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How Mexican Sauce Brand I Love Chamoy Went Viral on TikTok

admin eat, food, kat thompson, Mexican, nation, sauces, standard, thrillist editorial 0 Comments September 19, 2022

, 2022-09-19 05:02:23,

When Annie Leal’s dad was diagnosed with diabetes 10 years ago, his entire lifestyle had to change. But little did she know it would one day change her life, too.

“My dad immediately changed his diet around, but he’s always had a sweet tooth and I’ve known for years that he has a cabinet full of sugar-free treats,” Leal explains. About 18 months ago, she rummaged through the sugar-free treats her dad stashed in his pantry, hoping to find something sweet for herself. She also wanted to fulfill the craving for Mexican candy, something she particularly enjoyed, having been born and raised in Monterrey, Mexico. Yet there was nothing—only chocolates, lollipops, and caramels.

“I was like, ‘How do they not have sugar-free Mexican candy?’ and he was like, ‘Mija, I can’t find it,’” Leal reenacts. She was in disbelief, spending the entire evening combing the internet for some form of spicy and sweet sugar-free candy to provide for her dad, but there was none. The answer was immediately obvious to her: she would have to make it herself. That was the beginning of I Love Chamoy, a Mexican sugar-free sauce brand created by Leal.

“The next day, I had my dad drive me to Target to pick up notebooks and markers, like it was the first day of school,” Leal laughs. “I had no idea where to start, but I just began drafting up names and a logo.”

Leal has a background in social media and marketing, and had been developing branding for a business helmed by a food engineer. It was then that she decided to enlist her help for the recipe and development part of I Love Chamoy. “I never thought I’d be in consumer goods,” she says, adding, “I truly cannot cook to save my life, which is the funny part.”

Although Leal didn’t know exactly how research and development worked, she intimately knew what chamoy should taste like. Thus began her journey of testing iteration after iteration of sugar-free chamoy, concocted with chili pepper, limes, citric acid, and sweetened with monk fruit. By the 27th version, Leal was convinced she had nailed the flavor down and presented it to her dad and sister.

Although she loves her family and their unending support of her and the business, they are not ones to be dishonest. “My little sister is critical but in the best way possible,” Leal laughs. “I expected her to be like, ‘This is so good,’ but instead she was like, ‘You’re not there yet.’” It was back to the drawing board and version 44 turned…

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Equipment

Make Roasted Acorn Squash Recipe for a Cozy Fall Dinner

admin cookbooks, eat, fall, food, hot bake, kat thompson, nation, recipes, standard, thrillist editorial, vegetarian 0 Comments September 14, 2022

, 2022-09-14 16:53:04,

When it comes to developing recipes, Melissa Clark is a master. She’s penned over three-dozen cookbooks and has been reporting on food and writing recipes for The New York Times since 2007. Despite this, there is always room to explore new recipes, cooking methods, and tactics, which is how she challenged herself in her latest cookbook, Dinner In One, which is all about cooking using a single Dutch oven, sheet pan, or casserole dish.

“I want people to cook every night and enjoy it and for it not to be a huge stress,” Clark begins, noting that the stress of clean up often deters people from wanting to cook. “I really believe that if you like to cook, even just a little, you can find a way to make cooking dinner for your family pleasurable a few nights a week. I think it adds to your mental health.”

It certainly does for Clark, who considers food a loving form of communication that has enveloped her since childhood. “I grew up in a household where food was our love language,” she explains. “We cared about one another, and showed it by making a great meal or planning a celebration in a restaurant. When I’d come home from school, my mother would say, ‘How was your lunch?’”

It’s something that has stuck with Clark—the idea of expressing love and understanding using food—and she asks her husband daily what he had for lunch, much to his own exasperation. “He’ll say, ‘My day was fine, thanks, how was your day?’” she laughs. “Don’t you understand? Me asking what you had for lunch is asking you how you are.”

Clark has spent decades folded into food’s comforting arms and could not picture having a career anywhere else. “Food is so baked into my identity,” she says, pausing. “Look, I’m even using food metaphors! I can’t get away from it.”

If cooking using a singular piece of kitchenware seems too simple, and the results less exciting than multi-step recipes that involve every kitchen gadget possible, Clark is here to prove naysayers wrong. For her, flavor can easily be developed using a single sheet pan, as long as homecooks are seasoning well and being strategic about how they use their cookware. “I tell everybody in every recipe to mix the drippings into the vegetables because that’s all flavor and will take your dish up a notch and add so much,” she says.

For dishes with less drippy, schmaltzy components, it’s all about the toppings. Take Clark’s baked acorn squash, for example, inspired by a…

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