December 1, 2009 · 12:52 pm

Cuban Thanksgiving Starring Pavo Butterball

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That Saturday we spent our customary three hours food shopping. Like multi-tasking, live streaming and other modern marvels, one-stop shopping doesn’t compute in Cuba. After years of it, I try to find the fun in shuttling between vegetable markets for the salad fixings and fruit we’ll need for the week, then on to the bakery, the honey man’s house, and the juice bar where they fill your liter-and-a-half bottles with fresh squeezed OJ or pineapple juice for 7 pesos (a whopping 35 or so cents). Then comes the dreaded dollar stores – dreaded because they’re absurdly expensive, they get mobbed on weekends, and they never have everything (and sometimes nearly nothing) you need.

While it may sound romantic in a Parisian/Manhattan, shopping-the-neighborhood kind of way, in reality it’s a crowded, expensive exercise in frustration where you stand on long lines to buy whatever’s available.

The Saturday in question, however, opened a new chapter in shopping distress: cruising the aisles of one of Havana’s biggest and best stocked grocery stores (see note 1), looking for two items we desperately needed (see note 2), we were brought up short in front of a freezer piled high with Butterball turkeys. My first reaction was ‘how many gringos work in that Interests Section anyway?’ (see note 3). Then I thought, ‘Cubans aren’t celebrating Thanksgiving and they definitely aren’t paying…Holy shit! $30 for a 10-pound turkey?!’ I know it has come a long way (figuratively speaking) and it looks plump and juicy wrapped seductively in it’s blue and yellow Butterball wrapper, but thirty bucks? Yowza. With that price tag, our idea of hosting a Thanksgiving feast for our Cuban and Yuma friends fizzled.

As we fielded calls from American strays wanting to know if our feast was on, my friend Angela – another of those lovely women-over-65 I’m so fond of here – called us to invite us to her house for Thanksgiving. An American who has lived here twice as long as me, Angela is a fabulous cook and great hostess. It looked like all was not lost for Cuban turkey day.

Angela lives in the heart of it. She can walk to half a dozen theaters and as many bars. She takes her dog down the block to the Malecón. She’s also steps from my favorite paladar (see note 4) and on Raul’s commute route. Her building is an architectural prize-winner and the two-bedroom apartments are highly livable. Which is why a bunch of notable intellectuals, poets, and athletes also reside there. It’s not quite Fama y Aplauso, but it’s close (see note 5).

Given the status of Angela’s neighbors, I shouldn’t have been surprised when we arrived at her building and encountered a young Cuban woman with a striking grey-eyed, caramel-coated Siberian Husky. I’m not sure I’d ever seen a dog quite like this, and certainly not here in Havana (if you ask me, such northern breeds should be outlawed in these tropical climes). We stopped to pet the dog and ask about him, which is obligatory when running into Cubans in the street with their kids or pets in tow.

“He’s 8 months old,” his owner told us.

“And a big mouth to feed, eh?” my husband averred with that food security subtext that laces many casual conversations here.

“The problem is, we can’t get him to eat anything. He’s so fussy he won’t even eat steak!” said the young woman who had fed her dog something 11 million Cubans only dream of.

After picking my jaw off the ground I thought: ‘Terry is living on rice and lentils and this woman is feeding beef to her pure bred.’ I smiled weakly. ‘I bet I could buy five Butterballs with what she paid for that pup on the black market.’ Cuban contradictions: they just keep on coming.

—

The aromas drifting from Angela’s kitchen, through the living room, to the balcony and Malecón beyond were pure home: golden crispy turkey, herby stuffing, fresh-baked pie, drippings, and gravy. As we took it all in, Angela presented us to the other guests: Inés, a very proper black woman who is an urban planner; César, her multi-lingual, globe-trotting husband who is an ecological agriculture expert and set off my Gaydar immediately (see note 6); and Moisés, an accomplished professor and set designer – no Gaydar required.

Everyone had brought something to the party and the sideboard was heavily laden. There was a green salad, an eggplant dish, a squash dish, stuffing (which is a hard concept to explain to Cubans, who, even as they’re eating it, can’t believe stale bread could taste so good), sweet potato pie, and gravy. But the jewel in the menu’s crown was the cranberry sauce.

I believe the world is divided into two kinds of people: those who eat “cranberry sauce” from a can and those who don’t (and won’t). You can imagine which camp the Cook’s Illustrated-subscribing, Epicurious-browsing Angela falls into. So rather than import a can of that…whatever it is, she made one of those clever culinary punts Havana requires: she re-hydrated her Trader Joe’s dried cranberries, chopped in some orange and zest and I don’t know what else and let it stew overnight. It was delicious, and a delicious first, for the majority of the guests.

