• Intelligencer
  • The Cut
  • Vulture
  • The Strategist
  • Curbed
  • Grub Street
  • Subscribe to the Magazine Give a Gift Subscription Buy Back Issues Current Issue Contents
    Subscribe to New York Magazine
  • Subscribe
  • Profile
    Sign Out

Intelligencer

  • Politics
  • Technology
  • Business
  • Ideas

The Cut

  • Style
  • Self
  • Culture
  • Power

Vulture

  • TV
  • Movies
  • Comedy
  • Music
  • Books
  • Art
  • Theater
  • What to Stream

Curbed

  • Cityscape
  • Design Hunting
  • The Real Estate
  • Corner Shop

The Strategist

  • Gift Guides
  • Sales
  • Beauty
  • Home
  • Kitchen + Dining
  • Fashion
  • Travel
  • Tech + Electronics
  • Fitness
  • Kids & Babies

Grub Street

  • Restaurants & Bars
  • The Thousand Best

The Magazine

  • Current Issue
  • Crossword
  • Subscribe
  • Gift Subscriptions
  • Buy Back Issues

More

  • About
  • Newsletters
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Best of New York
  • Best Doctors
  • Top Rated Lawyers
  • Subscribe
Subscribe Give A Gift

Intelligencer

  • Politics
  • Technology
  • Business
  • Ideas

The Cut

  • Style
  • Self
  • Culture
  • Power

Vulture

  • TV
  • Movies
  • Comedy
  • Music
  • Books
  • Art
  • Theater
  • What to Stream

Curbed

  • Cityscape
  • Design Hunting
  • The Real Estate
  • Corner Shop

The Strategist

  • Gift Guides
  • Sales
  • Beauty
  • Home
  • Kitchen + Dining
  • Fashion
  • Travel
  • Tech + Electronics
  • Fitness
  • Kids & Babies

Grub Street

  • Restaurants & Bars
  • The Thousand Best

The Magazine

  • Current Issue
  • Crossword
  • Subscribe
  • Gift Subscriptions
  • Buy Back Issues

More

  • About
  • Newsletters
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • Best of New York
  • Best Doctors
  • Top Rated Lawyers
  • Subscribe
  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Pin It
+Comments Leave a Comment
Advertiser Content from
This advertising content was produced in collaboration between Vox Creative and our sponsor, without involvement from Vox Media editorial staff.
Sponsored By Cafe Bustello Sponsored By Cafe Bustello
Sept. 23, 2020

For This Founder and Food Blogger, Coffee Runs in the Family

Lola Dweck is making time for connection these days.

Lola Dweck smiling in her kitchen.
Lola’s Kitchen Photo: Jenny Marvin
Lola Dweck smiling in her kitchen.
Lola’s Kitchen Photo: Jenny Marvin

If your kitchen has become your safe space in the last few months, you are absolutely not alone. The at-home cooking trends may be out of control, but a little sourdough therapy never hurt anyone. There’s something about mealtime that immediately comforts — whether you’re gathered around a table with family and friends or you’re pairing your breakfast burrito with a cup of home-brewed coffee.

Lola Dweck knows a little bit about this phenomenon. Inspired by her Mexican heritage and cultural influence growing up, she founded Lola’s Cocina, a food blog centered around meals of Latin influence where she can shine a light on a heritage that she feels can sometimes be misunderstood or misrepresented. Now, Lola has started passing her family traditions and love for mealtime on to her own children. In her words, “There are so many ways to teach our children about other cultures and traditions as well as their own and one of my favorite ways to do this is through food.” And in Lola’s home, where there is food, there is always coffee.

Heritage is what helps Café Bustelo, Lola’s choice coffee brand, stand out from the crowd of at-home coffee. In celebration of family and tradition, we sat down with Lola to talk favorite ways to drink coffee, home habits, and heritage stories.

