Festive treats.

Gorgeous mini Christmas puddins.

 


                                    
                                                                         Macaroons

Key lime pie.

The festive season gave me an opportunity to share some of my desserts; all of them were a big success. I feel very happy and proud when this happens. I enjoyed sharing the results of my cookery passion so it is not only me who enjoys my cooking.

         

                                

                                                       Christmas kitchen.

                                                   

Nigella Kitchen: Recipes from the Heart of the Home

Nigella Christmas: Food Family Friends Festivities

Christmas. / Navidades.

                                                 

                                              

                                                  Church in Cuba.

                                                  

We do not know how to celebrate Christmas in Cuba. Some people do go to the church that day but the rest of the population spend Christmas evening with the expectation of something to celebrate but they do not have an idea of what or how to celebrate it.

Our Christian commemorations lost their appeal long ago when the communist party members where advised not to display any interest in religion and in our schools we were never told anything about the existence of the Bible. It seemed pretty clear in our textbooks that people with religious beliefs were ignorant. Any celebration we were allowed to have was only to commemorate the Revolution and its heroes. However, the older people would always remember Easter (Pascuas y Semana Santa)

It feels sad for me now that I live in Australia to know all the celebrations we were forbidden to have in Cuba. The church in present times may not be so important for some, especially after so many sexual abuse scandals, but in some other countries it was one of the first choices people were denied.

Nowadays, years after the 1998 Pope John Paul II visit to Cuba we have a more open space for religion, more people are involved in the church and there is a proliferation of different religions groups with diversity of beliefs.

There has always been an important presence in Cuba of an African imported religion practice called Santeria. It  is a very common sight in The Havana streets to find mulatto girls walking by, all dressed up in white and showing distinctive Yoruba necklaces, a vision that adds certain charm to the city.

It has taken me years living abroad to embrace the Christmas spirit, years to learn the traditional recipes, colours, and symbols that represent such a beautiful festive season. I am grateful because I got such an opportunity.

Religion in Cuba

Mojito recipe.

                                     
                                                                            Mojito.


In summer I enjoy preparing this drink, it is the most refreshing drink for a hot day.



Several sprigs fresh mint
Juice of 1 lime
1 teaspoon sugar
½ cup crushed ice
2 ounces Bacardi light rum
Sparkling mineral water to taste

In a mortar, crush the mint leaves.

Combine the leaves and the remaining ingredients, except the mineral water.
Pour into a tall glass, and top with sparkling mineral water.
Garnish with sprig of mint leaves.

Makes 1 drink.

Memories of a Cuban Kitchen: More Than 200 Classic Recipes

Sugar, the former pride of Cuba.

                                          

                                                               Cuban rum.

                                                                    

Sugar cane is being transported to the sugar cane mill.

Cubans drink rum, they consume it neat from the bottle. They also enjoy the luxury of a cold beer rarely when they can afford it. The younger generation mixes their rum with cola soft drink.

My preference is the Mojito drink, a favorite of the American writer Hemingway, or rum and sugar cane juice, known as guarapo. Most Cubans do not know these drinks, which are very popular at the tourist hotels in Havana.

The most popular rum between Cuban locals is the white rum, its colour means how young it is, about 3 years old, the darker varieties are more expensive, a real luxury few Cubans have the opportunity to taste, this rum is called anejo because it is aged.

 

Rum is a product from sugar and Cuba was at one point one of the main sugar exporters in the world. Now all of that is former glory because we actually import sugar from Brazil as we produce very little now.

It is very sad now to see the sugar factories in ruins, where before there was so much life, joy and pride. I remember when I would go to my primary school where near by the sugar factory was the center of the community or batey. Those towns now are like ghost towns.

Some of my friends happened to be children of the sugar factory maestros, their parents were very important, intelligent, appreciated persons in the community. Then what you achieved with your effort and study was valued, and now these men are a heartbreaking testimony to the failure of Cuba’s economic model.



They had many Soviet books at home and they learnt some Russian words. Now they do not know what to do with their lives, some hide anger in their talk, because the difference between their former recognition and their forgotten present is very sharp.

Funeral

One thing I found very strange in Australian culture is the way they say their last goodbye to their loved ones.