Meanwhile, the perfectly plucked and tucked turkey sat in all its crispy, golden glory on the kitchen counter. Angela and I chatted as she finished the gravy. Her beloved next door neighbors (so beloved they share custody of her dog and recently surprised her after one of her off-island trips by painting her entire apartment) always partake in the feast, she told me, but never with the other guests. Instead, they take the casserole dishes and salad bowl, gravy boat, and platter of meat down the hall to eat in the comfort of their own home. I was glad Angela gave me the head’s up – otherwise I might have blurted out something off-the-wall inappropriate when a long-haired Cuban loped into the kitchen, scooped the turkey off the counter, and spirited it out the front door. For once, I kept my mouth shut and the turkey arrived 20 minutes later all carved and artfully arranged on two platters: one for light meat, one for dark. Mysteriously, there was no skin on those platters and for a second I wondered if Angela’s neighbors were part of the Husky lady’s clan. Perhaps they were saving the best part not for the dog, but for themselves, I reasoned, though that would go against what I know about (most) Cubans and these folks in particular (see note 7).

Finally it was time to dig in and the two Yuma and four Cubans did what millions around the United States and expats around the world were doing this fourth Thursday in November: we ate, drank, and made merry. And when we couldn’t pack in another bite, the longhaired neighbor with a junkie’s slope shuffled in and carried off the moveable feast. At least another six people were going to sup on that pavo Butterball and try cranberries for the first time.

Inés dozed in the rocker. Angela passed coffees around, while my husband and César swapped Poland travel stories. With the ¡buen provechos! still echoing around the apartment, I realized this was my first Thanksgiving in Cuba that really felt like it. And it had more to do with Angela and César, Inés, Moisés, and my husband than Butterball. For these old and new friends, I’m thankful.

Notes

1. These stores used to be called “diplotiendas” in the 90s because only diplomats and foreigners were allowed to shop there. This was back when dollars were illegal for Cubans to hold. I was surprised when I rocked up to one of these stores in 1993 (at Calle 70 & 3ra, the store in this post coincidentally) and I had to show my passport to gain entry. In another of those innumerable instances here where there’s a rule and 20 ways to break it, my Cuban friends followed close on my heels and we got all giddy and went weak in the knees ogling the bright, shiny products displayed aisle after aisle.

2. For weeks we’ve been trying to get dishwashing soap. Now, coffee has gone missing: we’ve been to 7 stores in the past 3 days searching for coffee. Needless to say, my jones has already kicked in. As I write this, our house has neither dishwashing soap nor coffee – a situation we’ll have to resolve somehow, fast.

3. Until 1977, the two countries had no diplomatic representatives in their respective capitals. That year, US and Cuba opened what are called Interests Sections instead of consulates or full blown embassies in Havana and Washington. Also, in the writing of this post, I learned there are just 51 US citizens employed at the US Interests Section in Havana. They can’t all be buying turkeys can they?!

4. Paladares are privately-owned and operated restaurants found in most cities across the island. You read right: privately owned and operated, and these, along with other legal private enterprises in Cuba (renting out rooms, taxis, cafeterias) are making some Cubans very rich. So when you read about everything in Cuba being owned and run by the state and all Cubans being poor, think again.

5. Fama y Aplauso is a 20-story high rise on the corner of Infanta & Manglar in a nondescript pocket of Havana near the Estadio Latinoamericano. Some of Cuba’s most famous musicians, athletes, and policy wonks live here, in lovely 2- or 3-bedroom apartments with expansive views over the city. The residents’ star power is why the building is nicknamed Fame and Applause.

6. In Cuba, homosexuals are one thing, while men who have sex with men (MSM) are in a category all their own. Machismo – that complex ingrained, learned, and replicated construct that has effects on everything here from household chores to condom use – means few men identify as homosexuals, even as they fiddle the flesh flute of their extramarital boy toys. In fact, it’s not uncommon for Cuban men to have a wife and kids and male lovers. I know several.

7. I’ve just learned from my husband that it’s a cultural thing: eating bird skin just doesn’t appeal (and it is weird if you think about it). Still, that doesn’t keep Cubans from sharpening their elbows when it comes to apportioning the glistening, saffron-hued skin of a freshly roasted pig.

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November 23, 2009 · 2:20 pm

Cuba’s Secret Weapon: Little Old Ladies

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Up and moving to a foreign country is like tiptoeing across a tightrope without a net. It takes balls (or ovaries, as we say on this side of the Straits), but can be stupid, reckless, and if all goes horribly wrong, detrimental to breathing.

When I landed in Cuba to live full time – without a net – in April 2002, I had a pretty good idea of what I was in for (see note 1). But imagining 6-hour blackouts and bucket showers is one thing. Cooking, eating, reading and lovemaking by candlelight followed by a military shower is something (uncomfortably, unsustainably) else.

Little by little, things improved. Gradually, I adjusted. I sprang for a $15 electric shower unit (known as widow makers in some countries) and we kept a list of debate topics on hand for the next blackout. Over time, I grew accustomed to my neighbors dropping by unannounced for coffee and a chat and I no longer started at the good-natured yelling Cubans indulge in. Poco a poco my wardrobe got shorter and tighter, I perfected the use of a pressure cooker, and grew used to the idea that gladiolas aren’t just for dead people (see note 2).

But clothing, cooking, even floral tendencies, are differences you expect in foreign countries. In Pakistan I had to cover my head. In Guatemala I (happily) forsook bread for tortillas. Here in Havana however, I was blindsided by something else entirely, something wholly unexpected: I’m surrounded by old people.

It’s not simply that Cubans have a longer life expectancy than you (see note 3) or that the country has 1,488 centenarians and counting. Sure, the island is a willing poster child for the 120 Club (see note 4), but the ubiquity of the elderly here has more to do with the culture of aging than health indicators.

