A few days ago when I pulled up to the house after rounding up kids from school, there were noticeable changes on our front porch. Santa mats had been placed inside and out the front door, a cranberry red wreath hung on its hook and several poinsettias had been placed all around the entrance way, which was spot clean. Opening the door, I smelled the divine fir needles before I saw the Christmas tree, upright in its stand, set in the far corner of our living room.


To the contrary, Fidel Castro outlawed Christmas, as well as all other religious activity and holidays, completely when he took over in 1959, naming Cuba an atheist state. Christmas also got in the way of the country's sugar harvest festival so poof, it was gone.

Suddenly no trees, no decorations or outward signs of celebration were allowed, except in tourist hot spots, though Christmas had existed on the island for 450 years. Initiated by Christopher Columbus, who is known as Cristóbal Colón in Spanish-speaking countries, when he landed in Cuba in 1492, European traditions and customs, including Navidad, were born on the island.

Until Castro's take over, Christmas Eve or La Noche Buena was a highly festive event with music and a feast, full of Cuban favorites – roasted pork, drenched in their seasoning of choice, mojo, with sides of yuca, congri (a rice and black bean mix), plantains, sidra (Spanish apple cider) and wine.  Desserts were flan, rice pudding or turrones de almendra (almonds) or coco (coconut), the latter of which should be named Heaven. Creamy, shredded coconut squished with condensed milk, orange zest and vanilla, and today, enshrouded in dark chocolate and chilled. I could swim in the stuff.



There used to be midnight mass and Christmas Day was spent visiting family members, though by the time Luis came into the world this was simply something of the past.

I am told, however, it was treasured in secret by many. One Cuban friend said that growing up she had a neighbor who was a pilot and he had a Christmas tree in his living room. It was a 'big deal' and everyone did their best to catch a glimpse of it.

Photo credit: BBC

Last night I posted a quick bit on Facebook about a great meal I threw together, which comes from Gwyneth Paltrow's first cookbook, My Father's Daughter. Given the response and requests for the recipes, I thought I would make this my blog post today.

Nothing Latin or American about it, but good food is good food and always a favorite topic.

Gwyneth calls for a trio of perfect Chinese roasted duck, sesame pancakes and red miso hoisin sauce.  However, with a precocious, climbing infant and first grade homework to assist, the duck seemed like too much for me to take on.

Instead, I substituted with a familiar: 8 chicken thighs, skin on, drizzled in olive oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper and popped into a 350-degree oven for about 40 minutes, give or take.

While those were roasting, I pulled the sesame pancakes together.

Ingredients are:
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups rice milk (if this is too strange for you, I'm sure any milk, dairy or other, will do)
2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
1 teaspoon vegetable oil (I used slightly more with repeat oil swirls)

Heat a small skillet over a medium flame and pour in the vegetable oil, using a paper towel to spread it around.

Pour two tablespoons of the pancake mix into the pan and and swirl quickly so it coats the bottom as best you can. The pancake will start to bubble and brown around the edges after two minutes or so. Gently lift the edge with a rubber spatula, pull it up with your finger and flip to the other side. This will toast nicely in about 30 seconds. Put it on a plate, re-oil the pan a little, sopping up any extra with a paper towel and repeat until there are approximately 12 pancakes.

She notes in the book that the first is usually a dud and mine was. It was ugly as sin, but the taste was there and the little ones split it and ate it anyway. Food Network won't be calling anytime soon, but the overall appearance did improve as I went along.

With on and off attention to the pancakes, it was time for the hoisin, which is a Chinese dipping sauce, used much like our barbecue sauce. This version brings in red miso, the rich sweetness of maple syrup, power packed with minerals, garlic and a five-spice powder, consisting of fennel seed, star anise, ginger, cloves and cinnamon.

Ingredients are:
1 tablespoon grape seed or vegetable oil
1 large clove of garlic, peeled and minced
1/2 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder
1/2 cup red miso
1/2 cup real Vermont maple syrup
2 tablespoons brown rice vinegar

I pulled out a jar of organic, peeled garlic from the fridge and reached for the chopping board with my 1-year-old, Ana, literally underfoot. There was no time to mince with her newly discovered obsession, the spice drawer -- which she can now open, reach into and pull items out of -- so I chopped the fat, white clove into small, roughed-up parts, did a squish with the back of the spoon and that was that.

Per instruction, heat the oil in a small saucepan over medium. Add the garlic and five-spice powder to cook about 30 seconds. The smell is fantastic. Whisk in the rest of the list and bring to a boil, stirring constantly for 3 to 4 minutes. Mine bubbled rather dramatically, thickening in the process. Let it cool before serving and if you don't mince, you may want to drain the sauce into a bowl, leaving the garlic chunks in the strain, as I did.

