In 2017, Alma Cocina Latina owner Irena Stein was meeting with her then-chef Enrique Limardo and a Venezuelan food distributor when an idea began marinating.

“He and Enrique were talking about doing ‘a little something’ with arepa recipes,” recalls Stein, pictured above. “I said, ‘Let’s not do a little thing, why don’t we do a big thing?’”

After the meeting, she did some online research to see what coverage already existed on this popular sandwich-like street food of her home country, and she was surprised to learn that the staple Venezuelan corn cakes, stuffed with myriad fillings, dating as far back as 1,000 B.C., had never exclusively been the star of their own cookbook.

And while her colleagues never did jump on the bandwagon, Stein knew she had stumbled onto something, especially as many millions of Venezuelans were immigrating to other countries—and bringing their culture with them.

After the usual round of publishing rejections faced by first-time writers, Stein landed her first cookbook deal with Ryland Peters & Small, a Britain-based publisher, thanks in part to an introduction by Baltimore plant-enthusiast-turned-author Hilton Carter, whom they also represent.

Five years in the making, Arepa: Classic and Contemporary Recipes for Venezuela’s Daily Bread will be released worldwide on July 18 and distributed across the country by Simon & Schuster. Featuring 50 arepa recipes, from pickled octopus and clam with heart-of-palm salsa to lamb cutlets with yogurt and mint (as well as a few appetizer and dessert recipes from current Alma chef, David Zamudio), it’s the first cookbook of its kind the world over.  (Ahead of its debut, the book has already received national praise—topping Food & Wine’s recent list of the The Best New Summer Cookbooks.)

Writing the book was also a global labor of love. Stein’s publisher was based in London. She hired Venezuelan chef Eduardo Egui, who moved to Barcelona while developing the book’s dishes. Her test kitchen was a friend’s house in Caracas. Not to mention a Spanish translator, based in Miami, who pored over the recipes several times. Photographed entirely by Stein with her own Canon camera, the book introduces her beloved cuisine to the world.

“My memories are my maternal grandmother, Cimodocea de las Mercedes, making arepas,” she says. “She made basic arepas with cheese, but as is the custom, we also ate them with whatever was leftover—chicken, lettuce, tomato, cilantro.”

Fittingly, Stein and her husband, Mark Demshak, will open an arepa bar in Station North, just next door to Alma, shortly after the book is published. And while arepas are long gone from the menu at Alma, the appetite for them looms large.

As local poet and Alma fan Kondwani Fidel writes in the book: “Some foods speak to the soul in ways that words cannot. The arepa is one of them.”

Below, Stein shares two recipes from the book—a simple and delicious cheese arepa, as well as one stuffed with crab salad and yogurt sauce.

AREPA: THE BASIC RECIPE

Receta de la arepa
Makes six arepas

Ingredients:
⋅ 720 ml (24 fl oz/ 3 cups) water, at room temperature
⋅ 2 tbsp vegetable oil
⋅ 2 tsp salt
⋅ A pinch of sugar (optional)
⋅ 350 g (12 oz/ 2½ cups) Harina P.A.N. pre-cooked white maize flour (cornmeal)

Instructions:
In a large mixing bowl or bowl of an electric mixer, combine the water, oil, salt and sugar (if using). Slowly add the Harina P.A.N. pre-cooked maize flour (cornmeal) and mix the dough with your hands or electric mixer on medium speed for at least 10 minutes. The dough must be worked for a full 10 minutes to prevent the arepas from cracking when cooked. Once mixed, the dough should be free of lumps and soft to the touch.

Wet a paper towel or clean dish towel and wring out well. Cover the dough and let it sit for 10 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 230°C (450°F/Gas 8) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Oil your hands. Pull off 170 g (6 oz.) of dough and form it into a ball. Flatten the ball with your hands, pressing down to form an 11-cm (4-inch) disc that is 2.5 cm (1-inch) thick. Transfer the arepas to the prepared baking sheet and cover with the damp towel. Repeat with the rest of the dough to make 6 arepas, oiling your hands before forming each disc.

Heat a griddle pan over a medium heat and brush the pan with oil. Working in batches, put the arepas on the pan and cook for 5 minutes on each side or until lightly golden. Return the cooked arepas to the lined baking sheet.

Once griddled, put all the arepas directly on the rack of the hot oven. Bake the arepas for 20 minutes, flipping them after 10 minutes. The arepas are cooked when they have puffed up a bit, are brown in spots, and sound hollow when tapped.

Holding a hot arepa with a clean dish towel, cut three quarters of the way through using a serrated knife. Scoop out some of the soft insides to make room for the filling, leaving the crispy top of the arepa and a little of the soft inner. Add your choice of filling and serve immediately.