In Cuba, great pains are taken to keep the ‘senior zits’ and ‘blue hairs’ (as my mother calls them, even though – technically – she forms part of their ranks) actively involved in society. Active aging they call it. Every day, from Pinar del Río to Guantánamo, you’ll see seniors doing knee bends and loosening their rotator cuffs in free, outdoor exercise classes; raisin-like men mixing up the dominos at seniors’ centers; and great grandmothers wheeling their sweet potatoes and yucca away from the Tulipán vegetable market.

As end of days approach, it is the rare Cuban that gets parked in a nursing home. Here, people prefer to take care of their own, at home – even hospice happens at home, in your own bed. Up north, meanwhile, we tend to shutter people away once they reach a certain age. Where I’m from, growing old and dying at home is the rare exception. I get that nursing homes are handy. Who wants to change their mother’s diaper or go unrecognized by their own father as he battles demons known only to Alzheimer’s patients? But, the incontinent and impenetrable aside, I think the Cubans are on to something with their family-based aging in place.

Teresita was my first clue. Wide-hipped and curmudgeonly, with hair dyed the color of bread crusts, Teresita is my 86-year old neighbor. She’s the archetypical despotic Cuban matriarch, heading up four generations of females squeezed into a 2-bedroom apartment. Though able-bodied, Teresita never leaves the apartment. Despite her cranky, iron-fisted disposition, we call her “Terry” with affection.

Times are hard for Terry and her girls. She had to share her rubber-sheeted bed with her 56-year old daughter Lila until the latter emigrated to Tampa. It happened exactly like most leave-takings here in Cuba: here one day, gone the next. The space opened up in Terry’s bed couldn’t compensate for the sorrow it planted in her heart. With the high drama that grips so many Cuban women, Terry comes to me after Lila has left to say the only thing she has to look forward to now is the grave.

While her granddaughter is out earning her daily bread and her great granddaughter is at school learning her times tables, Terry is left alone. All day, every day. She’s locked in, but far from shut-in: perched at her window observing all the comings and goings, Terry is The Gossip. From her I learn a trio of young thugs are posing as public health inspectors, finessing their way into the homes of little old ladies, and robbing them blind. It’s Terry who tells me that Omara from upstairs in going to Spain and Yusi downstairs is dating a new guy.

“He’s black,” she whispers to me, passing a couple of fingers along her forearm – the classic Cuban sign for a person of color.

Like many white ladies of an age, Terry is a little bit racist, which is akin to being a little pregnant in my book, but I let it slide. She’s got over eight decades of memories and experience and I find myself heading across the hall to “talk story” as we say in Hawaii. I find reasons to knock on her door – bringing her the reading material she so desperately craves and dropping by for coffee and a turn in her broken cane rocker. Over tiny cups of sweet and musky bodega coffee (see note 5), she tells me about her brutal, pre-revolution childhood.

Rocking and sipping, she tells me how her father’s second wife, a wicked substitute for Terry’s dead mother, forced her to work beginning at an absurdly early age. There were the customary cooking and cleaning chores that every household has, but young Terry was also forced to take outside work, washing and ironing the neighbors’ guyaberas, slacks, and skirts. If she protested, she met the business end of a belt. She’s less forthcoming about her husband, who gave her one daughter and a whole lot of headaches. Of course, our conversation always detours to the terrain of her various ailments: stiff joints, failing eyes, and a chronic, inexplicable throbbing in her thigh. If I let her roam, we’ll get lost in the badlands of her aches and pains.

Then there’s Carmita, my 82-year old friend from Regla (see note 6). She’s more affectionate and sharp-witted than Teresita, but is a similarly iron-willed matriarch with a long gone husband. ‘Good riddance!’ she exclaims with a devlish smile. ‘That one was born unfaithful.’ Laying a liver-spotted hand on my leg she cracks jokes about macho men and criticizes complicit women in that spirited, pre-curve feminist way of hers.

Sipping the same sweet, musky coffee from the same teeny cups everyone has here, Carmita spins tales of teaching hicks from the sticks to read during the 1961 literacy campaign. With her eyes closed softly, she recreates the Bay of Pigs attack, reliving those tense days. Carmita can be mercurial, fluctuating between placcid and resigned, spunky and spent. Like Teresita – like everyone I’m realizing – her life has been peppered with profound pain and loss.

Carmita has her health problems too – arthritis forced her to abandon her sewing business some years ago and the diabetes is under control. For now. While she fries up some plantains for her handsome grandson, Carmita relates last night’s dream with that munificent smile of hers. In the dream, her recently deceased daughter has been revived, the cancer expunged, her lifeblood back.

“Give me a hug Mom.”

“It won’t hurt?”

“No, Mom. I’m good. I’m healthy.”

Her words hung in the small, dark kitchen.

“And then you woke up, though you never wanted to,” I say with finality.

“It was horrible muchacha.”

I can’t imagine.

