Omallys “Omi” Hopper is a food entrepreneur and content creator known for putting Puerto Rican cuisine on the map. She’s been featured on CBS Mornings, ABC News, The Today Show, Univision's “Despierta America,” and was recently a semifinalist on FOX’s Next Level Chef with Chef Gordon Ramsey. She has garnered a substantial following across Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, and she lives in Rhode Island with her husband and four boys.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A love letter to Puerto Rican cooking through 100 recipes interwoven with stories, histories, and traditions that shine with joy and a celebratory spirit, from TikTok star and Next Level Chef runner-up Omi Hopper
“Omi is truly an incredible cook—trust me, I saw it firsthand. It’s so exciting to see her passion put into every page of Cooking con Omi. You’re in for quite the treat!”—Gordon Ramsay
Growing up in Puerto Rico, food had as much of an impact on Omi Hopper’s life as the culture. When her family moved to the mainland, Omi began to lose her connection with the island. So, she started cookingconomi to tie her life as a wife and mother to her desire to keep her culture alive and thriving.
Cooking con Omi is a celebration of Puerto Rican cooking with 100 classic and US-influenced Latino dishes that capture the vibrant, warm, and lively essence of Puerto Rican culture, including:
· Tostadas Francesas de Pasta de Guayaba y Queso / Guava and Cheese French Toast
· Guanimes en Coco con Bacalao Guisado / Coconut Dumplings with Stewed Codfish
· Mofongo / Mashed Plantain with Garlic and Pork Crackling
· Sanocho / Hearty Meat and Vegetable Stew
· Pernil / Roasted Pork
· Flancocho de Chocolate y Dulce de Leche / Chocolate and Dulce de Leche Flancocho
· Bizcocho Nube de Parcha / Passionfruit Cloud Cake
For Omi, cooking is not a task or a chore, but a memory-making experience. It’s the crush of garlic in a pilón, the scent of sizzling sofrito, the bubbling of the caldero alongside the music and laughter of a full house of loved ones settling down to eat. Each section includes an introduction from Omi, sidebars about the origin of ingredients, headnotes with the stories behind each recipe, vibrant full-color photography, and an overall message of love and unity Omi communicates through her food.
Ultimately, Cooking con Omi is a culinary record about the power of food to keep tradition alive. For some, it will be a chance to visit Puerto Rico through these mouthwatering dishes; for others, it will be a way back home.
“Omi is truly an incredible cook—trust me, I saw it firsthand. It’s so exciting to see her passion put into every page of Cooking con Omi. You’re in for quite the treat!”—Gordon Ramsay, Michelin-starred chef, restaurateur, author, and television personality
“Omi brings such amazing heart and soul to her cooking! Her joyful spirit resonates in every recipe, story, and photograph. A true light in this world, Cooking con Omi celebrates Puerto Rican cuisine in such an incredibly thoughtful, beautiful way.”—Nyesha Arrington, chef, television personality, and restaurateur
“Omi’s warmth and personal story are woven into every dish in Cooking con Omi. Her cooking lingers not just because of the flavors, but because each recipe tells a story—one baked with charm, heritage, and her own remarkable journey.”—David Begnaud, CBS news contributor and host of Beg-Knows America
“From the moment I saw Omi, I was struck by how talented, personable, and genuinely awesome she is. What a pleasant surprise to discover that the honest, vibrant energy you see online and on TV is exactly the same in person. Needless to say, I am absolutely thrilled about Cooking con Omi. Experiencing Omi’s way of celebrating Puerto Rican cuisine—and the island she so deeply loves—through her food is an absolute treat. I will devour every page and savor her essence in every dish and every word.”—Roselyn Sánchez, actress and singer-songwriter
“The heart of Cooking con Omi is rooted in Omi’s Puerto Rican heritage. Blended with her culinary vision, her cooking, and her essence, Omi is always authentic.”—Ivy Queen, rapper, singer, and actress
“There are books that teach you how to cook and others that take you on a journey. Cooking con Omi does both with warmth and technique, and Omi fills her recipes with flavor and love for our culture. This book deserves a permanent place in every kitchen.”—Raúl Correa Soto, chef and restaurateur of BACOA Finca + Fogón and Aldeana
“Completely unpretentious, every dish welcomes food lovers to the table, speaking to family, love, and truly wanting to make others happy. Fans and newbies will enjoy the story of Hopper’s foodie rise through social media and the reminder that new beginnings are possible at nearly any stage of life.”—Booklist
Introduction
The first time I opened my eyes and took my first breath was at a hospital in Naguabo, on the east coast of the island of Puerto Rico. I’m the daughter of Alberto Hernández Opio and Consuelo Garcia Castro, and la Isla del Encanto is my home, my roots, my culture, my everything, and I’m a Boricua through and through.
