A Little JBFA Bochinche-Chisme Because Y'all Paid...

Life in a post-james beard awards world.

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REMEMBER TO STOCK UP ON SAZON AND ADOBO!

The Sazon and Adobo seasonings are back in stock! Wow! This is our third run. The first and second runs sold out! Make sure you stock up before this run is gone.

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Y’all. Remember Diasporican: A Puerto Rican Cookbook? It’s still for sale.

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So far my life hasn’t changed in any way. There are no floods of emails or phone calls clamoring to give me rare opportunities. I feel like some of you might be thinking that. No one has called. No one has emailed.

Thank you to everyone who kicked me down a couple of bucks (and hallelujah to those who decided to kick me down a little more than that). I was able to expedititously pay down the debt I owed. A weight off my back. I hate owing people money.

And to keep it real with you, not only was I not going to go to Chicago because I couldn’t afford it…I also just didn’t really want to go! And it’s nothing against the JBF, I’ve just never been one for pomp and circumstance. I didn’t go to homecoming or prom. I didn’t get senior portraits done. I thought (and still halfway believe) that it’s all a racket meant to target parents under the guise of nostalgia. To send me to prom and get senior portraits would have given my mom a debt that would have taken her years to pay off and she would have willingly went into that debt! Fuck that. I didn’t do any of that shit and there was nothing my mom could do about it because I was already living on my own in a four bedroom Victorian on the end of Santa Ynez Street in Sacramento, with two grown ass dudes in a band for roommates. Or, two grown ass dudes for roommates who were in a band? Stupid grammar.

Just as much as I renounced Catholicism and motherhood to my mom and grandma while sitting inside our neighborhood Sizzler when I was 19-years-old, I’ve always been a little leary of anything that tends to lean towards being establishmenty.

There was a time where I would not go into malls. For over a decade I boycotted Walmart and all chain restaurants. These things make you instantly a weirdo in a place like Sacramento. But, the norm in a place like San Francisco. I’ve never had a Popeye’s Chicken sandwich much to the surprise and horror of my cousin from Philly, “you trippin’.”

All things considered “difficult.” I’ve had an entire lifetime to practice saying “no,” and hone in on being a “difficult” person. Unfortunately, any time you resist the status quo…you’re going to be considered difficult.

In the words of my second favorite band,

Yes I feel emphatic about not being static
And not eating the bullshit that's being fed to me
'Cause now I'm full

Just when you thought, it was safe to think
In comes mental piracy, and no

What I'm looking for
Can not be sold to me
I wish they all would stop trying

'Cause what I want, and what I need, is and will always be free

I’d like to think a little bit of that anti-establishment illyanna is still left inside me because that’s when she was the most fearless. The older I get, the more fearful I become of the outside world.

The dog and pony show didn’t feel necessary to me especially considering I had already won the award. When I mentioned that I was considering going to the JBA to “check it out,” (because I couldn’t tell anyone that I won) almost everyone I mentioned it to told me I “had to go!” It was important that I go. An opportunity of a lifetime to network. Sure, the award is an opportunity of a lifetime, but not the ceremony itself. In my opinion. I gave into peer pressure and I wish I would have stuck to my guns like I normally do.

Standing in the hotel bathroom, I flat ironed my hair with a $20 flat iron I purchased at a Walgreens in Humboldt Park because I forgot mine at home. Then I started doing my own makeup. I dressed myself in a wrinkled crumpled long black dress that I already had in my closet. The one appropriate dress I could find for the occasion was one of those high-low dresses? Party in the front and business in the back? Why do they make those fucking dresses? I hate them. I hated it. I didn’t notice it when I tried it on in the Torrid dressing room because the mirror wasn’t long enough. No choice but to wear one of my old dresses paired with a lace bodysuit underneath to give it some…something…

I made my way down into the hotel lobby to wait on my Lyft XL. Chicago, what’s up with your Lyft drivers? Every car that came to get me was absolutely filthy. I wasn’t about to risk arriving to the Columbia College Chicago crumplewrinkled and filthy.

The weather in Chicago was brutal. Like, Puerto Rico brutal. The clear azul sky lead a direct path for the sun to bake my brown body like clay only to have it sealed to perfection by the Hodge Podge of humidity in the air. Every second spent in the open air enwrapped each individual strand of my hair turning it into puffy mass threatening to go full blown tumbleweed if I didn’t escape into an air controlled environment.

As soon as I walked into the foyer of Columbia College Chicago the voices echoed and boomed off the walls and shiny stone floor. I stood in line to sign in at the “Nominees” booth and received my magnetic tag. Walked to the elevators where I saw an old online friend, Taffy Elrod. “Where’s pizza man?” is the first thing I asked her and the first thing I’m sure she’s tired of hearing. From across the hall I spotted a (self-proclaimed) cholo-nerd with canas, crispy pantalones, a clean crisp button up shirt with a “committee” badge on it meandering towards me, by the time we both exchanged our upward head nods from across the room, my arms were already spread eagle eagerly awaiting a hug from Gustavo Arellano himself. It’s hard to imagine that Gustavo (who’s Gus?) has had such an impression on my work and this was the first time we ever met IRL. “Do you know what I know that I think you know?” I asked him. “What do you know?” Gustavo replied. We stared at each other for a moment and he quickly blurted, “I don’t know nothing.” If you’ve ever met Gustavo, you know his word is bond. He doesn’t have time to fuck around.

We all crammed into the elevator and got lifted into the main room. Although we were assigned seats with the number on our tickets, there were a lot of chairs perfectly aligned. I sat down and tried my best to decompress thinking I could just disappear in plain sight. No luck. People came to me like I was a fragile cake with buttercream icing at a Caribbean wedding. Like America’s Test Kitchen Bryan Roof and Steve Klise (does anyone else think Steve looks like a young Josh Homme?). We’ve shared so many DMs and this was the first time I’ve seen them in IRL.

All of these faces you’ve seen on television and in the media for so long are now all in the same room with you. Some of them actually know who you are. It’s a very unusual thing. I was mostly too shy to approach anyone. Until I turned around to see who else was in the room and there sat Hawa Hassan with a blank look on her face while she was eating the popcorn that came in our SWAG bag. Our eyes met at the same exact time, we both got up and walked towards each other, “My dress ripped,” she said. And you couldn’t even tell. Hawa is such royalty, even a rip in her dress (a goldenrod colored dress covered in seashells) looks like its there with purpose.

But, there was also so much talent in the room I didn’t know! Fresh and young faces.

When Andy Baraghani received his award, his tears made me shed tears. One thing that’s gonna get me to cry is when I see someone else cry. When I received my own award I had managed to keep it together. I didn’t cry. When I walked off the stage and was being escorted out the side exit by an usher, Andy blindsided me into a strong hug and I completely lost it. “We did it!” I cried so hard. Not so hard that I didn’t take a moment to think to myself, “Damn, Andy is buff AF.” Sorry, Andy. But, I cried harder in that moment that I did the entire time from the moment I found out I was going to win a JBFA to the moment the award was placed on my neck. It’s really hard for me to be that vulnerable, especially in public. Getting me to cry in public has happened. Allowing someone to hold me while I cry? I honestly don’t think anyone has done that expect Mami. And if you’re thinking to yourself, “isn’t she married?”

I said what I said.

It’s so crazy how something seemingly so simple and probably so natural to Andy really altered the chemicals in my brain. I’ll forever see Andy in a different, possibly angelic, light. For multiple people in my life having told me, “You don’t like to be touched.” I really needed that hug.

And the entire time it never even dawned on me to take any photos.