“Cooking for me is not only a way to nourish myself, but it’s also an excuse to have endless people over,” says chef Karla Subero Pittol about her dedication to food and how it connects to good times with friends and family. “I’ve always loved community, spending time with friends. And there’s no better way to get someone to hang out than to offer food as an incentive.”
For Subero Pittol, being close to loved ones is the perfect ingredient for getting creative in the kitchen, especially around the holidays. That’s why she’s taken a classic Venezuelan Christmas dish—pernil—and turned it into the ultimate snack for any setting, from casual hangs to pre-dinner appetizers before the big Navidad feast.
Subero Pittol’s creative kitchen challenge is part of Snack It!, a content series presented by Sprite and Remezcla, where chefs and foodies alike transform traditional holiday dishes into portable, delicious snacks with a personal touch.
Inspired by her Venezuelan roots, Subero Pittol runs Chainsaw, her Los Angeles restaurant specializing in charcoal- and wood-powered parrillas and frozen desserts. She started with open-air pop-ups and wood-fired feasts before opening her own place and building a name for herself with her personal touch and cool, approachable style.
It’s this down-to-earth personality that has guided her throughout her career, and the same applies to her current task: turning the pork-based pernil into bite-sized arepas rosas de jamón. “I wanted to find a way to enjoy that same concept of the leg of ham, but in a smaller, more approachable way that you could appreciate all the way through the holidays.”
Subero Pittol says her family’s Venezuelan Christmas tradition starts with her dad, but it really involves everyone. “My stepmom makes the guisado for the hallacas and then starts calling everybody last minute, saying, ‘Hey, you’re coming over this weekend, right?'” she says with a laugh. She’s excited about the Snack It! project because it’s about “turning a memory of the leftovers of the pernil from the day after our big Christmas party into something we can actually eat and share and celebrate all the way through the season.”
Scaling the dish down meant simplifying the recipe and cutting kitchen time. “Rather than spending so much time in the kitchen alone or away from your company, you have something really quick and easy to make and share,” she says.
How do you make something as flavorful and festive as pernil without the lengthy process? She switched from cooking pork leg to using jamón serrano, which comes from the same part of the pig, and made other minor tweaks. But not everything could be cut. She makes the sauce from scratch to add “brightness to the savory flavors already in place.” It also keeps the dish feeling homemade.
Reinventing a classic from the traditional Venezuelan Christmas cookbook isn’t just about making an easier, more portable dish—it’s also a great excuse to enjoy the most wonderful time of the year. “I think it’s a really beautiful time,” Subero Pittol says. “Everything slows down, and you can really dedicate a lot more time to the people you love. Everyone is spending more time inside because it’s colder, and everyone wears elastic pants because they’re going to eat well and share a lot of food, and that’s great.”