Old Cuba likewise comes alive sitting on Evarina’s porch in Miramar. Homebound and 80-something, Evarina’s a bulldog of a dame. She’s from the Oriente originally, (which means something if you know the island), and once upon a time was a daily cigar smoker like myself. Her diabetes is having its way with her and there’s some concern she might lose her foot. While she tries to “resolve” a course of the Cuban wonder drug for diabetic foot, she passes her time burning up the phone lines gossiping about her sister’s new cleaning lady and the Braves’ acquisition of her favorite ball player.

Then there’s Mary and Esther. Debra and Julia. When I step back and look at the landscape of my life here in Havana, I’m shocked to realize that the people I like best, that are the most interesting and engaging, are, on average, 79 years old. Old women, the lot of them. Why, I ask myself, are there so many viejitas in my midst? Could this even happen in the States?

Gotta run. Carmita’s expecting me in Regla and has promised to tell me about when Hemingway was sweet on her, dropping by her work to flirt and conquer.

Notes

1. I had been here several times before, first as a volunteer in 1993 during the Special Period (which was very, very “special” according to the Cuban joke,) and most recently in 2000.

2. There are a couple of Cuban characteristics I will never get used to. Topping the list is the national penchant for spoiling movie endings. If you have Cuban friends, you know what I’m talking about. The other is eating pizza with a knife and fork.

3. Cubans’ life expectancy is 78.3 – just surpassing the US figure of 78. Meanwhile, 16% percent of the island’s population is over 60; this will shoot up to 25% by 2025. Cuba’s recently concluded national centenarian study is fascinating.

4. Fidel Castro is the Club’s most famous member.

5. The “bodega” is where Cubans receive their monthly rations – food and other staples provided almost free by the State. As I type this, the ration card is being phased out in one of the most radical departures for the Cuban government in recent memory (I’d hate to be the person who had to convince Fidel that cutting rations is a good idea). Last week, potatoes and dried peas were dropped from the ration card. Bread and coffee are next but won’t go as gently into that good night as papas and chicharro, I’m afraid. In Cuba, bread and coffee mean breakfast. Making people buy these staples is going to be tricky – especially coffee, which, like everywhere, is very expensive: we make one espresso pot a day, spending around $15 a month. Being that the average salary is $12 a month, we’ll soon be facing a national java jones unless other provisions are made.

6. Regla is known as the “Little Sierra Maestra” it’s that revolutionary. It’s also home to the Black Virgin of Regla (Havana Bay’s patron saint and closely linked with Yemayá) and many secrets great and small. You can drive to Regla in 10 minutes from downtown Havana, but cross the bay via ferry for a picturesque, enjoyable journey to what could be a small town in the island’s interior, with all the friendly faces and simple fun that implies.

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November 11, 2009 · 2:34 pm

Re-Entry’s A Bitch

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Faithful readers will have noted my prolonged absence from the great (and not so) blogosphere. It’s not that Cuba has driven me to slit my wrists (see note 1), but rather a quick trip to the singular city and state of mind that is New York which has kept me and my pen quiet for a piece (see note 2). No doubt these infrequent escapes “home” serve to temper any suicidal tendencies, but they also trip up my psyche, stirring up stressful emotions of otherness: I’m no longer from there, and will never be from here, but am caught turbulently in between. It’s making me a little loopy.

Back in the Big Apple, my compatriots were fretting about baseball and Bloomberg. The Yankees were in the World Series (again, imagine that!) and a collective breath was held to see if The Best Team Ever could bring the big win back to the new stadium. Mayor Bloomberg, meanwhile, wasn’t taking any chances: to assure his election day triumph, he abolished term limits (see note 3) and spent like a drunken sailor during Fleet Week on his re-election bid – we’re talking over $100 million dollars. The foregone conclusion was reached reluctantly – he beat out his closest competitor by less than 5%, and that guy spent a mere $8 million on his campaign.

Baseball and politics are similarly hot topics on this side of the Straits, albeit more complex. More complex and also more disheartening: to start, Cuban baseball is in crisis. Or close to it. I’m not one of those fanatics who parses the sports page (yes, it’s just one page, but the entire paper is only 8, so that’s a pretty good percentage) and eavesdrops on the ball debates raging daily in Parque Central (see note 4). But I know poor play when I see it and Cuba’s lackluster showing in recent international competitions is cause for serious concern and perhaps (gasp!) some sports reform.

Here’s the scorecard. First, several high profile defections in 2008 and 2009,coupled with the many (non-superstar but still solid) players leaving the country every year is having an impact on Cuban ball. In short, even when you’re playing against the country’s best, that quality is relative. But it’s not just emigration taking its toll. The Cuban system, remember, is pulling from a population the size of Ohio. And while that system is phenomenal at scouting, training, and supporting its talent…Do I think a Cuban team today could beat a US major league club like happened in 1999 against the Orioles? No, I do not.

Then there’s the no trade policy. In Cuba, you play for the club where you were born (relocation is rarely, if ever, an option), meaning good players may never make it to great. Especially when their local team sucks. If you’ve ever played a sport, you know you tend to “play up” – performing better against superior opponents. If you’re the best player on a bad team here, you’re kind of doomed to the middle ground.

The state of Cuban baseball has a lot of people pissed around here. The exorcism of baseball from the Olympics – the island’s greatest international sports stage – has even more people more pissed. I think if there’s one facet of daily life that could unite the masses against the powers that be, it may just well be Cuban baseball’s slow decline. The disappearance of onions is another (see note 5).