To me it was shocking to find people celebrating with drinks, music of any type and jokes. The funeral is easy to attend here. It all seemed to be a party to me, compared to Cuban traditions, a celebration of something. And last how the body is left to rest forever in the same plot in the ground.

In Cuba I imagine it has to do with the centuries old Spanish tradition of long mourning and respect, together with the lack of religious beliefs (lost with socialisms push for lay beliefs in a vast number of the Cuban population and many hold the belief that death like in animals is the end for a person) this has shaped the traditions in Cuba to be that of suffering.

If it is possible you spend the night before the funeral trying to sleep as you can in a chair while you pay respects and guard the casket, which is a dreadful experience, and do not dare to play music for a month in your house.

I understand we do not have a reliable transport system in Cuba and it is important to wait for family members traveling long distances to get to say their last good byes. This could be the explanation for the long night around the casket in a room without air-conditioning or food the day before the funeral.

In Cuba some months or a year later the family will go back to the cemetery to take the remains and put them in a small box so someone else can use the plot. Lucky Australia is a big country and you do not need to recycle the cemetery.

I prefer the Australian way now, I understand they celebrate a life that we were lucky to share and it is possible the deceased is in a good place now, in a natural phase of life. It is an easier way to deal with a funeral.



Different cultures. / Diferentes culturas.

Remedios, Cuba.

Gold Coast, Australia.

                                                         

Australians travel the world, something that my husband and I enjoy too. In a recent trip we went to Miami, Florida hoping to meet some Cubans now living there.

I was surprised how different my way of thinking is with these Cubans. I thought they lived a relatively similar life to mine, living out of Cuba in America, a country very similar to Australia. But soon I noticed they have not assimilated to the new culture, they talk like they are still in Cuba, and they have not changed their way of thinking. It is hard to comprehend how they do not speak English, living and working in a English speaking nation.

It’s interesting, because my way of thinking has changed so much in Australia, I feel like a new person from what I was before, I feel a happier and more confident person that has left behind a world of low self-esteem and inferiority complex very often seen in Cuba. I have achieved this through reflection, reading and my willingness to be a better person.

I arrived very young to Australia and I had an identity crisis in a new place with new people, different traditions and interests. In order to survive I had to adapt to the new circumstances. It was hard and painful at first but I am very happy now when I see where would I be as a person if I did not change.

Raspberries with rose water syrup.

This is a beautifull looking dish with bright coloring of pink and red that goes wonderfully with white Vanilla lemon yogurt panna cotta.

Raspberries with rose water syrup.

2 cups water
1 cup caster sugar
2 teaspoons rose water
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped.
500 g raspberries (fresh or frozen)

*Place the water, sugar, rosewater, and vanilla bean and seeds in a saucepan over high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 4 minutes.
*Remove from the heat and add the raspberries and set aside to cool.
*Serve with Vanilla and lemon yogurt panna cotta or with vanilla ice cream.

Spring Desserts.

I have been cooking very nice desserts lately. Cooking or baking makes me feel calm, in control and disperses any negative thoughts that may fly through my head. Plus I love it, getting all the ideas of how it is going to work, if there is anything I can substitute and how others and I will enjoy the final product by seeing and savouring it.

I had made this panna cotta recipe from Donna Hay a few times and decided to add more yogurt plus vanilla and the end result tastes wonderfull.

Vanilla and lemon yogurt panna cotta.

200 ml pouring cream
½ cup milk
½ cup icing sugar
2 teaspoons powdered gelatine
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon thick natural yogurt


· Place cream and milk in a saucepan over low medium heat and simmer for 5 minutes.

· Combine gelatine and water and set aside for 5 minutes.
· Remove the cream mixture from the heat, add the icing sugar and stir until dissolved.
· Add the gelatin mixture, vanilla, lemon juice, lemon rind and stir until combined.
· Whisk in the yogurt
· Pour into a mould and refrigerate for 4 hours or until firm.

Why return ? / Por que regresar?

                                                            Students hitch hiking.

Cuban scenary.

Sometimes Cubans wonder why exiles and Cubans who have immigrated to another country, do return to visit. The people whose biggest ambition was to leave Cuba as soon as possible and now wish to revisit as much as possible.