The Taíno people, who likely inhabited the island starting in the sixth or seventh century, originally named this island Borikén (now Borinquén or Boriquén), which is where “Boricuas”—our nickname for Puerto Ricans—comes from. When Christopher Columbus arrived almost a thousand years later, he claimed the land in the name of Spain and decided to call it San Juan Bautista, after Saint John the Baptist. A few years later, once it became a Spanish colony, the island was renamed Puerto Rico, “rich port,” due to the vast amount of gold found in its rivers. After the Spanish-American War in 1898, the island was ceded to the United States, which is when it officially became a US territory. By 1917, Puerto Ricans were granted US citizenship (though residents still can’t vote in presidential elections), and in 1952, the island became a US commonwealth, which gave it a greater degree of autonomy—yet we lack full representation in the federal government to this day.
Despite its long and complex history, Puerto Rico has become a vibrant, flavorful cultural sancocho of Taíno, Spanish, African, and American ingredients that have influenced and contributed to the island’s traditions, music, language, culture, and food. It has been home to renowned figures such as San Juan mayor Felisa Rincón de Gautier, aka Doña Fela, the first female mayor of a capital city in the Americas; the legendary Roberto Clemente, one of the first Latin American baseball stars in the United States, and the greatest player of his time; beloved musicians, including Héctor Lavoe, El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, Ricky Martin, José Feliciano, and Bad Bunny; and above everyone else, and at the heart of it all: my family.
Mi familia has gifted me with the cultural foundation, love, and legacy that has shaped every part of my journey and who I am today as a daughter, mother, wife, friend, and chef. As a true Boricua, I believe a good meal can solve any problem in life, just as much as I believe in Vicks (or, as we call it, Vaporú). Cooking isn’t a task or a chore, but a memory-making experience. The kitchen is where I learned about my heritage, traditions, and the stories of my ancestors. And in my lifetime, it all starts with my maternal grandparents, Abuela Gloria and Abuelo Pedro.
My abuela was thirteen when my abuelo, fifteen, swept her off her feet. They were so head over heels in love that they decided to run away from home and start a life together. Although thirteen and fifteen sounds incredibly young to us nowadays, in the early twentieth century, it was quite common for teenagers to leave home and start a family, especially in rural areas.
My abuelos found a home and eventually began to have children, nine in total, including two who passed away at birth. With time and hard work, my abuelos managed to save enough money to purchase a house with a few acres of land, which we call a finca, in Parcelas Suárez, Loíza, a coastal town near San Juan. They came from very humble beginnings, but through their hard work, perseverance, and faith, they managed to build a good life and prosper.
My mami, Consuelo (aka Connie), my older brother, Carlos (or Junior, as I call him), and I moved so many times when I was a child that I lost track of all the neighborhoods we (temporarily) called home. But Abuelo Pedro and Abuela Gloria’s house in Loíza was my constant—no matter where we were living, Mami always made it a point to visit her parents on the weekends and during every holiday, and I’m so grateful that she did. Amid the challenges and struggles we faced, that precious time in Loíza was a warm and soothing embrace that always uplifted my spirit.