But I digress (she says trying to sideline the politics portion of our programming).

From where I’m sitting, things seem…restive. My Cuban friends tell me this is a permanent state of shifting ground, not much different from other unquiet times. They’ve got me cornered with that argument since I arrived in 2002, so I don’t know how it was before. Or before before (see note 6).

But for those who claim these times are igual or casi casi, let’s review. In the past few years alone, Fidel has retired to the dugout; three hurricanes ripped across the island in a month, taking $10 billion worth of food and goods with them; a global economic crisis began sinking its teeth into every country big and small; and there have been some highly charged and wholly unexpected political layoffs that took intelligent and experienced young Cubans out of the game. What’s more, 2009 imports are down 36% (an incredible 80% of that is food, exacerbating my psychological hunger); tourist arrivals have increased, but the same can’t be said for corresponding revenues, which have dropped; nickel prices are down; and there’s talk of axing the ration book. I can’t imagine Cubans paying for sugar. In fact, add purchasing sugar to the list of agitating factors alongside bad baseball and AWOL onions.

So anxiety is high for me here in Havana. As it was up north, sitting around with my friends talking about the state of their lives and nation. All are still employed and housed, so we give thanks for that. But I kept hearing the same stress-ridden refrains, regardless if it was my hipster high school teacher friend, my small business owning sister, or my like-a-brother bartender talking:

‘If I get sick, I’m fucked.’

‘I pay into social security, but I’m sure it won’t be there for me when I need it.’

‘The taxes are killing us (so we decided to get married).’

‘I don’t know what I’ll do when I’m old and retired, so I have to work like a dog now while I can.’

‘I’ve consolidated my loans so they wouldn’t garnish my wages; now I’ll be paying for another 20 years.’ (This from yours truly).

What’s comically tragic is that we’re all in the same boat. Except I’m over here, with a whole other set of factors contributing to the stress pie (the least of which, let’s be frank, is baseball-related). I had hoped my two weeks away would have changed something, but they’re still fumigating house to house against dengue, the electric hot water unit continues to shower us in sparks meaning we’ve regressed to the bucket shower, and there’s nary an (affordable) onion to be found.

“Cheer up!” a Cuban friend tells me.

“You can’t go on like this,” says another. “What are you gonna do? Put a bullet in your head?”

I ponder this.

“The problem is there are no guns.”

In the meantime, I continue to tread water here in the small pond.

Notes

1. I would be neither the first nor the last: Cuba, both pre- and post-revolution, has one of the world’s highest suicide rates. An intriguing construct, made more so by the determination it takes to pull it off – the sheer lack of garages, guns, and ovens makes it a mean feat. If you’re interested in the complex reasons of the why and the creativity of the how, see Louis Perez’ comprehensive tome (we’re talking 480 pages on Cubans killing themselves!) To Die in Cuba: Suicide and Society.

2. Yes, I still write with pen and paper.

3. Funny how US politicians condemn others for lesser measures (eg, Chavez who extended his stay via popular referendum and Zelaya who simply suggested a vote on the idea even though it wouldn’t have applied to him) but barrel ahead with dictatorial policies when it suits. This double standard pragmatism is a deeply troubling pattern in US foreign policy. Global warming? We caused most of it, but you deal with it you dirty developing countries. Nuclear proliferation? We’ve got our arms, but you best not go there Israel. Whoops. I mean Iran.

4. Known as La Esquina Caliente (The Hot Corner), these open air baseball debates occur in parks around the country and have been called the most democratic spaces in Cuba. If you’re ever in Havana, especially during the season (October-April, which makes it exactly the reverse of the big leagues, meaning Cuban players could, in theory, play both here and there, but that’s best left for someone else to tackle), head to Parque Central for an earful.

5. For about 6 weeks and counting here in Havana, it has been extraordinarily difficult to find onions – one of the single most important ingredients in the Cuba kitchen. Difficult, but not impossible: those who can afford $1 a pound for onions have them. As you may imagine, these people are in the great minority in a country where the average monthly salary is $20. The onion farmers, meanwhile, are dancing a jig of joy since they’re getting rich. This has precedent: in the brutal days of the economic crisis known as the Special Period, fortunes were made by garlic farmers who kept the capital city in its preferred herb. This earned them the moniker “garlic millionaires.”

6. This is only partially true: I first washed up on these shores in 1993, the heart of the harshest part of the Special Period when 8-hour blackouts were de rigueur and people lit bonfires in the streets to pass the dark nights. But it’s one thing to pass a month volunteering and another to live it day in, day out, like I’ve been doing since 2002.

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October 12, 2009 · 10:04 am

The Virtues of a $5 Haircut

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I know, I know. You get what you pay for. But I’ve had some very good Cuban haircuts for five bucks. Unfortunately, Paco pissed me off so royally some years ago, (for non hair-related reasons), I swore never to return. And I haven’t. Yo sé, yo sé. Cutting off my nose to spite my face (seems like my penchant for quotes, axioms, and aphorisms is carrying over to this post). I also got a tolerable $2 cut in the Merida market.