Lola Dweck with her daughter.
Photo: Jenny Marvin

On discovering the meaning of mealtime:

My love for mealtime is rooted in the great pleasure it gave my father to see all of his family gathered around the table for a delicious home-cooked meal. I believe that this sparked my passion for cooking and as I grew older, sharing these traditions, which are oftentimes lost with the passage of time. Like my father, it also makes me happy to enjoy meals surrounded by family and friends.

On personal and professional: 
My mornings begin bright and early at 6:30AM with a ritual that consists of tuning in to my favorite podcasts or audio books while getting ready for the day – shower, hair, makeup, the works. When time permits, I squeeze in a little work before the kids wake up for the school day, but usually I prepare breakfast and we all eat together before virtual classes begin. Amado (6) logs in to virtual school while Valentina (2) and I tune in to bilingual music lessons or find other activities to stay busy until her nap time, which is when I develop recipes, work on my blog, prepare proposals, ship orders, brainstorm new product and class ideas, and work on other areas of my business that require attention.

Coffee in my home goes beyond necessity and routine — it’s more of an experience and a way for us to connect as a family.

On heritage: I grew up with a very strong connection to my Mexican heritage. Spanish was my first language and even though my family lived modestly, my parents made it a point for us to travel to Mexico each summer and visit grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We’d also venture out to explore important landmarks, tour different beach towns and pueblos, and of course eat some of the best food at the vibrant mercados. These trips instilled a sense of cultural pride in me and in many ways influenced how I live and raise my children today.

I have vivid memories of the lingering smell of the coffee my father would make before his hour-long work commute each morning. Back then, coffee was functional for him and provided a means to stay awake. When he was off the clock, I remember both children and adults enjoying café con leche (more leche than café for the kids) as we gathered around my grandparent’s table for our evening merienda or snack. This usually included the delicious pan de Acámbaro, a well-known treat in my father’s hometown. As an adult, I grew to love the combination of pan dulce and coffee as it will forever remind me of my childhood.

On family time: My husband and I love traveling, taking road trips, visiting farmer’s markets and mercados, and enjoying the great outdoors with our children. We’re lucky to have access to so many beautiful walking and hiking trails in Colorado.

Some aspects of this remind me of my own childhood, but I’m one of six children, so we rarely ever traveled by plane. Every summer we’d take an extended road trip to visit my father’s family in Guanajuato, Mexico. My great grandmother would send us off with breakfast burritos and my father always prepared his thermos with hot coffee for the long haul. Papas con chorizo burritos and coffee are now essential on just about any vacation we take, be it via land, sea or air.

On coffee culture:
Coffee in my home goes beyond necessity and routine — it’s more of an experience and a way for us to connect as a family. I love the process of making coffee while listening to music and I especially enjoy experimenting with new recipes — lavender lattes, iced lattes with homemade oat milk, and cafe de olla are a few of our family favorites. Café Bustelo is our coffee of choice at home, and its versatility is what makes it so special. While I enjoy playing barista and coming up with fancy coffee concoctions — yes I even jumped on the whipped coffee bandwagon — I also keep Café Bustelo Espresso Instant Coffee packets on hand to infuse flavor into my flan and take on road trips. They’re so convenient!

On leaving a legacy: I hope that my children are able to look back on their childhoods with fond memories of our many visits to Mexico, family mealtimes, Christmas enjoying tamales that they helped make, Jewish holidays on the east coast being spoiled by their grandmother who prepares all of their favorite foods, Day of the Dead celebrations honoring loved ones, and Shabbat dinners where we wind down and recharge over the weekend. My wish is that they walk away with a deep appreciation and understanding of their unique cultural backgrounds so that they grow up and enrich other people’s lives through their own lived experiences.

This advertising content was produced in collaboration between Vox Creative and our sponsor, without involvement from Vox Media editorial staff.