It is very different to revisit Cuba and travel in an air conditioning rent a car compared to trying to hitch hike in the boiling sun for hours on end, the Cuban way. Looking out the landscape from a comfortable air conditioning car you see the beauty of the countryside and it is sharp colors like a postcard, as you have never seen it before.

Local Cubans wonder if Cuba has something special. I guess you have to be an emigrated to know this. That only when you leave that land is that you start loving it a little. That for us the magic is that back there are the places that are especial for us in our minds, our first school, the language, the neighbors, our first teacher, the road where we learnt to ride our first bike.

It is like going through a photo album of our lives (especially in Cuba where not much change) it is the place where we did belong, it is our past and that is the reason why we love to comeback.

Sometimes we are too busy with our present and in not mood to go there but we arrive and we fall in love with that place again.

Pulses or grains. / Granos o legumbres.

We Cubans live on a diet predominately based on legumes, so it is not a surprise I often cook black beans. Introduced to Cuba by the Spaniards, grains are very nutritious, they are an excellent source of iron, potassium, vitamin B6 and folic acid.

I was surprised to find they are one of the cheapest foods here in Australia.
Pulses and Grains were known as the food for the poor but nowadays everybody recognizes their value as a healthy meal and more westerners are moving away from a predominantly meat form of diet.

I prefer to buy canned cannellini beans, lentils, and chickpeas as in their dry form they may require to be soaked previously and I like cooking to be easy.
Lately I have developed my own recipe to get the best out of what the can provides, my favorite is lentils soup.

Lentils soup

(Same recipe for cannellini beans)

½ Spanish chorizo cut in coin size
2 shallots or 2 green onions (or 1 brown onion)
1 garlic clove minced
½ teaspoon of cumin

1 tomato
1 bay leave
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
thyme
1 can of lentils
1cup chicken stock

Put the chorizo in a hot saucepan and cook for a few minutes until you get their orange oil; put the chorizo away on a plate until later.
Use this oil to cook the shallots and garlic for 3 minutes.
Add cumin and stir for 1 minute.

And then add the lentils (without rinsing) stock, chorizo, red wine vinegar, tomato, bay leave, thyme; let it boil and simmer gently for 10 minutes or so.
You can serve this soup with a lime wedge.

Train journey. / Viaje en tren.

Recently my husband and I caught a train to visit the Brisbane EKKA (exhibition). It was nice to sit in cushion seats in air conditioning. The train traveled fast.

Once in a small town in Cuba my husband asked his friend what was wrong with getting the train? So my husbands friend laughed on his way up to the nearest train to show him what a Cuban train looks like inside.

For a Cuban to imagine my Australian husband hopping on a Cuban train is hilarious. I imagine him sweating heavily walking elbow to elbow amongst Cubans carrying sacks of rice, beans or fish on their backs.

Actually, if you compare traveling by train, they are not as terrible as buses, their disadvantage is that they are too slow, like doing a 50 km journey can take 3 hours. But you can have your seat and do not have to argue with anybody for it, the seat would be very hard anyway.

In this sort of trip you can see the real Cuba, a Cuba that is not glamorous at all. People will be selling goods and if you forget about the hard seat and the slow trip you can have fun watching and listening to the Cubans selling things like sweet cookies or roast peanut. People in the train, unless they are students, look pretty poor but are friendly.

I experienced the train one summer from Havana to Sancti Spiritus and it was almost unbelievable that I survived the heat; generally a Cuban train does not have air conditioning. Warning: Do not dare to go to the toilet.

On my trips to school or to Havana in 2001 I was never lucky enough to see any fast trains in Cuba .I thought it was a myth, everybody mentions it but nobody has seen one.

One night the train to Havana was cancelled and a friend and I slept in the train station holding our luggage as we could between our legs so nobody would rob us of our most precious possessions. Any possession for a Cuban is precious. As a student our worst nightmare was to be robbed.

Some days we were lucky we could buy a ticket paying around 3 dollars to the inspectors, but that night there was no train running so we could not travel either with the extra cash.

In 1837 Cuba was one of the first countries to have railway in Latin America and the Iberian world.

Custard-apple / chirimoya o anon.

