Come into my parlor...

...said the spider to the fly. i had no trouble, though, willingly walking into the Parlor steakhouse on the corner of 90th street and 3rd avenue, and i've been back several times. that's no surprise since i'm known for willingly walking into trouble when cajoled by a spider. there was no trouble here though, and fortunately for me, my folks didn't think so either. my mom, luis and my grandmother joined me and john for a brunch this past sunday and we all walked out happy and full. it's not any small feat to entice my grandmother into public eateries. whereas i'm happy to try anyplace for the sake of the experience, she's of the mind that there can't be anything better than home cooked food and her standards are high. at Parlor the decor is spartan, clean and sleek; but the food and service are lavish, and satisfying; a pleasure to the eyes and the palate. as always with repeat visits to restaurants i like trying something different so this time it was the lobster roll. it could have been a little bigger for the price; but not better for sure. the kumamoto oysters i had for appetizers were the star here though. beautiful, small cupped shells, plump and only slightly briny meat. i'm always fascinated by oysters because they are so beautifully ugly on the outside; and so luscious and opalescent on the inside. highly sculpted, fluted shells, crusted and rough. their insides adorned with gorgeous mother-of-pearl. and the pearls! its so amazing the perfect gem that an irritating grain of sand can produce. its testimony to the fact that bitterness and adversity in life can lead to beautiful, priceless creations. so much lovely art, memorable books, acts of valor and genius are the products of lives of misery and misfortune, strife and toiling against unimaginable odds. so be an oyster babies! take your lemons and make lemonade! if someone leaves a cow in your living room, milk it and sell the milk and cheese! turn your life's irritation into gems!

got served

it's been a very long time since i posted and i'm pretty sure that most of you, if you are indeed still out there, are starved to death. a-political as i am (not), i have decided to use the outcome of the election as a segue into what i hope will be a cornucopia of postings (not of the political persuasion rest assured). going against emily post, and every other etiquette guru, who advises that politics, religion and sex are the three things that should never be discussed in public i will now plunge headlong into the fray. i voted for obama and let's face it, i would have preferred hilary; but a democrat is as a democrat does and so i can only hope for the best. as i explained it to my mother, a staunch republican who this year voted democratic, ("i did it for you" she said) what we've been given is a chance. she warned me that "you won't have bush to blame anymore so let's see what obama will do", and i replied (in an equally accusatory tone, "it'll take longer than one term to clean up what that backwards, %^%#$^#*&, idiotic, &**#$$(^(*)!!!, lying, &#%^$#^!!!^&#, divisive, poor excuse for a leader, waste of human flesh, (*%&%$#^$@!!!!!!, will be leaving us with". for reasons which may be obvious to you we don't usually discuss politics at home. my grandmother, also a lifelong republican who voted party lines this year again, felt like she had to go to bed early when it was clear that the landslide would be, as one senator put it, of tsunami proportions. the electoral vote count AND the majority choice! when i saw indiana, ohio, florida and georgia go blue i almost plotzed; but virginia? hot damn!!!virginia hadn't backed a democrat in over 40 years!!! let's face it, the country showed a unity unparalleled in recent history. the only things we have all agreed upon this way of late have been that the economy is down the shit-tube and bush sucks (anybody see the approval ratings lately? way to go dubbyuh!) well, all history setting rhetoric aside, let's pray that the obama presidency will be the one to keep us as inspired as we seem to be and united as we should be. if the new administration can't get us all to the table to turn things around, then we'll all be served.
HAIL TO THE CHIEF!

GOOD LUCK AND CONGRATULATIONS TO PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA

i want it all, and i want it now!!!

It’s always a choice: (1) Engage in battle and spend time and energy on a situation that will eventually resolve itself. (2) Ignore the tumult and withdraw. (3) Strike a balance between the two and defend your position without exacerbating the already hyper-intense environment. the steak or the fish, the chicken or the pork, the salad or the soup. this or that, one thing or the other. i want it all, AND I WANT IT NOW!!!!. my mother used to tell this story about a child who would cry in front of a table full of food. when asked why it was crying the child would say, "because i can't eat it all". that's me, always fretting because i can't eat it all, do it all, see it all, be it all. i don't want to have to make those choices and who the fuck does?! yeah, i guess some people are perfectly happy with choices, strike a balance, ignore and withdraw, but NOT ME!!!! how 'bout you? get a game plan, shake it to the ground. here's to the future! i'm a man with a one track mind. too much to do in one lifetime, giving it all. living it all, it's not much i'm asking, i want it all, AND I WANT IT NOW!!!!!