By then the chicken had cooled enough to shred by hand and put in a bowl that I placed on the table.

The pancakes were still coming off the pan, one by one, and piling higher on a plate, but another 10 minutes and all was ready.

It was family-style serving and gobbled up in minutes. I was layered in kisses and this will definitely be a repeat. However, next time, notes to self:

*Make pancakes ahead of time if possible.
*Smear hoisin sauce on pancakes before putting chicken down. It's delicious, but as Luisito said, a little concrete-like and does not pour over.

Shuffling through the fun, but chaotic gathering of authors and larger-than-life book characters at last weekend's Children's Book Festival in Savannah, my six-year-old, Marcos, jumped in front of his sister and yelled, “Entra!” with a hand wide open, waiting for a High Five slap in return.

With us was Marcos' good buddy, Anna Isabella, whose family is from Panama. It's all Spanish in her house, but she was confused by what Marcos had just said. Ditto for her mom, Erika, who also chimed in: “How does he say High Five?”

Anna Isabella and Marcos High Five

In classic Spanish, entra, is a command to come or go in, but in Cuba it takes this different form.

Erika, who has been in the U.S. for about 10 years with husband, Abdiel, knows the expression as either a Spanglish High Five (in this case, meaning a word in English pronounced with a Spanish accent), or classic Panamanian, Choca Las Cinco, which translates literally to something like “crash the five.”

Translations are a fascinating thing, varying from country to country, causing even speakers of the same language to scratch their heads at times.

I fell victim to British English briefly living in Budapest in 2002.  I became good friends with an expat from England who used a lot of phrases that I don't, though they are easy to surmise: watching the telly, taking the lift, going to the post and meeting at her flat. But when she mentioned something about an aubergine I had no idea what she was talking about.  I felt ridiculous asking and then learning that it is eggplant.

When another Panamanian friend, Karina, and her Cuban husband, Santiago, lived in Puerto Rico during his medical school years they went to a restaurant with outdoor seating where bugs jumped in and around the table. “Los bichos estan matando,” she said, noting that the little pests were driving her nuts. What she didn't know is that in Puerto Rico bicho is vulgar slang for a part of the male anatomy. The waiter's eyes popped and asked: “What did you say?” She repeated and he went flat on the floor in laughter, teasing her the rest of the meal.


Of course, it's far easier to get lost in translation among different cultures and languages.


As a college student in Spain, I flashed beet red one night as I innocently tried to say that I was hot with the heat cranked in the apartment I shared with three Spanish roommates, none of whom spoke any English. They howled, telling me not to say what I had just said out on the street. I don't need to literally translate that one, but you get the idea.  I still blush at the thought.


Another spoof was while visiting Cuba in the early stages of dating Luis. I was still trying to wrangle Spanish and I told my now mother-in-law, Ana, that I was embarazada for embarrassed, only to, yes, embarrass myself further. I had just told her I was pregnant.


On the flip side, when Luis had been here maybe a year or so he was talking to someone I knew from my childhood, who asked him about my mother. In lieu of saying she had passed away several years prior, Luis delicately told the man that she had passed out.  Taking the sting out of something so serious, I giggled for months about that, and still do, vowing to respond to anyone who asked with the same wording.

When I ask my friend, Rocio, who is from Cuba and lives in Statesboro, about translations gone awry she tells me she is forever referred to as Mr. Rocio, as most tend to associate the last letter of her name with a male.  She was also once particularly confused when asked by a nurse if she had ever had chicken pox. She thought she was asking her if she had some sort of disease that chickens have.

Pronunciations can be as funny and provide an ongoing source of teasing in our house.

A few months ago, Luis walked in the door and announced he was going to make Cahoon chicken.

“Cahoon chicken?” I asked.

He showed me the spice: Cajun seasoning.

Luis caught the mishap just as he looked at it and together we roared. Now, every couple of weeks or so I ask if we can have my new favorite dish, the Cahoon one.

The stumbles are silly, but intrinsic to our blended pot of family and friends, and make for great laughs on a regular basis.

One of my next projects will have to be a collection of similar stories from around the world.


Check out funny signs.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/15/funny-signs-from-around-the world_n_763727.html#s156821

One of the most striking things driving into Havana is the spread of tropical colors, etched on colonial and art deco buildings, some fitted with stained-glass windows and topped with elaborate Moorish-style rooftops that project over the Malecón, a sea wall that hugs five miles of the city's coastline, and downtown's cobblestone streets. Color is as integral to the architecture as the posts that hold it.

Día de los Muertos is relatively unknown in the states, though on the rise, with large-scale parades and festivities, particulary in the western and northeastern regions. Atlanta celebrates, but Savannah has yet to catch on. The only tokens I found here are at World Market.