Custard-apple fruit ( chirimoya)

This month is custard-apple season in Australia, as I see the fruit in every market. I was pleasantly surprised the first time I saw it here. Some locals do not know the fruit.

It is a fruit that brings to me memories of children in Cuba throwing stones at the tree in order to get the fruit down or asking the adults if it is ripe and counting days for it to be ripened. Most of the time we could not wait that long, the same story happens with mangos.

I like the custard-apple to give its gentle flavour to a milkshake. You must take the ebony seeds out before mixing its pulp with a cup of full cream milk, a tablespoon of condensed milk and some ice in the fruit blender; the result is a pale, creamy drink with a flavour that reminds me of vanilla and makes the effort of taking the seeds out rewarding.

Mango.

I do not know if every Cuban shares my enthusiasm for mangos but I know my brother does. To me this is the top fruit pick and I really miss them when the ripening season is too far away to wait. I also dream of making quick trips to Singapore or Hong Kong to catch up with their mango seasons there.

In Cuba it seems like we cannot wait either because children start eating them unripe. I was surprised it is completely normal to find unripe mangos in Asian dishes as a salad ingredient.

Recently I was so happy to get a box of Kensington Pride frozen mango cheeks. I feel so smart; imagine having tasty mangos when they are out of season.

I wondered why Australia offers other fruits like avocado, strawberries or pineapples year round but not my heavenly Kensington Pride mangoes. But anyway I smile thinking that if I did have them so often I would not put them on top of my list. I patiently wait for the season to start when summer arrives in the north.

This week I am over the moon with my box of frozen mangos, ah like a child with a box full of candy. Of course I have to do something special with it, I found in a book a recipe I want to try, called mango fool, it should go well with blueberries.

2 mangos or equivalent (5cheeks)
200 ml pouring cream
½ cup sugar or less

1. You must thaw the mangos and then put them in a food processor with the steel blade and puree them.
2. Mix mango and sugar and put away until needed again.
3. Whip your pouring cream.
4. Fold the cream into the mango and pour in mould to refrigerate. Cover for 2 hours.


A simpler version is to fold the mango puree in natural yogurt, something you can serve at breakfast straight away.

You can try also to make a delicious milkshake. Just after you have puree the mango in the food processor, put it in the blender with a cup of milk, a tablespoon of condensed milk and some ice cubes.

Roast suckling pig / lechon asado.

On very special occasions Cubans like to celebrate with a roast suckling pig cooking slowly in their backyards. The look of it screams “f i e s t a” party.

My mother’s father cooks the best roast suckling pig I ever tasted; he is a master at this. I tried to repeat the experience in Miami Florida as that city is like Cuba in America, but it did not happen to be that good, their pork tastes totally different, like a different animal, probably because the pigs diet is unlike what they eat in Cuba.

This is a Total Cuban experience; the roast suckling pig being delivered on the “bicitaxi”.
This time the pig was cooked to perfection at the local bakery. There were fears of rain and that would ruin the backyard cooking.

Coffee, rice and beans / Café, arroz y frijoles

Country side.

Flamboyan tree in Cuba.

I must say I have never seen in Cuba such an abundance of fruit as I saw on my last trip.
There were plenty of pineapples, a fruit that I would see rarely during my childhood. I think it could be due to recent government measures to increase food supplies by loosening tight controls over food distribution.Such laws have made it easier for farmers to produce fruit.

At the same time it was challenging to buy rice or beans, the most important nutrients in Cubans diet. In the last few months they have become scarce and expensive.

It felt like a punch to my stomach to know that my grandmother didn't have supplies of rice and beans because the decrease in the availability happened very fast.
Luckily we had some rice in our car for her.

My favorite Cuban coffee (Serrano) is no longer available in the Cuban shops, so this time I bought a different coffee in USA, Bustelo Cafe, a favorite of Cuban immigrants.

Later I read in the news that Cuban coffee production has decreased by 90 % and Cuba is now actually importing coffee and sugar. For several decades Cuba was a major exporter of sugar and coffee.

Soup / Ajiaco y caldosa.

Tamal.

Making tamal from fresh corn.

As winter days approach in the southern hemisphere we feel the need for a homemade stew, this makes me think of the Cuban ajiaco. This soup became very important for Cubans.