To Make Cheese Arepa:
Split open an arepa and scoop out some of the soft insides to make room for the filling. Spread both sides of the arepa with butter, then fill with grated (shredded) aged hard cheese (queso de año) and close the arepa.

AREPA WITH CRAB SALAD, TOMATOES AND YOGURT SAUCE

Arepa de ensalada de cangrejo, tomate, salsa de yogurt
Makes six arepas

Ingredients:
For the arepas:
⋅ 1 quantity of basic arepa dough* (see above)

For the crab salad:
⋅ 300 g (10½ oz/2 cups) fresh crab meat (do not use frozen)
⋅ 80 g (2¾ oz/1 cup) finely diced red onion
⋅ 60 g (2 oz/½ cup) finely diced celery
⋅ 20 g (¾ oz/1 tbsp) finely diced sweet red bell pepper
⋅ 2 tbsp finely chopped chives
⋅ 2 tbsp mayonnaise
⋅ 4 tbsp fresh lime juice
⋅ Tabasco red pepper sauce, to taste (optional)

For the roasted tomatoes:
⋅ 400 g (14 oz/2⅔ cups) cherry tomatoes
⋅ 3 tbsp olive oil
⋅ 2 tsp finely diced garlic
⋅ ½ tsp sugar
⋅ 1 tsp salt
⋅ A pinch of black pepper

For the yogurt sauce:
⋅ 240 g (8½ oz/1 cup) strained Greek yogurt
⋅ 50 g (1¾ oz/¼ cup) coarsely grated (shredded) cucumber
⋅ 30 g (1 oz/2 tbsp) finely diced white onion
⋅ 1 tbsp olive oil
⋅ 1 tbsp fresh lime juice
⋅ 1 tbsp Sriracha hot sauce
⋅ 1 tsp finely chopped dill
⋅ 2 tsp salt

Instructions:
To make the roasted tomatoes, preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F/Gas 4). Halve the cherry tomatoes and mix them with all the other ingredients in a bowl. Spread the tomatoes over a baking sheet and roast in the hot oven until they start to dehydrate and turn golden around the edges. Remove from the over and set aside.

To make the sauce, place the yogurt in a muslin cloth and squeeze out as much liquid as possible until it has the consistency of cream cheese. Place the grated (shredded) cucumber in a paper towel and squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Place the strained yogurt and cucumber in a bowl and mix together with all the remaining ingredients. Chill in the fridge until ready to serve.

Following the basic arepa instructions above, shape the dough into 6 arepas and cook them just before serving.

To make the salad, pat dry the crab meat with paper towels. Combine the crab meat with all the diced vegetables and herbs in a bowl. Add the mayonnaise and lime juice to taste. You can also add a couple of dashes of Tabasco red pepper sauce, if you prefer a little spice.

Split open the arepas and scoop out some of their soft insides to make room for the filling. Lay the roasted tomatoes on the bottom half, then add spoonfuls of the crab salad. Drizzle over the yogurt sauce. Serve with lime halves dusted with cayenne pepper for squeezing over.

Stein’s Helpful Hints: 

⋅ For best results it is essential to use Harina P.A.N. pre-cooked maize flour (cornmeal), which is made by cooking, drying and then grinding corn kernels. Each arepa recipe in this book has been tested using Harina P.A.N. and no other brand will yield the same results.

⋅ An arepa needs to be eaten as soon as it comes off the griddle, out of the oven or from the fryer. If you wait more than 15 minutes to serve an arepa once it has been cooked, its texture and taste are far less desirable.

⋅ To prep ahead, shape the dough and griddle the arepas. Leave to cool on a baking sheet. To chill, tightly wrap the entire baking sheet in clingfilm (plastic wrap) to prevent the arepas drying out. Store in the fridge for up to 2 days. To freeze, tightly wrap the griddled arepas in clingfilm (plastic wrap) with parchment paper between them to prevent sticking together. Store in the freezer in an airtight container.

⋅ When needed, thaw the arepas if frozen and bake in a hot oven as usual.

Back in 2002, when Irena Stein first opened Café Azafrán inside the Space Telescope Science Institute at Johns Hopkins, her initial idea was to run a tiny venture with a handful of seats for the astrophysicists and astronomers who stopped by for a taste of her global cooking.

But the lunchtime specials, particularly the stuffed corn sandwiches known as arepas, were such a hit that Stein soon found herself feeding the campus at large and drawing fans from the entire Baltimore community.

“When I first opened the cafe, I thought, ‘We will have like four tables and it will be so cute,’” she recalls. “But small never works for me.”

Eventually, Azafrán launched Alma in Canton, originally imagined as a simple arepa bar and inspired by the imploring scientists she was serving.

“I always say that astronomers are these shy people,” says Stein, with a laugh. “But when we had arepas they were not shy! They were so enthusiastic and always asking me, ‘When are you going to open an arepa bar?’”