Tags:

  • advertiser content
  • new york stories
  • culture
  • cafe bustelo
  • lola dweck
  • interview
  • More
+Comments Leave a Comment
For This Founder and Food Blogger, Coffee Runs in the Family

  1. This Is Us Recap: One Last Ride
  2. Which Women Do We Choose to Believe?
  3. New York Now Has More Airbnb Listings Than Apartments for Rent
  4. Amber Heard Addresses James Franco Elevator Video in Court
  5. Madison Cawthorn’s Self-destruction Is Complete
  1. This Is Us Recap: One Last Ride
  2. Which Women Do We Choose to Believe?
  3. Amber Heard Says She Thought Johnny Depp Would Kill Her
  4. Amber Heard Addresses James Franco Elevator Video in Court
  5. New York Now Has More Airbnb Listings Than Apartments for Rent

The Latest

the industry 24 mins ago
Members of Scott Rudin Broadway Productions Freed From NDAs Including actors and stage managers on To Kill a Mockingbird and West Side Story.
sorry to bother you 6:11 p.m.
Armie Hammer True-Crime Special Will Detail 5 Generations of Family Sins Father, son, and House of Hammer.
lawsuits 5:18 p.m.
Amber Heard Says She Thought Johnny Depp Would Kill Her A makeup artist explained how she covered Heard’s bruises.
best in class 5:15 p.m.
11 of the Very Best Air Fryers Custard toast at the ready.
strat investigates 5:08 p.m.
I ID’d the Ice Swans (and Every Other Item) at Chloë Sevigny’s Wedding And various other highly specific items from her planned-down-to-the-ribbon-shade wedding.
shopping 5:05 p.m.
14 Brands Getting Plus-Size Swimwear Right Here’s where to shop.
best in class 5:00 p.m.
The Very Best Portable Computer Monitors Unlike standard monitors, these portable options are easy to tote around and add a bigger screen to just about any device.
closings 4:51 p.m.
Bye-Bye, Bite Beauty After a decade in business, the brand is shutting down.
politics 4:40 p.m.
Poorly Conceived Biden Disinformation Board Put on Pause Its embattled leader, Nina Jankowicz, announced her resignation on Wednesday.
pool party 4:27 p.m.
The Most Powerful Person in Media Missed the Media Power Person Party But his model mom, Maye Musk, was there.
stock chaser 4:10 p.m.
Why Are These $15 Water Shoes (That Look Like The Row) Always Out of Stock? We’ve been on Aquafun Watch since February.
vulture 10x10 4:01 p.m.
The Lightning Puzzle 18-Across, Three Letters: The ‘R’ in “The Sopranos” logo is one.
best in class 3:51 p.m.
15 of the Very Best Rollerblades Including options for beginners, intermediates, skaters who seek speed, and others who want to roll around city streets.
"size inclusivity" 3:40 p.m.
Victoria Beckham Says Wanting to Be Thin Is ‘Old-Fashioned’ Then why does her line only carry dresses up to size 14?
under oath 3:40 p.m.
Amber Heard’s Ex–Best Friend Testified ‘Hair Was Ripped Out of Her Head’ Amber Heard’s sister also took the stand.
the most fertile man 3:38 p.m.
Nick Cannon Says He’s Considering a Vasectomy “I ain’t looking to populate the Earth completely.”
early and often 3:33 p.m.
Idaho Governor Brad Little Fends Off Trumpy Usurper In Tuesday’s GOP primary, Little trounced Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeachin, who’d tried repeatedly to cancel his COVID policies.
don't dillydally 3:23 p.m.
8 Things That’ll Almost Definitely Sell Out: From Our Place to Outdoor Voices Including a cookware collaboration with Molly Baz and Outdoor Voices’ new exercise dress.
swiftology studies 101 3:17 p.m.
Dr. Taylor Swift Diagnoses NYU Grads As Cringe “No matter how hard you try to avoid being cringe, you will look back on your life and cringe.”
she *and* him? in this economy? 3:10 p.m.
Ahead of Their Brian Wilson Tribute Album, a Very She & Him Q&A Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward on the Beach Boys, harmonies, and why their band has lasted this long.
  • Newsletters
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Media Kit
  • We’re Hiring
  • Press
  • Trademark
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Ad Choices
  • Do Not Sell My Info
  • Accessibility
New York is a Vox Media Network. © 2022 Vox Media, LLC. All rights reserved.