Paola Velez’ Debut Cookbook Is a Love Letter to Bodegas

When Paola Velez discovered she was a F&W Finest New Chef in 2021, she initially turned down the glory. She had acquired a number of accolades that 12 months for her Dominican-influenced pastry applications at Kith/Kin, Compass Rose, and Maydan in Washington, D.C., in addition to for Bakers Towards Racism, a grassroots collective that organizes world bake gross sales to boost cash for social justice causes worldwide, which she based in 2020 within the wake of George Floyd’s homicide. 

“My worry was that I used to be rising too shortly with none stabilizing forces in my life,” Velez remembers. She was additionally involved that she was solely getting recognition as a result of Bakers Towards Racism addressed such a well timed trigger. “I felt like, ‘Is it only a fad, or is it my work?’” Ultimately, although, Velez got here to appreciate that Bakers Towards Racism was profitable as a result of individuals trusted her as a pastry chef.

In the end, she accepted the Finest New Chef award, and in doing so, she gained new mentors from the BNC alumni community and acquired an excellent bigger platform for her social media presence, nonprofit work, and one-of-a-kind desserts.

“Folks had been already being attentive to what I needed to say. However then as soon as I turned a Finest New Chef, it made me an authority within the business,” she says. “[Being named a] Finest New Chef gave me this distinctive voice.” 

That voice shines by vibrant and clear in Velez’s debut cookbook, Bodega Bakes, which has landed on numerous best-of lists since hitting cabinets in October. The guide is a dessert-driven love letter to Velez’s upbringing within the Bronx, the place “the bodega is the cornerstone of each neighborhood,” Velez says.

Recollections of her native bodega led to recipes like Chocolate Malta Cake, impressed by the nonalcoholic malt soda, and a Cosmic Brownie–influenced whoopie pie. There are additionally tributes to her Dominican heritage, like a recipe for a three-tiered Dominican-style cake, stuffed with dulce de leche and guava paste that she grew up ordering from Bizcocho de Colores in Higher Manhattan, and playful desserts like her Coquito Cheesecake, giving the Puerto Rican beverage a dessert kind. 

It’s not simply the flavors of bodega treats that Velez needed to return by within the guide. When she was a younger line prepare dinner and didn’t have the cash for something past a Nutrament protein drink and a bread roll, her native bodega proprietor would at all times feed her, no questions requested. Velez needs to unfold that spirit of generosity to her readers. “We write cookbooks for the house prepare dinner,” says Velez. “A number of my guide is about accessibility and demystifying the baking course of.” 

She plans to proceed that work with an upcoming e-newsletter, Steal This Recipe, the place she’s going to train cooks and residential cooks alike “how one can re-create viral recipes to make them uniquely their very own.” 

Offline, Velez opened neighborhood bar Providencia final December in D.C., in partnership together with her longtime good friend, chef Erik Bruner-Yang, and veteran bartenders Pedro Tobar and Daniel Gonzalez. The menu consists of influences from Dominican, Salvadorean, and Taiwanese cuisines, reflecting their numerous backgrounds. 

“The cool factor is that these cultures have plenty of widespread floor,” she says. That cultural Venn diagram manifests in dishes like tamales with Japanese curry, strawberry and cheese pupusas, candy plaintain tiramisu, and a show-stopping Baked Alaska kakigori, topped with a Dominican meringue that’s torched to order. The drinks aren’t any much less inventive, from a mezcal and Campari cocktail impressed by the volcanoes in El Salvador to the pandan-infused Lights of the Evening Market, created with the neon road markets of Taipei in thoughts. 

It’s a private and playful menu that Velez hopes will resonate in a city like D.C. “Now greater than ever, it’s wanted to have protected areas the place individuals can come and revel in [a meal],” she says. 

In all of her endeavors, Velez is making an attempt to embody a brand new position mannequin for cooks: “I hope that I can keep kindness,” she says. “That the legacy of the ‘rockstar chef’ dies down and the legacy of the quirky, variety chef arises.”