Birthday Cupcake from Heirloom Bakery

I’m Dr. Perez, an instructor at CSUDH. My majors were in English for my BA, MA and PhDs. I finished my PhD in 2011 at USC.

My food selfie is one I took of my birthday cupcake from Heirloom Bakery in South Pasadena. It’s a homemade (well, cafe-made), grown-up version of a Hostess Cupcake. It was excellent.

My favorite food, at least for today and coming out of our Día de Los Muertos celebration are tamales. I seriously love tamales and not only because they are delicious (which they are) but because of their indigenous roots in the Americas and their associations for me with home, family and the Christmas holidays. Unwrapping a tamale, hot from the steamer and almost burning my fingers is a joy. I like all kinds of tamales, sweet and savory, wrapped in corn or banana leaves, meat or vegetarian. That said, when faced with a variety of tamale choices, my first pick is almost always red pork. There’s something about the sweetness of the corn, the meatiness of the pork and the spiciness of the red chile that makes my mouth water.

This is the first time I’ve taught this class and am looking forward to getting to know all of you.