At the beginning of the Cuban food crisis in the early nineties the Cuban government organized for someone in every street to cook a huge stew known as "caldosa" every second night. Somebody would give a pigs head and every house would be asked to give at least one vegetable: a potato, a sweet potato, corn, plantain or tapioca.

Music would make everything seem to be a like party, a social gathering but it actually was an organized way of giving food to the hungry people, especially for the old and lonely, this vegetable soup may be their only food for that day.

Late at night my brother would get all excited and run home looking for a container to collect his soup and he treated it as a prize for his long wait.

Those where the years when people ate only cornmeal for lunch and dinner everyday and consequently we were hungry all the time because cornmeal only gives you a sensation of fullness for a very short time.

May / Mayo.

Mamey fruit.

Country side, Cuba.

On my last trip to my land I was stunned by the simple beauty of the Cuban country side as my eyes absorbed the beauty of the royal palm trees and the rich green background highlighting the flamboyant tree blooms.

In May the flamboyan trees give the country scenery a painting look with bright red colour concentrated in one spot or sparingly branches here and there as careless strokes from a brush.
Flamboyan flowers make the atmosphere look festive and the tree may look like it is trying on a red dress. This tree grows in sub tropical and tropical areas.

I think May is one month that feels like the real Cuba; the humid heat after a short April spring ripens the fruit, corn just ripening on the cob, mamey trees holding heavy fruit up high on top, custard apple season, lovely and peaceful cows with their calves and mangos hanging like earrings, getting ready for the next month.

Mamey is a fruit that also grows in Mexico which it is really hard to describe its flavour but every Cuban loves it in a milkshake, it has texture similar to an avocado and a rich orange colour flesh with a black seed.

Cooking in Cuba / Cocinar en Cuba

Cuban family picking fruit.

Cubans drinking guarapo, a refreshing drink made from sugar cane.

I am a Cuban now living in Australia, and emigrating here changed my thoughts on everything I knew. One of those things is food.

I could not find my Cuban rice and beans and I did not know how to cook them if I found them, so I was in deep trouble. Initially I did not like any of the Australian flavours. Luckily after starving for two months I managed to enjoy the sweet and spiced Australian food.

My first trip to Woolworths was mind blowing; my eyes must have been wide open because I could not believe what I saw: apple and banana mountains. I had never seen anything like that in my life before and I was not expecting it, such a variety of beautiful fresh food.

In Australia it is very common to gather around food and wine to taste the innovative combination of flavours while you enjoy the company of friends and loved ones. So this represents a positive experience. With this in mind Australians build their homes paying special attention to their kitchens. Their kitchens are made spacious, with lots of storage, open, and basically to cook and share with family and friends.

Now I am very passionate about food, and enjoy nothing more than spending an afternoon planning recipes and cooking. I have learnt to appreciate fresh produce, ingredients of great variety, spices and flavours from the Asian cuisines.

My new interest in food is very hard for my family in Cuba to understand. They have never experienced anything like what we have here .It is a very different approach. Like here we have hundreds of TV cooking programs, Cuban TV has not shown a cooking program since the early nineties. After the ex Soviet Union disintegration we had a food crisis, which remains to this day.

For some years cooking in Cuba was a very stressful thing, there was no food to cook or petrol for the stove, so women had to use charcoal which had drawbacks, it tinted our houses roof and walls black. Cuban women’s fingernails were tinted black too.

Those were the years when cornmeal replaced our traditional rice and beans on our plates everyday. Often there was no electricity and we had to take a piece of paper to the neighbor cooking with charcoal to be able to light our charcoal as there was a lack of matches too. If raining this was a challenging task.

So the Cuban approach to food is not pleasurable, it is food to fill you up and provide you with sufficient energy. Cuban kitchens are a closed small area, poorly illuminated and not enough benchtop space. Cubans do not have enough food to share so their kitchens are a reflection of this problem. The kitchens are very hot, with no air conditioning in a tropical climate.

My Australian husband noticed that some Cubans do not sit at the table to eat, they prefer to eat sitting on the floor in a corridor where some fresh air flows and the concrete floor is cooler.