My abuelos’ house was always full of people, chatter, laughter, chisme, and a constant stream of love that came straight from my abuela’s kitchen. While I busied myself making casitas de sábanas (bedsheet forts) in the living room, sneaking kittens and chicks into the house and pretending they were my pets, or playing hide-and-seek with my cousins, Abuela Gloria and her five daughters were usually in the kitchen preparing our next feast. From the outside, it probably looked like chaos. But they moved around the kitchen with such ease, talking, laughing, lowering their voices when the gossip got good, all while grabbing ingredients from the fridge, chopping, mashing, sautéing, stewing, and washing. And then they were done, and our next meal was served and the kitchen was clean. I loved watching them in action and yearned to be in that kitchen circle one day.
Unlike all the women in the family, my abuelito was more reserved, and most definitely old-school. When he wasn’t busy keeping an eye on his daughters’ prospective partners, he was either outside tending to the pigs or chickens or at the beach picking jueyes (crabs). On those days, he’d bring the jueyes back to the house and hand them over to my abuela, who would tell him to get cleaned up before our meal. Abuelo had built his own outside bathroom because my abuela wouldn’t let him inside the house until he took off his dirty clothes. Meanwhile, Abuela and my tías would boil the jueyes in salted water, together with some guineos verdes (green bananas), and make what was basically the Puerto Rican version of a crab boil. I love jueyes, but when my tías would crack open their crabs and dip the guineo verde in the crab’s brains, my cousins and I gasped in horror. We never got into that particular delicacy, but give me something filled with jueyes, like the Empanadas de yuca, coco y jueyes (page 91), and I’m your girl.
That three-bedroom house in Loíza represented peace, joy, and lightheartedness. It held every wonderful memory I have of those first eleven years of my life in Puerto Rico. It was also our safe space during times of trouble, including when the island was hit by the Category 5 Hurricane Hugo in 1989. After taking refuge with a family friend during the worst of the storm, Mami and I returned to find our apartment wrecked by the downpour and ravaging winds. Suddenly displaced, we silently climbed into Mami’s Toyota Corolla and left what had once been our home in Daguao— then, halfway to Loíza, Mami’s engine flooded with the rising water on the streets. Determined to reach my abuelos, we abandoned the car and hopped on a bus to complete the grueling, hours-long journey that on a normal day would have taken only forty-five minutes.
My seven-year-old brain found it hard to process the level of devastation around us. More than thirty thousand people, including Mami and me, were left homeless that day. Thankfully, the Loíza house was intact—a miracle given its proximity to the beach—so we stayed there until we got back on our feet. I will never forget the solidarity among the neighbors, everyone pitching in to help, including my abuelo, who had a well and a filter out back and was therefore able to provide the community with buckets of clean water. It took a long time for the island to recover from Hugo, but true to the spirit of my beloved Boricuas, no matter how many times we’re knocked down, we rise from the rubble and move forward.
A few years later, Mami fell in love with José, my stepdad, whom I lovingly call Coop. After a devastating tragedy in his family, Coop and Mami decided to move to Rhode Island for a fresh start. Although I understood, I was gutted. Leaving meant that I would no longer have access to my abuelos, my dad, my tías and tíos, my cousins, that magical house—my happy place, my safe place.
We moved to the States when I was eleven, only a few months shy of finishing fifth grade. I didn’t know a lick of English. At first, we stayed with my stepdad’s sister, but by the time summer rolled around, they had rented a house of our own off Broad Street in Providence. By the end of that summer, between my time spent playing with the girls that lived across the street and the many TV shows I devoured, I was fluent in a brand-new language. Nevertheless, sixth grade was tough. Even though I could communicate, I still had a long way to go, so I was placed in ESL classes. To make matters worse, I also got bullied because of the way I dressed (Mami was very conservative about my clothing). I found solace in thinking that the situation was temporary, that we’d eventually return to my beloved island. As the months passed by, I grew so unhappy and homesick that Mami decided to send me back to Puerto Rico the following summer to be with my abuelos, a trip that became the standard every summer until I graduated high school.
During that first year we had been away, my grandparents had decided to sell the finca in Loíza and buy a plot of land in Río Grande, which meant saying goodbye to beach living and hello to the mountains. They found a place that was large enough to give their children a chance to build their own homes on the land that would one day be their own. My titi Marta was the first one to break ground, so she was living with my grandparents at the time and was the one who picked me up at the airport that first summer back.