Arroz con Gandules: Rice and Peas with Homemade Sofrito and Sazon

In my fantasy, this is the sort of dish my Puerto Rican grandmother would have made for me growing up. She would have that is, if I were Puerto Rican and had been lucky enough to grow up with a grandma who actually liked to cook (my grandmother liked to drink her dinner, if you catch my drift). 

In fact, when I think about it, many of my dishes are attempts to create a culture of food that simply never existed in my family. Sure, my Mom made some killer casseroles at holidays, and since her death I lovingly re-create them, in all their fattening cheesy glory, every year. But if you're talking about tradition, slow cooking, a real love for and relationship with food ... well, that's something I've had to discover on my own. Hence my Liberian bean soups and African stews and Indian curries and fried green tomatoes and what I imagine to be comfort food from all over the world.