But I hold the Cubans to a way higher standard than Rosa in the Mexican mercado. Cubans have what we call “swing” here in Havana – a kind of tropical taste and sensibility that’s captivating in a smutty, unsophisticated kind of way. We’re talking Spandex, Daisy Dukes, and Lucite stilettos (usually all at once), plus Dolce & Gabbana knock-offs so bad the t-shirts look like they say D&C – which is something else entirely.

Nevertheless, there’s a strata of Cuban women who favor linen over Lycra and maintain some seriously stylish ‘dos. These fashionistas led me to the private-salon-that-shall-remain-nameless in question. The owner had lived abroad for nearly a decade – surely some of that sabor internacional had rubbed off. Indeed, the salon was the fanciest I’d seen here outside of a five-star hotel: there were fat issues of not-too-outdated French Vogue lying around and the two stations were crowded with expensive Italian product. There was even a professional hair washing sink – improperly mounted so it gave you a wicked crick in the neck, but it was the first I’d seen in a private Cuban salon (see note 1).

Needless to say, I was encouraged as I flipped through Vogue and the owner lathered up my husband’s voluminous locks. I noticed the framed photos of hot hair models on the walls, the professional photo lights standing off in a corner awaiting the next shoot, and the matching, logo-emblazoned aprons worn by the owner and the hairdresser (see note 2). I did notice, however, that Anabel – henceforth referred to as ‘the hairdresser from hell’ – didn’t have a particularly attractive hair cut herself. Red Flag #1. And she was steamrolling my husband (no small feat) with her opinions about how to control his wild child hair – most of which involved expensive product. Red Flag Número Dos. When he rose from the chair looking like the bastard child of Prince Valiant and Ronald McDonald, I got that sinking feeling.

I admit I have a bit of a Sampson complex. No doubt it took root at the age of 8 when my unlovable grandfather thought it a good idea to take scissors to my head (cocktails were surely involved). With a few quick snips, that viejo wrecked my third grade and threw my fledgling self-esteem askew. This is the same man who locked me (briefly) in the trunk of his car and told my mother (his daughter), that her ‘life would improve immeasurably if she got serviced by a man.’ Since then haircuts have made me uneasy, queasy even – as if I were headed for the stirrups and speculum instead of the snip, snip of the salon.

I also remember when I was 11 or so, Laura – the tough talking, coke snorting Italian broad who cut my mom’s hair in Manhattan – refused to cut my hair again after I unleashed a string of invective on her (see note 3). Years later, as an adult no less, I made Honaku cry when I lambasted her for the ‘generic white girl bob’ she had just given me. I didn’t care how swanky her downtown salon was – I let that poor Japanese stylist have it.

So I’ve got a bit of an historic problem with the hairdressers. And it doesn’t matter the cost or country. From Guatemala to Greenwich, two dollars to a hundred – I’ve bitched and bickered about haircuts no matter the place or price. (No wonder hippie philosophies so appeal to me).

And it’s not about the cost, though the pragmatist in me much prefers to pay $25 or less for something that a) takes all of 15 minutes and b) should be done every 4 to 6 months – although Havana’s hairdresser from hell recommended every 2-3 when I asked (Cubans can be such shameless capitalists). At the same time, I’ve got this wacky idea that paying more should translate into higher quality goods and services. Honaku proved me wrong on that one with her $110 bob and Havana disabuses me of the notion on a daily basis. From where you’re sitting, I’m sure $5 sounds outrageously cheap, but consider this: that’s more than a week’s salary for the average Cuban. Who in their right mind would pay a week’s salary for a haircut (see note 4)?

And now, five dollars later, I’m living yet another haircut nightmare. I was going for rock ‘n roll. Unfortunately, Richie Sambora wasn’t what I had in mind (see note 5). Serves me right: when you want a ham and cheese sandwich, you don’t go to a Kosher deli and when you want cool, you don’t go to a hairdresser with Julio Iglesias on the hi-fi and the Playboy bunny logo blanketing her ass. I think the BeDazzler also might have been involved somehow.

All right. I’ll stop. I know it’s all relative and we have Honduras, climate change, and health care to worry about. But I’m damn glad I had the author photo for my forthcoming book squared away before the butchering and thank god hair grows. Until then, I’m avoiding mirrors and embracing hats.

Notes

1. Usually hairdresser here just spritz your head wet and get to cutting. That’s how Paco handled it and though his ‘salon’ was just a chair facing a mirror in a crumbling Centro Habana walk up, the man had moves. The “spritz and go” method was also employed by Javier, another fantastic hairdresser who had no salon but something better – he made house calls, all for $5.

2. At this point, I should have been mindful of some of my other favorite sayings: “all sizzle and no steak”; “all hat, no cattle”; and as we say here “más rollo que película” – literally “more roll than film.”

3. They say cursing is a sign of limited vocabulary, but I’ve found it can be quite effective in the hands of a writer, even at the tender age of 12.

4. Apparently a lot of people are willing to pay this. And a whole lot more

5. I always wanted to be a guitar god, but not necessarily look like one.

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October 7, 2009 · 11:04 am

Withdrawing from the Quote Bank

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I don’t know if it’s a writer thing or a girl thing or a human thing, but I can’t resist collecting and savoring juicy quotes. Maybe it’s my hidden hope that someday I’ll say something so profoundly witty or wise, poignant or ironic that it motivates someone, somewhere to write it down. Or perhaps I just need to procrastinate. That must be it – otherwise why this mango bajito post (see note 1) instead of something thoughtful about Cuban wakes or ham-in-cakes?

