influence from Italian immigrants in Argentina? That, of course, impacts the cuisine in these locales.

My goodness, I could've spent an entire afternoon talking with Daisy about cross-cultural cuisine sharing and the vast expanse of the Latin palate. The whole interview was a blast from start to finish.

Holiday Cooking Tips from Daisy Martinez

Dec 20, 2010
Lisa Hechesky

Food Network host and Latin cuisine expert, Daisy Martinez, offers easy holiday meal planning in her book "Daisy's Holiday Cooking"

In her holiday themed cookbook, Daisy’s Holiday Cooking (Atria Books), Daisy Martinez offers both easy entertaining and meal preparation ideas with her signature Latin twist. Martinez, host of Food Network’s ¡Viva Daisy!, infuses her Puerto Rican heritage into her cooking and also brings a greater awareness to true Latin cuisine in the process.

Daisy Martinez Holiday Cooking and Planning Tips

The idea to create a cookbook and holiday entertaining guide came from the hectic modern lifestyles of many people, which impinges on having time to bring together friends and family for the season. “People today find holiday entertaining so daunting,” she says. “The thing is to come together around a table with people that you love and break bread. That’s what it’s about. But with the holidays, with so much more going on, today moms really don’t have the luxury of being at home just to take care of those things—decorating the house, buying the gifts and the other stuff that we [women] end up doing by default. After all is said and done, we have so many responsibilities put on us that entertaining is out of the question.”

To survive all of the demands of the holidays from meal making to event planning, Martinez, the mother of four children, offers several ideas. “You want a nice festive, appealing meal for you to come together with your friends and family. So one of the things that I do in the book is that each chapter is menu driven but the menus are such that you can swap out and mix and match so you can create your own menu. Then I have a prep schedule because I’m all about the do ahead. Anything that I can do ahead, I do.”


Read the rest at Suite101: Holiday Cooking Tips from Daisy Martinez