I rarely saw men cooking or helping their wives in the kitchen and women there see cooking as demeaning. They dream of a day not having to cook and instead having prepackaged food where only a re heat is needed; the type of food I have learned is a poor nutritional choice. They would be better of with beans but they dislike spending time in their kitchens.

It was not always like this in Cuba, there is a recipe book written by a Cuban emigrant “Memories of a Cuban kitchen” by Mary Urrutia, where I learnt how people lived before 1959 and I was very surprised to find similarities of lifestyles in Cuba at that time and in Australia now. There were restaurants, beach houses and similar supermarkets to Woolworths at that time popularly called “Ten Cents”.

Today Cuba has lost a lot of its culinary heritage, a country where it is virtually impossible to find a cooking book or a recipe. To find Cuban recipes you must search recipes written by the Cubans that emigrated to the U.S. I find this terribly sad for a nation.

Hitch hiking, la botella.

This is a common way of traveling.

Cubans do a lot of walking everyday everywhere so I didn’t understand why here in Australia people wanted to walk or run. For us in Cuba, to get into a car is a big luxury, something that happens very rarely. So I can say people in Cuba are fit, most of them. In Cuba we travel to the university and to work by hitch hiking.

If it were necessary they would jump on a truck while it was moving to get a ride, scenes like you see on the movies. This type of action was not always a success, especially if you were not young. I remember doing it as a young woman on my way back from school, a sea of strong arms would offer to lift me into the truck. As I said this was not for fun, it was the product of necessity.

We travel like that, no matter the season of the year, raining in May, hot September, hurricanes in October or in the night, something you wish to avoid, but it may not depend on you. There is no reliable public transport in Cuba.

We would spend an entire day just to get home from one province to another. And you can see on the map of Cuba it is a small island. Some places would be more difficult at this task. My best friend used to travel from a town called Camajuani. She said that it was a very warm town because we could spend about 4 to 5 hours trying to get out of that place hitch hiking, sort of like the town wanted us to stay. My friend Ivan had to sleep one night on the road and wait until 6.00am, and then luckily a bus came along the road and he was able to get home. To me it was not nice to have lessons on Friday afternoon and then have to travel home hitch hiking, often in the night.

Many students would stay in the school and travel home once a month or so. But the majority would go home on the weekends to get clean clothes, home cooked meals and money to be able to survive at school, where the food provided was terrible. Also sometimes you were too far from your school doing some work experience at another school where you needed to buy your lunch, so it was not only a matter of that you wanted better quality food. Money was sometimes necessary too for traveling, in some places you were not able to move if you did not pay.


We depended on our parent’s money because at that time it was not possible for students to work, some boys would work during the two months vacation to be able to have some extra cash. Others would sell things illegally at school for this purpose.

I am not able to say if today things are better, but I know that you still can see a lot of people standing on the side of the road hitch hiking.

Pork, carne de puerco.

Roast suckling pig in Cuba

Asian pork belly

We Cubans crave for pork. It is part of our most traditional food: rice and beans, pork and tapioca (yuca) with mojo sauce. This is our dish for New Year’s Eve meal.

The tradition was that every family would keep a live pig until that day, up to the time of the animal’s sacrifice was due. So the day started with the animal’s screams, something that for animal lovers was horrible to hear, a bottle of rum would be at the scene of the crime.
I would be so upset about the killing that I did not want to know about eating meat in my childhood. I think my brother felt the same.

But times have changed since then and growing teenagers need protein, so I changed my mind about the meat, so pork now is my favourite food.

Here in Australia I do enjoy pork belly. This recipe is the one I prefer, it is my Australian version of the cuban feast. I could call it pork heaven, it is done in a crock pot, so it is really easy. It is great if you have visitors coming for supper as the house will be submerged in the spice’s aroma.

"Asian pork belly"

1kg pork belly
½ cup Chinese cooking wine
1/4 cup dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon tamarind concentrate
2 tablespoons honey
½ teaspoon sesame oil
4 cm piece fresh ginger chopped finely
3 cloves garlic, crushed
2 teaspoon five-spice powder
1 star anise
1 dried long red chili
1 teaspoon Sichuan pepper
3 cups water

*Combine ingredients in a large bowl, add pork, cover and refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight.
*Put the pork and marinade into the crockpot to cook for 6 hours.
* Serve pork with an avocado and coriander salad.

frogs, ranas

I think frogs are terribly ugly animals. I say so maybe because I am Cuban and I saw too many frogs in my life over there. They were like a pest.

