Turmeric Chai Latte

by Diana

Trying to incorporate in our diet every single ingredient that claims to hold the magic key to longevity and overflow us with miraculous natural benefits can be an obsessive-compulsive triggering thing to do. Everybody knows there is not such thing as a formula for healthy lifestyle; it’s a combination of habits -and spice mix alike!

One element that most trendy ingredients and have in common is undoubtedly their aesthetic quality. Without its absinthe-like, psychedelic appearance it would be harder to have Matcha so imposed on us everywhere we go for example, nonetheless we would just spontaneously prefer it over our instantly gratifying vanilla latte, no matter whether its frenetic consumption would feed our longing of everlasting youth. Turmeric is another one of those ‘good-looking’ roots that promises to forever save us from all distress. The small captions that nobody ever reads explain that we need to ingest absurd quantities in order to begin to grasp its medicinal properties.

When it comes to food and taste there is something quite obvious that we can’t ignore. We are talking about senses and it’s hard to indulge the body and yet remain fully rational and pragmatic. We may not pick turmeric because it’s delicious, we want it because we are convinced is good for us, but ultimately, we go with it because is just stunning and, within its pigmenting beauty, we are essentially pleasing our senses, at least one of them. 

I’ll leave you with this recipe that I am confident won’t fulfil you with antioxidants but that for sure will successfully please your sight and taste.

© The Teaspoon 

Heirloom Tomato Salad with Parsley Pesto

by Diana 


I have a tendency to (sentimentally) preach about the importance of noticing beautiful things in daily life in order to overcome joy-consuming low mood and boredom. People blame my often annoying happy attitude on the ‘latinamericanism’ but everyone knows I have quite a mixed heritage so I wouldn’t be so sure.  Stopping and appreciating what would otherwise be insignificant, requires only our willingness to do so and can indeed contribute to some emotional tranquility, very much needed in the hecticness that overflows the city. Mindfulness is so trendy now and there is so much written nowadays about it and so many approaches,  resources, apps, support groups and self-help tools that makes finding out about it overwhelming in itself. My take on it is quite simple though: look up, stop, absorb, smile.

A couple of days per week I work in one of the most chaotic of London’s boroughs. It’s busy, noisy and with the ocasional stabbing. I like it though, despite the cannabis smell in the park, as there is a fruit and vegetable market in the high street every day and on my break I go for walks in search for cheap avocados and just to be as curious as a foodie can be. The other day, whilst looking up I found bowls of green tomatoes, which I’ve never seen before, perhaps for not noticing enough but possibly because they were simply out of season- if there is such thing as ‘unripe fruit season’. It may be quite basic but I was able to find my daily beauty dosis in the Autumn fallen green tomatoes. I doubt that staring at fruit bowls is at the heart of mindfulness practice yet it’s all about being able to get away from yourself, at least for a moment and to contemplate.. or cook! This is my attempt to preserve the instant. 

© The Teaspoon 

Raspberry & White Chocolate Cake

by Diana

If there is a non plus ultra to stepping out of one’s comfort zone then (for me) emigrating gets the golden prize. My parents are both quite careful and over-thoughtful about making decisions, particularly when it comes to uncertain outcomes. As a child I valued the safety and stability they provided us with and expectedly, as a teenager, I resented it. I sought challenges and found in art the best unpredictable journey, until I decided to restart my life in a new country, away from home, and from the new land, I unconsciously sought to reach stability and safety one more time. I learnt to value the commodity of knowing but as a therapist I had to learn how to appreciate the beauty of not knowing all over again. I now try not to label myself as I can certainly relate to both aspects which makes me feel somehow balanced. 

My beloved friend Carla sits comfortably on the stable side of my life in London. She is the personification of reliability and, like me, she both embraces and resents routine. We joked as she would always demand the same cake for dessert when invited over to ours for a meal, no matter the occasion. I admire her determination and her proud approach to security and stability. You need a friend like that when everything else continues to feel like an adventure. You need a friend like that in life, full stop. When Carla was offered the opportunity to challenge herself and re-emigrate to Italy to be part of an amazing project then our safety poles conglomerated to make an uncertain choice. A month or so after her departure I wanted to say ‘arrivederci’ with the recipe of the white chocolate and raspberry cake she so long adores, hoping that in the middle of the uneasiness, she’ll hold on to the stability of our friendship, found in the well-known flavours that the cake will always bring her for breakfast.

© The Teaspoon 

The Teaspoon Relaunch

by Diana

Lots of things have happened since my last post about four years ago, including loosing the web’s domain to a family-owned lunch spot in Texas! We wish them good luck though and welcome our new British identity as theteaspoon.co.uk

The Teaspoon began in 2012 as a platform to celebrate our family’s ever-changing migratory identity, and to narrate multiple stories shared with homemade flavours and cuisine. In 2014 the blog was somehow used to protest about the socio-political situation back home in Venezuela. I would have loved to relaunch with a hopeful and comic post of a tasty recipe but I can’t do that knowing that the country’s economy has crashed, the hyperinflation is expected to reach one million per cent by the end of 2018, that crime continues fragmenting families, that Venezuela is the focus of an unprecedented Latin-American exodus about to reach humanitarian crisis levels and that everyone that’s left in the country is starving. It’s estimated that 64% of Venezuelans have lost 11kg (about 1.7st) of body weight last year, including my dad, due to the crisis. It’s not a secret that families are stretching their supplies and skipping meals in order to survive.

I couldn’t think of any recipes to post here which ingredients could be currently accessible for the average Venezuelan household. Food shortages mixed with hyperinflation make it impossible for people to cook themselves a treat. I am not hoping the empty set below will make a difference or have an impact but it’s just a coping mechanism I am using to transform the sadness and frustration into something more meaningful that helps promote awareness.

The Teaspoon will continue embracing multiculturalism in the kitchen, whilst tracing back our ancestor’s journeys in time and combine them with our own, but not today.

© The Teaspoon