For the first three years of my life I lived in an aging brownstone apartment building in the Bronx. Eighty times a year, our neighbor, Yankee Stadium, would blast music through the speaker system.

If my father decided to crack open our third-story window even a little, the sound of the stadium announcer recounting every detail of the game filtered in.

This was the corner of 161st and Walton Avenue, an area filled with foot traffic, car horns, and of course, a large community of Puerto Ricans. We lived in the building next to my mother’s side of the family, all of whom are from Puerto Rico; most of my father’s relatives were still in his native Guatemala.

It has been nearly 20 years since my parents, my brother and I left the Bronx for California. But most of my family is still living in the same two buildings.

Recreating the comforts of extended family was difficult for my mother once we moved, but through her food she would bring us back.

“Aqui huele a Nueva York” — “It smells like New York in here” — my father would sometimes tell her as she cooked her colorful dishes.

As a child, I never really paid attention to my mother’s cooking. The only thing I knew was that she was good at it, and I always wanted more.

Weekends were the best, because then we’d get the chance to eat platanos con crema for breakfast. Sometimes, my father would throw in a little Central American flavor and fill our plates with refried black beans. Mixing everything together was messy, but it was heavenly once the mash hit our tongues.

As I grew older I started paying a little more attention to my mother’s magic, and noticed that maybe what she did was a little easier than I would have guessed. She always had the same ingredients out when she cooked, the three Puerto Rican staples: the two cooking bases, sofrito and recaito, and that infamous seasoning, Sazón Goya.

My mother puts Sazón Goya in almost everything she makes, whether it’s Arroz con Pollo or an American dish she found in a recipe book. One day I asked why she did this and she responded, “para darle color” — “to give it color.” Puerto Ricans aren’t known for being boring, and neither is their food.

When I moved out of my parents’ home and into an apartment with my husband, one of my mother’s first parting gifts was a caldero, a Dutch oven Puerto Ricans use for cooking practically everything. It serves as a great fryer and even a stew pot. Now, there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t use the caldero. Even my husband has learned to use it.

Like my mother, aunts and grandparents, I’ve learned to always have sofrito and recaito on hand. In a Puerto Rican home, when it comes time to cook dinner, being caught without sofrito or recaito is like being caught with your pants down. I have made my husband run out to the local Latin market while I’m in the middle of cooking, because I am not going to continue without my main ingredients.

When my parents come to Napa to visit, I proudly serve dishes to them that were once made for me. I still remember the biggest compliment that I received, and it was from my father. As I placed a scoop of my colorful arroz onto his plate he exclaimed, “Este arroz se parece como una fiesta!” — “This rice looks like a party!” I just smiled.

Today, I’ll be sharing several recipes with readers. Most come from my mother, and some from my aunts. All are typical Puerto Rican dishes that my family simply can’t live without. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Check out some of Cristina's recipes here