The problem is that big ones have jumped on me when I least expected it, like when I just woke up in my school dormitory and went to have a wash, the animal was on the door and jumped on top of me and I went on running and screaming until I thought it jumped on somebody else, reality nightmare #1

Another time I woke up from my sleep thinking about a frog and straight away one huge monster frog jumped on my face, nightmare # 2

In Cuba frogs are seen as very ugly animals. In Australia most people have a ceramic or plastic one in their gardens, something that to me seemed odd.
Recently on a trip to St. George, Queensland, there were these beautiful small frogs, something I never thought I would say about this animal, only because they had a rich green colour and they were miniature. They look innocent.

Soap, jabon

In many cultures soap may not be an important item, something you never think about. In Cuba it is unbelievable how important it is. We did not think about it either until it disappeared from our houses in the early nineties when the Russian subsidies ceased. We now appreciate its value, it is common to hear somebody shouting “you are wasting the soap”, almost as worrying as wasting water. You have to understand how expensive soap is in Cuba and how using water without soap will not remove dirt in a humid tropical climate.

The thing in my country is that when the Soviet Union’s subsidies disappeared a lot of products disappeared too, but then when things improved again, some products were available and better presented in paper wrapping and better quality. The prices were now much higher. Quality soap could be borrowed like you would borrow a book, in case of emergency, like before being admitted to hospital.

The wrapping paper did impress us so much we did not want to throw it away. Children started collecting it, and compete. I think it was the beginning of a desperate hunger for material things, well, in a crowded room a door was open.

Before we saw perfumed soap being sold, women became very innovative, giving life to butter soap, which was deadly to our skin and clothes. This soap battle made us feel stronger, like we could handle any problem.

Black beans, frijoles Negros

This is the main source of protein for Cubans, so you can imagine how important the beans are. Of course we think we know everything about them because they are on our plate everyday. It was a pleasant surprise to know that we share the same black bean tradition with many other countries in South America, like Colombia and Brasil. It made me feel like they are my brothers and sisters.

No mater how rich or poor you were every household would cook their beans. There are different ways how to soften them but the quickest, easiest way is with a pressure cooker, if you do not have one you can use a normal saucepan, it would be a much slower process but achievable, either way your heat must be low until the beans are soft.

My recipe is a combination of my mother’s and my own experimentation.
When you buy beans, I think the younger the bean the better quality, a good sign is that they appear whole, not broken.

2 cups black beans
6 cups water

sofrito (or seasoning ingredients)
4 garlic cloves
1 small thyme bunch
1 bay leave
1 tsp rich brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1tbsp olive oil
70 g Spanish chorizo


coriander leaves
lime juice

* Wash the beans and put in the pressure cooker with the water, use your cooker according to the manufacter’s instructions.
* Let it cook slowly for a maximum 40 minutes
* Meanwhile crush the garlic.
* Cut the chorizo in coin size and put in the microwave for 30 seconds until you get the orange oil.
* After the beans are soft you can put the rest of the sofrito ingredients in.

* Put the cooker back on the medium heat (with the lid on but no pressure) to simmer for 5 to 10 minutes until you get the consistence you like best, they should not be too watery.
* Garnish with coriander leaves, serve with rice and lime juice to taste.

Coffee, café.

About coffee, oh God! Cubans are crazy, locos, about this beverage, they are like the addict that gets a headache if they can not drink it in the morning. Cubans think they are the connoisseurs of many things, especially coffee.

I remember my mother sent me to buy some beans and bring them back for her to inspect their quality, only she knew what she wanted.
Babies have their bottle with coffee added, some may say they need flavour, any excuse will do. I think we turned out to be ok. I hope. I would not drink my bottle until it had coffee, sugar, salt and milk, all in the right proportion

When somebody comes to visit your home, you put the cafetera ( coffee machine) on the stove. The truth is they do not have much else to offer the visitor. That said, they have great pride in their coffee, some like it very sweet, too sweet for my taste now.