Equally enthusiastic was Mark Demshak, then Director of Architecture and Planning at Hopkins Homewood campus, who first became enchanted by Stein’s homemade chili—and in no time, by Irena herself.

“Irena makes this incredible chili,” says Demshak. “I kept going back for the chili—then I kept going back for Irena.”

Soon, Stein and Demshak, who married in 2012, opened Alma in Canton, but at 4,000 square feet, the space was much larger than originally conceived. “Our arepa bar,” she says, “became an entire Venezuelan restaurant.”

Nine years into owning Alma—one of the few Venezuelan restaurants in the country—Stein and Demshak have continued to expand their restaurant and their reach.

When the pandemic struck Baltimore and restaurants closed down due to COVID on March 16 of last year, Stein and Demshak joined forces with Mera Kitchen Collective, a community kitchen. The partnership has allowed Stein and Demshak not only to feed a community in need but help their employees (many of whom did not qualify for unemployment due to their work visas) stay afloat.

“Irena doesn’t wait around for things,” says Demshak. “I take time to simmer like a stew. Irena is more like a stir fry. She jumps in, she jumps out.” At the outset, says Stein, “we delivered hundreds of meals a day.”

ALMA’S DINING ROOM IS A PLANT-FILLED PARADISE THAT EVOKES THE EQUATOR.

To date, thanks to a partnership with Jose Andres’ World Central Kitchen (in addition to individual gifts and grants), and a newly named venture with Mera called Alkimiah (inspired by the word for alchemy in Arabic and Spanish), they’ve served more than 120,000 healthy meals—“no different than the ones people pay for,” says Demshak with pride—to Baltimore neighborhoods in need.

It’s a model that’s enabled Alkimiah to succeed, helping to defray costs of running the business, including paying their staff a living wage with the grant money they’ve received for meals from World Central Kitchen.

As for Alma, in September, the restaurant expanded again. Stein and Demshak outgrew their Canton kitchen and were looking for a new location big enough to work in a shared space with Mera’s crew. They settled on the 5,300-square-foot spot inside the former Pen & Quill space in Station North, with its oversized windows, long marble bar, and proximity to Tapas Teatro, Orto, and The Charles and Parkway theaters that comprise a mini restaurant row in a cultural pocket of the city.

As you enter, there’s a welcoming foyer that brings to mind a Venezuelan home with its Spanish Colonial blue tile floor and guava color palette. It’s the perfect entrée to the dining room, a plant-filled paradise that evokes the equator and boasts street art that feels right at home in this designated arts district.

One Thursday in early spring, Venezuelan-born executive chef David Zamudio, who worked on a six-star cruise ship and apprenticed at several Michelin-starred spots in Mexico and Spain, readies for dinner service. His kitchen functions as two operations. In the morning, meals for Alkimiah are made, packed, and delivered. By midday, the space is transformed into Alma’s kitchen.

On this spring afternoon, Zamudio is creating a new bar menu with tapas (Latin gyozas filled with plantains and cheese is one palate pleaser), plus new arepas, including a heavenly version with baby octopus and shrimp. There’s also an outstanding red snapper ceviche, a rich squash soup appetizer, and a showstopping paella.

The dishes explode with unexpected flavors like passionfruit tahini sauce drizzled on an arepa stuffed with lentil fritters or wagyu prime ribeye with avocado-cilantro sauce that brings an almost Caribbean flair to the cooking. Zamudio, 27, once dreamed of becoming a pilot so he could travel the world. Instead, lucky for us, he attended culinary school on Margarita Island, off the coast of Venezuela.

Now, with his help, Stein and Demshak are clearly flying high.

ALMA COCINA LATINA 1701 N. Charles St. 667-212-4273. HOURS: Tues.-Sat. 5-8 p.m. PRICES: Appetizers: $10-17; arepas: $15-20; mains: $25-60; desserts: $7-10. AMBIANCE: Tropical sophistication.

While Canton’s Alma Cocina Latina has transformed itself into a carryout arepa bar, husband-and-wife owners Mark Demshak and Irena Stein have also been focused on helping their back-of-the-house staff, most of whom don’t qualify for benefits, find employment. In addition to working at Alma, four of their staffers are also working in collaboration with Mera Kitchen Collective, a community-driven, food-based cooperative focused on empowerment for refugee and immigrant women.

Using the commercial kitchen at Neopol Smokery, Mera has been providing up to 700 free meals a day for Baltimore communities in need. “It’s one thing to sell food and feel the love and support that you get from of the community,” says Demshak. “What we’ve done with Mera Kitchen and the staff fills the heart.”

