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El Librito Vol. 2: A Boricua Summer That Never Ends
When we went to grab our cafecito at Isla Made, we stumbled upon an editorial gem that captures what so many of us feel but few can explain: in Puerto Rico, summer isn’t a season… it’s a way of life. El Librito Vol. 2, subtitled Verano puertorriqueño: el que dura todo el año (in English: Puerto Rican Summer: The One That Lasts All Year), is a delicious blend of magazine, notebook, and collective memory of island sun, flavor, and nostalgia.
Created by Carolina Ginorio (@caroginorio_pr), this little book is written in Spanglish—fresh, natural, and unpretentious. Its retro aesthetic and vintage spirit, present throughout the edition, evoke the maps of Puerto Rico that decorated the plastic tables at chinchorros (roadside bars), the same ones that stuck to your elbows in the island heat. From the moment you open the book until the back cover, it greets you with a gift: a QR code that takes you to Bien Tropi a lo boricua, a curated playlist for beach days, road trips, and sweaty sunsets.
A Tribute to Summer, Mango, and Memory
The editorial letter makes it clear: this issue is a tribute to the smells, flavors, sounds, and childhood memories that make the Puerto Rican summer something permanent. It’s not just about recipes or recommendations. It’s about sensations you have to feel to understand: sun-kissed, salty skin after a beach day; that unique, delicious kind of tired that begs for a car power nap; quenching your thirst with tropical fruits so ripe their juice runs down your hands; hopping from town to town for local festivals; and that peace that calls you back even before you’ve left.
Recipes, Maps, Dips, and Poetry
El Librito Vol. 2 is an editorial buffet that includes:
- How to make classic limbers (lemon, passion fruit, grape, cherry, coffee, cream)
- The famous mezcla sandwich “just like grandma made it”
- A guide to classic and fancy Puerto Rican dips: chicken, guava & cheese, spicy crab
- Recipes to turn any day into a tropical road trip: pizza turnovers (empanadillas), kebabs (pinchos), cod fritters (bacalaítos), ceviche
- A beach guide with brief notes on why each made the list. Plus, a checklist so you’re prepared—and a reminder to take your trash with you
- A guide to rivers and swimming holes (charcos) for when you want to rinse off the salt water
- Verses to the flamboyán tree by Rayze Michelle
- How to make a kite (chiringa), step-by-step (worth trying!)
- The secret to a good piña colada (virgin or boozy)
- And yes, it even includes survival tips for “la calol”. From shaved ice (piragua), hand fans, and coconut-pineapple drinks to ice, açaí, and other treats that have joined our beach culture.
A Treasure for Locals, Tourists, and the Diaspora
More than a magazine, El Librito Vol. 2 is a gift. Perfect for keeping at home, in guesthouses, for visitors, or for friends in the diaspora. It’s a tangible reminder of who we are. It’s a little piece of the island bound in pages, and of what we feel when the sun is blazing and mangoes overflow from the trees: that sweet celebration of being Boricua.
You can find it on Carolina’s website: www.carolinaginorio.com/el-librito
As she describes it herself:
“For me, this is more than a zine—it’s a little piece of who we are. I wanted to create something that could be with us at the beach, in the diaspora, in the car, or in your grandma’s living room. But more than that, it was important to capture what it means to be Puerto Rican in everyday life—in what we eat, what we listen to, what we feel. For people to keep cooking is part of that: keeping alive the recipes, the flavors, the stories that unite us.”