Prologue
“Are the plátanos ready, Magda?” Lumi Santana called to her sous chef. She stirred the cauldron at hand, turning over juicy sautéed shrimp, glossy slivers of bell pepper, and rings of sliced onion.
“Ready, Chef,” Magda said, laying a tray of still-sizzling green plantain rounds on the butcher block table behind Lumi.
They mashed the plantains in a huge pilón, a mortar and pestle Lumi had received as a gift three years ago for her twenty-ninth birthday. Between strokes of the mortar, she browned a little garlic on the stove, inhaling the rich, buttery aroma. When it was done, she shook it out over the plantain mixture.
She folded in the sautéed shrimp and then, using a square bowl, made many little pyramids of mofongo. Each one was plated with a helping of shrimp sauce and an edible ginger flower.
“Chef, we have two tables,” Giselle, Caraluna’s only waitress, said.
“Okay. Send out the first course,” Lumi told Giselle. To herself, she said, “We’re missing something in this kitchen . . . Oh, music!”
She chose a Spotify playlist she’d made for cooking instead of playing the radio, despite the fact that turning the radio on to her favorite station felt to her like putting her finger on the pulse of her neighborhood.
Plates of beets on a bed of arugula sprinkled with finely chopped queso de hoja and sides of fresh plantain chips began their trip from the kitchen island to the two occupied round tables in Caraluna’s dining room.
“Do we need another starter for tonight? I can make some alcapurrias, just like the ones we used to make back home in Puerto Rico,” Magda said.
“I think we’ll stay with the salad, because I still have a full crate of arugula that needs to go today. But another day, that would be amazing,” Lumi said.
Minutes later, the dishes traveled back to the kitchen completely empty, and it was time for the shrimp mofongo to make the trek.
“Chef, we have two more tables,” Giselle said.
“Great. There are more salads ready on the island.”
Once she was done cleaning her station, Lumi peeked out the round window on the kitchen door into the dining room. At the first table, a woman took a bite of the mofongo, and Lumi watched as a smile spread across her face.
“This is amazing!” said a man sitting at the second table.
“Yes. Best mofongo I ever had. The taste is slightly different than traditional, but I like it even better,” said his companion.
She could listen to them all night.
“Okay, the first two tables need dessert. And we now have a fifth,” Giselle said.
Lumi gestured toward the kitchen island, where bowls of majarete, sweet corn pudding, infused with lavender extract, were lined up right behind the salads.
Minutes later, the empty bowls came back to the kitchen, and with them, more compliments for the chef.
After the first wave of guests dwindled, Lumi left Magda and Giselle to sit down at her tiny desk. She pulled out a sheaf of papers and smiled to herself as she reviewed the receipts from the day’s seafood and vegetable deliveries. It was happening. Caraluna was finally real, just like she had dreamed all those years ago.
1
Lumi
When Lumi Santana got to her restaurant, she found Magda and Diego, the line cook, standing over a cauldron of sancocho, complaining that the earthy root vegetable stew just wasn’t thickening. Lumi grabbed a bowl of squash puree left over from the previous weekend’s wedding and stirred it in at an impressive clip.
“Stir with purpose, my friends,” Lumi said. “Doors open in thirty-five minutes.”
She pulled a lavender silicone oven glove off a stainless steel hook. Aside from the stainless steel utensils, everything in Caraluna’s kitchen was purple: the walls, the appliances, the mixing bowls. A sole pop of yellow came from her aunt’s cheery sunflower painting, which hung on the oak door leading to her back office. The only thing black in the whole place was the chalkboard Lumi put out for holiday specials. Caraluna ran specials on every holiday except Father’s Day. No reason to offer specials on a holiday she’d never celebrated.
“What else are we making besides sancocho tonight, boss?” Magda asked as she stirred the cauldron with a well-muscled arm. Lumi ran Caraluna the same way the down-home Dominican and Cuban restaurants did during her childhood in Miami. These small, colorful establishments usually had only one chef and often no menu. The day’s offerings were whatever the chef felt like making based on the ingredients on hand. The variety on the menu was smaller, but patrons could be sure that their meal was cooked fresh. Every day was as much of an adventure for the staff as it was for Lumi, as she stood in front of the pantry to see what she had and what she could create from it.
Together, Lumi and Diego picked out the ingredients for an avocado salad, saffron rice, and a spiced coconut pudding to accompany the sancocho, which Magda kept stirring. While Magda and Diego worked on the side dishes, Lumi pulled out a bag of flour and started making some fresh tortillas for an enchilada casserole. She loved that Caraluna fused the Dominican cuisine of her childhood with dishes from all over the world.
She scraped the griddle of the tiny burned scraps of dough that remained from last night’s shrimp roti and placed the tortillas on the grill. She flipped the tortillas with a deft flick of her wrist. When they were done bubbling, she upended them onto a periwinkle earthenware plate. Next, Lumi layered the fresh tortillas into a glass dish, alternating layers of crumbled savory cotija cheese and tart homemade tomato salsa. She popped the dish into the oven, and thirty minutes later, gloves on hands, she removed the casserole just in time for the doors to open.
While Lumi prepared the food, Magda wrote the specials on the chalkboard in neon-green chalk. Within minutes, a gray-haired couple wandered in, the first guests of the night. The man was tall, with straight, well-combed hair parted to the side, and he wore a plaid lumberjack vest. The woman was of average height and wore a kukui nut necklace that matched her sepia skin. Giselle greeted them and allowed them to choose whichever table they liked. They chose a corner table and began perusing the specials board.
Next came a young woman with blue hair who was dining by herself. Giselle seated her at the table opposite the couple, and she promptly retrieved a dog-eared book from her messenger bag. Lumi pulled herself away from the window to the dining room and set her sights on the entrées waiting to be plated.
With the sancocho done, Magda and Diego ladled hearty portions into Caraluna’s signature moon-print ceramic bowls. From her place in the kitchen, Lumi stole one more peek at her guests again.
She loved to see her customers relaxing in this space she had planned with exactly that goal. Glancing at the couple again, she thought she might recognize the woman and hoped she would get a moment later to say hello.
Giselle brought out the avocado salad first, followed by the enchilada casserole, the sancocho, and saffron rice. Her diners dug in at once, oohing and aahing over the brilliant array of colors, tastes, and textures. The enchiladas had taken on a toothsome crunch after being baked and provided a perfect balance for the wonderfully spiced stew, with its tender chunks of braised goat and roasted pumpkin.
The couple sent their compliments to the kitchen, and Lumi decided it was only right to come out and thank them herself. More than anything, she wanted to meet this couple who seemed so sophisticated. She smiled as she approached their table, and they smiled in return.