“My aunt Sarah says it’s in our blood, an innate need to tell a story through food. ‘Buela says it’s definitely a blessing, magic. That my food doesn’t just taste good, it is good—straight up bottled goodness that warms you and makes you feel better about your life.”
With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo (author of The Poet X) is the story of Emoni Santiago, a high school senior with a two year old daughter and a natural talent in the kitchen. When she’s not cooking her way through culinary class or conceptualizing recipes on the fly (girl is making impromptu Korean BBQ sauce in the school cafeteria like some kind of condiment MacGyver), she struggles with pursuing her passion against her responsibilities at home.
When life gives you lemons…
As someone who is also of mixed race, I like to see a character fully own her identity as two sides of the same coin. Emoni is unapologetically who she is—a Black and Puerto Rican teenage mother with a magic all her own.
“It’s like I’m some long-division problem folks keep wanting to parcel into pieces, and they don’t hear me when I say: I don’t reduce, homies. The whole of me is black. The whole of me is whole.”
I decided to take a cue from Emoni herself and use her “When Life Gives You Lemons, Make Lemon Verbena Tembleque” recipe for this dish. For the uninitiated, tembleque is a Puerto Rican dessert pudding made from coconut milk. Tembleque translates to “trembling” due to its wiggly nature.
The measurements here aren’t specified. This is touched upon in the book. Emoni’s cooking is mostly instinctual, so it’s less about precision. The recipes become more concise as the story goes along and lessons are learned along the way—both culinary and in life—but neither do they keep their rigidity. They are often infused with inventive ingredients or instructions to cook for the duration of a Cardi B song. This was my first experience with tembleque, and it won’t be the last. As Emoni says, tembleque is “best eaten cold while daydreaming about palm trees and listening to an Héctor Lavoe classic.”
How to make it
- 2 cans of coconut milk
- Handful of white sugar
- 4 shakes of cornstarch
- Pinch of salt
- Bunch of lemon verbena leaves
- Bunch of vanilla beans
- Cinnamon, enough to garnish
- In a saucepan, heat coconut milk until it comes to a boil.
- Muddle a bunch of lemon verbena leaves and vanilla beans and add to the heated coconut milk. Let steep.
- After 15 minutes, mix the infused coconut milk, salt, sugar, and cornstarch. Stir the mixture until the cornstarch is completely dissolved. Let the combined ingredients come to a boil and keep stirring until the mixture begins getting pudding thick.
- Pour into a big cereal bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Place in the refrigerator for five hours.
- After removing the mixture from the cereal bowl mold, sprinkle with cinnamon.
- Serves: Your heart when you are missing someone you love.
Special thanks to Emma Roberts, Karah Preiss, Belletrist and Epic Reads. With the Fire on High is available now wherever books are sold.
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