For the last two years I have been enjoying a brand of coffee from Cuba, at times it is difficult to acquire and that is why I may have to try other varieties that Cubans love in Miami, Florida. Sometimes I have found very good ones here in Australia.
We call it espresso, but it is not the strong bitter short black coffee some may imagine. The first time I asked for a short black in Darwin NT, the girl on the shop asked me how could I drink something so strong. : )

Flavored coffee is not real coffee for me, it has become a very popular thing nowadays. It is like comparing chocolate and candy, you are reducing the quality, making it cheaper. Yes I am old fashioned about my cup of coffee, I don’t want any of those fancy flavour inventions in my cup, I want coffee coming from the plant and that is it.

corn, maiz, los tamales de olga...

Country cubans dry their coffee and corn on the public road.

I must be on my creative side this week, oh! I know, it is because of the beautiful days we are having before winter.
I was reading a Cuban blog from a family in California (My big fat Cuban family) and I got some inspiration.
I have a passion for good food, (well, Cubans are passionate about everything) : )
Baseball, coffee, pork, politics, rum, the list goes on. Of course I love Cuban food too, I must say it is rather challenging to enjoy Cuban food in Australia, you must cook it yourself and find variations to the real recipe, for example tamales, Australian corn is super sweet, as sweet as sugar, that is something that is not good for tamal, so you have to get creative.

After many failures I tried a Nigella Lawson recipe with corn and this one made me happy, it was easy, quick, and the ingredients of this recipe are normally in your pantry.
This recipe is from the book “Nigella Christmas”

The recipe is called spoon bread
¾ stick (6 tablespoons) soft butter
3 cups drained canned corn
4 scallions roughly chopped
1 1/4cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
4 eggs
2 cups yellow cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
4 cups whole milk

* Preheat the oven to 425 F. Grease your ovenproof pan, melt ¾ stick butter in a saucepan over a low heat.
* Put the corn, scallions and cheddar into a food processor with the eggs
* Process to shop the vegetables and cheese, then add cornmeal and baking powder.
* Process until the mixture becomes paste like, then, with the motor running, add the milk and melted butter.
* Pour into the greased pan and bake for 1 hour until just set.
* Remove the spoon bread from the oven and let it stand for 10 minutes -it will continue cooking as it stands –before taking to table.

Sugar, azucar

Sugar was and still is an important part of people’s lives in Cuba. They still get it as a subsidy at a very cheap price. I thought life without sugar was not possible, at least over there it makes sense to me.

Sugar is vital for your coffee, coffee and milk at breakfast, you add it to the juice you get from any fruit, like orange juice, pineapple juice, guava , and most of all to all the desserts you can make in a month until you get your new sugar allowance.

When the guava season was at its peak, there was not enough sugar for us. A house in every street would send out that unmistakable guava aroma, oh so sweet, warm, and of course it lingers in your mind in the form of marmalade or guava paste. When the Soviet Union’s substantial subsidies ( $6 Billion per year) disappeared, so too did guava cooking,not sure what was the relation between the Russia subsidies and the beautiful guava availability.

We did not see guava paste for a substantial period. Then it started to be sold as a mix of guava and tomato, and this trick worked because we actually forgot the real flavour, what it was supposed to taste like. Later the real guava was sold in the shops for American dollars. This was too expensive for the majority of Cubans.

Sugar cane, Cana de azucar

I am cuban, born there in a little town, near a sugar factory where everybody knew each other.
We would watch boring black and white Russian tv and dream of a better life in the future. Sometimes there was no water or electricity and the roof leaked in the bathroom. There were many children next to us to forget all about that while we played. We played until the sun went down, not caring about food, etc. We would play without supervision , it would have ruined our fun.

Do not think my house's leaking roof was due to it being an old building,no, it was a new apartment rented as a privilege to my father because of his job in the sugar industry.
There were several times a year when the sugar factory was operating and women would put their sheets on the line and it would be covered in particles of black smoke from the sugar factory. The good smoke was the white one.

I remember we would walk into the cane fields and walk back with a sugar rush, our faces dirty because of the sticky juice but very happy, as when you let loose and eat a mango under a tree while the juice runs through your hands.