Maybe you’re procrastinating too, and I applaud you for landing here to peruse of some of my all time favorite quotes – each one of them coming my way by serendipity over the years: I’d just be poking along reading or listening to the radio when a nugget would jump out and snap me to attention. Nothing Googled here…

Mil pardons to all you readers craving something salient from over here in Havana today – even I have to step out of the Cuban vortex once in a while. But not to worry: posts on The Heat; Being Bilingual; and Baseball are coming soon. If you need a fix, why don’t you click over to my short novel forever-in-progress?

On Travel:

“Love is the food of life. But traveling is the dessert.”
– Singaporean saying

“The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait ’til that other is ready and it may be a long time before they get off.”
– Henry David Thoreau

On Wealth:

“If I can get a watch for $15 that keeps perfect time, what am I doing messing around with a Rolex?”
– Chuck Feeney (see note 2)

“In a way we could half envy you such fat, wasteful, thing-filled times.”
– Marge Piercy

On the Human Condition:

“What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?” (see note 3)
– Theodore Roethke

“If you don’t have a strategy, you’re part of someone else’s strategy.”
– Alvin Toffler

“Being dumb doesn’t kill you, but it sure makes you sweat a lot.”
– Haitian proverb

“Get your head out of your ass and take a look around.”
– Judge D’Italia (Ret.)

“There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe and it has a longer shelf life.” – Frank Zappa

On Writing:

“Ronnie?! Ronnie is a dear friend and brilliant. You’re going to love him…He used to be exactly like you: all potential and no product.” (see note 4)
– Laura Kightlinger in Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman

“The chief glory of a nation is its authors.”
– Inscription, Andrew Carnegie Library (see note 5)

“I write everday to keep my neuroses in check. That’s why the novel will never die – it’s treating American mental illness.”
– Kurt Vonnegut

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”
– William Faulkner on E. Hemingway

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?”
– Ernest Hemingway on W. Faulkner

Notes

1. Cogiendo el mango bajito is a Cuban saying meaning ‘going for the low-hanging fruit’ – in this case, the low-hanging mango.

2. If you need a new hero in your life, check out Chuck Feeney: The Billionaire Who Wasn’t. This guy made more money than Cuba has seen since 1959 (I don’t know that this is true, but it might be, he has made that much moola in his 70-something years) and started giving it away a few decades ago through his big-hearted philanthropy. Anonymously. Over time, he and his super smart co-conspirators decided to spend down the fortune which has converted him (unwittingly!) into the guru of giving-while-living.

All you m/billionaires reading Here is Havana: why don’t you start giving some to worthy causes? Start with 5% and work your way up from there. It won’t hurt, I promise, and might even feel good. The world could use ‘two, three, many Chuck Feeneys.’

3. Cuba, in a nutshell.

4. Have I mentioned my work forever-in-progess?!

5. I do think that quotable quotes can be useful tools for writers – as prompts or leaping off points for free writing, as motivation, and yes, for procrastinating – the monkey on every writer’s back. (Ironically, Andrew Carnegie’s essay Wealth was one of Chuck Feeney’s inspirations for his giving-while-living model. But Feeney has given even more than the venerable Carnegie: according to his biographer, Feeney’s philanthropy had granted $4 billion at the time of writing as compared to $3 billion – in 2000 terms – by Carnegie). Another quote inscribed in the Carnegie Library may have guided Feeney: “the highest form of worship is service to man.”

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October 1, 2009 · 9:29 am

Cuba is Bugging Me – Part II

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If you’re keeping up, you’ll recall my lament over the termites eating through our mattress (see note 1). But as nauseating as microscopic, gluttonous bugs munching on our love nest may be, nothing truly disrupts life in here in Havana like mosquitoes. The upside is that Cuban skeeters are slow, clumsy flyers – easy to kill and not much bother. The downside is that in most tropical climes – including this one – mosquitoes mean dengue.

Evil, evil dengue.

It doesn’t kill you, ‘breakbone fever.’ At least not the first bout. But the second go with dengue has a good chance of developing into the hemorrhagic variety (see note 2) and then it’s curtains. There’s no treatment, vaccine, or cure. Cubans are serious about health in general and as serious as a heart attack when it comes to dengue. This isn’t run of the mill hubris since health is something Cubans do quite well – even better, one could argue, than their big, bad neighbor to the north. Maintaining these health standards is a point of national pride and dengue is public enemy #1. Controlling it is imperative.

This means that once a week, an inspector from ‘Team Aedes Aegypti’ comes to the door to check around my house for standing water, inquire about any ‘spiritual waters’ (see note 3), and make sure I’m draining the water from the fridge on a regular basis (see note 4). Sometimes he’ll test for larvae and sprinkle some poisonous powder into the offending water. Then he (they’re always men for some reason and rarely the same one twice), notes his findings on a chart pinned to a clipboard.