table etiquette

you've heard it all too, i'm sure. "sit up straight, keep you elbows off the table, don't use your thumb to push your food onto your fork, make sure the napkin is on your lap, don't slurp your soup", blah, blah, blah. the one i always used to get from my mother had to do with using my spoon to eat with. one of my favorite dishes is picadillo, which is a ground meat dish, and one of my favorite combinations with this is to have it with white rice and black beans. i put everything into a bowl, mix it all together and eat it with a spoon. my mother always, and still does, rolls her eyes at me when she sees me doing this. trust me, you would love it. i love making picadillo, and actually think i make it better than anyone. but i wouldn't say this to my grandmother. anyway, here's the recipe for my picadillo, just make sure you don't share it with anybody else.

about 4 slices of bacon, chopped,
about 1 and 1 half pounds of ground beef, or beef/veal/pork mix
1 small onion, chopped
half of one red or green bell pepper chopped,
a few garlic cloves chopped,
a teaspoon of ground cumin
a teaspoon of ground coriander or fresh cilantro,
1/2 teaspoon of turmeric,
1 small can of tomato sauce,
about a dozen green olives sliced in half,
a handfull of raisins,
salt and pepper to taste.

cook the bacon and reserve,
use the bacon fat to cook the onions and pepper,
add the meat and cook completely while breaking down,
add the garlic, cumin, coriander or cilantro and turmeric,
add the tomato sauce and cook thoroughly,
add the olives, raisins, and cooked bacon, and salt and pepper.

serve the picadillo with white rice and black beans.

abuela's cooking

my grandmother is a great cook. she just turned 92 and is usually the cook when there's a dinner at my mom's. yesterday she made some of my favourites, a chickpea aka garbanzo soup, and rice with pork. she used pork ribs for the dish and it was sooooo good! of course, what cuban meal would be complete without homemade flan? it was sweet, and creamy and just the way i like it. as i've mentioned before, after we came to the united states we've always lived in the extended family way. my mother's parents always lived with us. this was until my mom married Luis, and i finally moved out of the house, and everyone had their own living spaces. my mom and grandparents were only living a block away from each other (the umbilical cord could only stretch so far), and then after my grandfather died my grandmother downsized her apartment and wound up moving to the same building, same floor, two doors down from my mom (it was like the umbilical cord just catapulted her back). they were spending so much time together that recently they decided to all move in together into a much larger apartment with more conveniences. they bought a great two bedroom, two bath in an elevator building so they don't have to deal with stairs, and have a dishwasher, and washer and dryer in the apartment.

THE RICE WITH PORK


THE CHICKPEA SOUP


THE FLAN

cuando hay hambre, no hay pan duro

basically it means, "when you're hungry, there's no such thing as stale bread" its a cuban saying and it gained more relevance with the castro regime and the imposition of food ration cards. i was born in cuba, and my family and i lived through that for many years before we were able to come to the united states, and one of my memories of that day we arrived in miami was all of us at the hotel we were staying at with our family and my mom needing some milk and all we had to do was go into the hotel corridor and there was a vending machine with milk in it. we were not so used to being able to get food so easily and readily. i remember the first BK Whopper i ever had; it seemed so huge to me at the time. because i was born before the revolution, i remember how it used to be and what it became. i also know what it was like for my family. because of all these things i probably became the food obsessive-compulsive that i am today. nothing in my home ever goes to waste.
today i made a batch of vegetable stock. i like to make my own stocks (vegetable as well as chicken or seafood) because i like the freshness and the fact that i can control what i cook with. with the vegetable stock i make use of the parts of all those vegetables that ordinarily would get thrown away. i just keep a freezer bag where i put the broccoli stalks, the ends of onions, carrots, celery, and any other raw veggies that i happen to have cooked with as i go along and would ordinarily wind up in the trash, and then make my own stock when the bag is full.
i often wonder what my life would have been like if my family had not left cuba. i think of what people are going through there now, and food is just one part of their problems. i "feel" my heritage when i cook, i associate my family with the foods and gathering in the kitchen. i'm reminded of where i came from, and what we've done to get to where we are.

VIVA CUBA LIBRE!