Please Wait to Be Tasted: The Lil’’ Deb’’s Oasis Cookbook

A 2023 JAMES BEARD AWARD FINALIST

AN AIGA ＂50 BOOKS 50 COVERS＂ WINNER

Foreword by Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello.

Home cooks will love serving up bold-flavored tropical comfort food from Please Wait to Be Tasted, the first cookbook from Lil’ Deb’s Oasis, the James Beard Award-nominated hotspot in Hudson, New York. More than a recipe collection, it’s a big-hearted celebration of food, love, and community.

For flavor-craving, art-loving, community-celebrating home cooks, Please Wait to Be Tasted serves up tropical comfort recipes, alongside musings on wine, music, love, sex, friendship, and fashion. At Lil’ Deb’s Oasis in the Hudson Valley of New York, chefs Carla Kaya Perez-Gallardo and Hannah Black, both art school graduates, have created a bright, welcoming, rainbow-colored, LGBTQ+ inclusive community, where guests are treated to ＂hot, sticky, juicy, moist fever dreams of flavor.＂ Their recipes mesh respect for cultural traditions with a twist: Ceviche Mixto with Popcorn; Charred Octopus in the Ink of Its Cousin, Sweet Plantains with Green Cream, Abuela’s Flan, and more. With ＂Please Wait to be Tasted＂ (a phrase featured in the restaurant’s waiting area), you can bring these recipes home.

In addition to some seventy recipes, Please Wait to Be Tasted shares the knowledge and love that go into making memorable meals at Lil’ Deb’s Oasis: essays on the restaurant’s beginnings and the chefs’ navigation of the colonial histories entangled in their recipes’ origins; tips on techniques, tools, and pantry; and lessons on how to eat well together.

Carla Perez-Gallardo was raised by three Ecuadorian women in Queens, New York, in a home with a busy kitchen. In seventh grade, she started Saborines, a summer pie company named after her grandmother. She graduated from Bard College with a degree in studio arts.

Hannah Black, originally from Alabama, graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a degree in painting. She worked at Mission Chinese Food in New York and Hartwood in Tulum, Mexico, before running a food truck in Catskill, New York, serving Vietnamese-inspired flavors with locally sourced ingredients.

Wheeler grew up in the Napa Valley, the child of two presbyterian pastors, and graduated from Bard college with a literature degree. They became Lil’ Deb’s general manager and wine guy in 2017.

Meshell Ndegeocello is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and human rights activist based in Hudson, New York. Her most recent album is Ventriloquism.