I grew up watching Nora Daza‘s cooking show. Without fail, my mom would put the tv on the Nora Daza cooking show Cooking It Up with Nora and we would watch her whip up all kinds of dishes and pastries with ease. I remember that she did it with so much glamour — not a hair out of place and nary a sweat in her brow. She was the culinary goddess od her time, and I daresay, no one has since become as popular or as well-loved as Nora Daza. My own paternal grandmother bought dozens of her books and brought it back to the US. Some to sell to fellow Filipinos and the rest to use for herself.
Today, Nina Daza Puyat, the youngest daughter of Nora Daza, pays tribute to her legendary mother by updating her cookbook. To reintroduce the well-loved recipes, the food writer hosted To Mom with Love: Nina Daza Puyat’s Loving Tribute to Nora Daza’s Iconic Cookbook.
It took her over a year to kitchen-test all the recipes in her mom’s cookbook Let’s Cook With Nora. The new edition still remains true to the old recipes but she tweaked some instructions, updated the ingredients, added variations so that it reflects how people cook today. “My mom’s cookbook was launched over 50 years ago so it’s really time to update the recipes,” Nina shared.
Nina chose four recipes to cook for the selected guests: Chicken Relleno, the Daza family’s signature dish, Parmesan Fish Sticks, an updated version of her mom’s Fish and Sticks Italian Style, Kaleslaw, a healthier version of coleslaw and Orange Tart, a dessert served at Nora Daza’s Frech restaurant in Ermita.
“Hosting Nina’s demo of recipes of the new edition of the cookbook brings Maya’s bond with her family full circle,” said Eric Fajardo, Business Development Manager of Liberty Commodities Corporation. “The Maya Kitchen has always been proud to be a part of the Daza’s culinary legacy from Nora to Nina.”
The Daza- Maya connection goes decades back. Maya and Nora hosted the pioneering and baking competition The Great Maya Cookfest with Nora Daza from 1976 to1990 and helped launch careers of a new generation of chefs and cooks. Miss Nora also promotes the Maya Kitchen, formerly known as the Maya Bakeshop by holding cooking demos all over the country. And that cooking I was talking about early on was shot mostly at The Maya Kitchen. Hard to believe that my kids and I now have participated in many cooking classes there!
Get your copies of the cookbook at leading bookstores nationwide. The recipes will be perfect for your Christmas gatherings and for everyday meals, too. The fish sticks are really good and so are those tarts! I’ll surely cook it for my family!
With a pocketful of glitter,