I know that several of your staffers have not been able to come into the kitchen to help with carryout. Can you talk about that?
IS: Our executive chef, Karem Barragan, is pregnant. She’s home—she places the orders for the kitchen. And then our sous chef, David Zamudio, who is Venezuelan is stuck in Spain. If we had an executive chef with us, we could do a lot more, but we can’t. Our back-of-the-house kitchen is extremely well-trained by our chefs, so they can run the whole thing beautifully, but we could have more ideas implemented if Karem and David were there.

“Mera Kitchen is now feeding thousands of people. In three weeks, they did 6,300 meals and four of our team players are there during the day.” —Irena Stein

How is your staff doing?
IS: Basically, we have three categories of employees: We have the people who have gone on unemployment, we have the people [with visas] with exceptional talent who cannot get unemployment, and then we have those who don’t have access to any of those benefits.

We are trying to avoid hunger among anyone. The situation here reminds me very much of the Venezuelan reality of no food, no toilet paper, no medical assistance. I never expected the U.S. to be on the same page as Venezuela, but this is so familiar for me.

This was a little easier for me to handle because I already know my priorities. Priority number one is that everyone has to be fed. The people who have the least possibility of income are the people whom we will support the most—those people on the hourly wages without access to services. Their children have to be fed. We employ them, rotating them in the kitchen with takeout and preparing the food, and then Mera Kitchen is now feeding thousands of people. In three weeks, they did 6,300 meals and four of our team players are there during the day. Between what we have going at Alma and what Mera offers them, they are fine. It’s a huge relief—that means they have food on the table.

Mera is based on a lot of Syrian and Eritrean food. Now, they have included our people. So you have Central American food, too. So these migrants are feeding the hungry in Baltimore, which I find fascinating. Our Mexican and Guatemalan guys have done Mexican food—they are all taking initiatives rotating the things that they do. And our chef who is stranded in Spain used to work on a cruise ship. He is giving them advice on how to cook for hundreds of people a day. You have all these nationalities serving this population in Cherry Hill.

“Mera is based on a lot of Syrian and Eritrean food. Now, they have included our people. So you have Central American food, too. So these migrants are feeding the hungry in Baltimore, which I find fascinating.”—Irena Stein

Did you have a relationship with Mera Kitchen Collective before this?
IS: We collaborated in the past doing Syrian and Venezualan food, which is perfect because we have a small Syrian community in Venuzuela. Two years ago, we did a collaboration “Damascus Meets Caracas.” [Co-founder] Emily [Lerman] and I became very close friends—we think alike in so many ways of supporting community. Alma and Mera Kitchen are just a natural combination. When this came along, I said to her, ‘If you ever have room for more people because your community is growing, we have these people who really need work.’ She said, ‘Absolutely,’ and now we have four guys from our kitchen working there every day.

MD: What’s interesting is that the people Emily was employing before were refugees. She was employing them to give them a livelihood—they weren’t necessarily trained chefs or line cooks. They didn’t necessarily have experience in catering, so what she found with our guys there is that it raised the level of the kitchen. Their payroll has been reduced significantly because they are moving faster, so she has more money to spend on food.

IS: Once this is over, she’s going to send her prospective team to Alma to train for a few months. To see these Latino guys working with the Syrian chefs and this other woman from Eritrea, you have these cultures that are completely different existing with no language—just sign language—and it creates understanding of other cultures and other mentalities. I love the humanity of it. All of these things have always mattered to us, but to have it in full display with this collaboration has been really wonderful. The guys are so appreciative of being able to work over there and every dollar becomes something important. As long as no one goes hungry, we have won.

“What we’ve done with Mera Kitchen and the staff fills the heart.” —Mark Demshak

How is your carryout going at Alma?
MD: Right now, we are functioning much more like an arepa bar you’d find in Caracas.

IS: The community has been lovely. I know we could be making more money if the chefs were around, but we do what we are doing the best we can. Some people are coming from 25 minutes away and we don’t want them to have a bad experience, so we are giving them instructions on heating the arepas. Some people will tell their building or their neighbors and they come on behalf of several families, which is so wonderful. We’ve also added cocktails and sangria.

Did you consider not doing carryout?
MD: We did consider not doing carryout for a split second. We thought let’s at least try it—we have things that you can carry out. If we didn’t have arepas, it would be much more difficult, because we don’t have our chefs here. Our line cooks are really extraordinary.

IS: It’s the legacy of [former executive chef] Enrique Limardo. Our executive chef and the chef had such a good experience learning under him.

“As long as no one goes hungry, we have won.” —Irena Stein

What will happen when Alma reopens for full service?
IS: We can’t answer clearly. We are concerned that it will be hard to have the restaurant be as full as it should be. [We don’t know what this will] mean to the city, the economy, and people going to restaurants. We have to see if we can do the menu the same way.

MD: We will continue to do take-out once we reopen. We’ve set it up in such a way that it’s a feasible business. At this point, it will be another revenue stream, so we will continue that.