“Your little piece of paper?” he then asks, looking for the mosquito monitoring slip every Cuban home keeps somewhere near the front door, if not tacked right to it. He notes the date and his initials, even the time of day he inspected.

Being from NY, you can imagine my reticence to let a big strapping man into my house one week and a somnolent or shifty looking youth the next. But you get used to it, despite occasional tales of ne’er-do-wells sporting the Team Aedes Aegypti uniform entering homes on the pretext of inspection only to knock old ladies senseless and steal their TVs.

So it goes, regular inspections week after week, until dengue rears its ugly head. If memory serves, this has happened each of the eight years I’ve lived here. And when dengue comes down, it’s war. Cubans bring all arms to bear against the disease-carrying skeeters and the big gun in their arsenal is the ‘bazooka’ – a handheld mini-canon that spews toxic smoke of what cancer causing components I’ve never been able to ascertain.

When there’s an outbreak, they no longer simply come to check for standing water where mosquitoes breed, it means total fumigation of your house. So now when Team AA (dengue Twelve Step, anyone?) comes to the door, they’ve got the deafening bazooka fired up and walk slowly through each room waving it to and fro, noxious smoke pouring forth. Then they back out of the apartment, giving the living room a good strafing and shut the door. As I wait the requisite 30 to 45 minutes before re-entering, I can see the heavy, chemical smoke streaming from under doors and windows the length of our block. The neighbors are sprinkled along the street, gossiping while they wait it out, their dogs on leashes and pet turtles in little tubs by their side.

Back home, the poisonous smoke hovers and I have to hold my breath while running around the apartment throwing open windows. It’s acrid and toxic and unpleasant all around. It’s also mandatory by law I just discovered. It seems some folks in Playa aren’t being as cooperative as they might – especially once they learned Team AA was going to fumigate every day for the next 30. My friend tracked down the legal statute about obligatory cooperation in health because she’d come to loggerheads with a recalcitrant neighbor who refused to fumigate. I was surprised to see in black and white the penalties I could face should I too refuse (see note 5). When Gaby went on to tell me about last week’s scene, replete with cops rolling up to the neighbors’ door to compel them to fumigate, I realized it was no joke. Indeed, excuses don’t fly with the health authorities and their enforcers. If everyone who lives in the house works, you’re expected to leave the key with a neighbor so fumigation can proceed. If there’s a child with asthma or a house-bound elderly person in your family, you have to procure written medical permission to forgo fumigation.

In outbreak areas like where we live, big, rumbling trucks also troll the streets, blanketing the entire block with the thick, cloying smoke. You never know when the truck will roll through, but you’ll smell the smoke before it comes seeping in. Then it’s a mad dash to shut all the windows and secrete the fruit bowl. I remember one time….

Oh! They’re knocking. Time to fumigate (or not).

Notes

1. In case your compassion for my bug plight is waning, I’d like you to know that aside from spraying the Cuban insecticide I Killed It! straight into the holes in the bottom of the mattress, there’s not much we can do to resolve this problemita (buying a new mattress, alas, is not in the financial cards). So, right now, in the instant when you come to this upcoming comma, I could be sleeping atop a seething nest of termites. Think Princess and the Pea but with bugs crawling around down there to disrupt my beauty sleep, instead of a small, round legume.

2. The Merck Manual says this about it: “Some people develop bleeding from the nose, mouth, and digestive tract.” Nice, huh?

3. The first time Team AA came to my door and asked me if I had any “spiritual waters” I couldn’t fathom what they were talking about, though I was quite sure I didn’t have any. I subsequently discovered that Cubans traditionally leave a glass of water in front of portraits of their dearly departed so they shouldn’t be thirsty in the hereafter. Turns out, if you don’t change the water daily, these glasses of spiritual waters become mosquito breeding grounds.

4. Every January, Cuba’s revolutionary government appoints a theme for the upcoming 12 months. So, 1969 was Year of the Decisive Struggle’, 1977 was ‘Year of Institutionalization’ (yowza), and 2006 was ‘Year of the Energy Revolution.’ Indeed, it was revolutionary. Teams of social workers went house to house nationwide surveying how many incandescent light bulbs you had, then showed up some weeks later with the same amount of those squiggly energy efficient bulbs. They spirited away your incandescents in return for the energy efficient models.

They also replaced energy inefficient pressure cookers, rice cookers (both are Cuban kitchen staples), electric tea kettles, hot plates, and refrigerators with energy efficient models. If you didn’t have these items, they provided them. And yes, I know Cubans who live without refrigerators. On the whole, the program worked, but there were problems of course. One is just coming to light with the Chinese fridges they distributed, called “lloronas” because they cry on the inside, dripping water down the interior walls which collects in a tray in the back. Let the water sit for a few days and it becomes a mosquito breeding fest. They’re great units otherwise (we were very thankful to be rid of our Russian clunker with its Cyrillic defrosting instructions and cardboard freezer door), and while I can’t tell you how many they distributed – a million? half that? – it was on a massive scale. Unfortunately, now they’re presenting this massive problem.

5. I always cooperate with Cuban health authorities. This runs the gamut from providing HIV results in order to secure residency to taking a blood test for certain infectious diseases when arriving from endemic areas abroad (also mandatory by law and punishable by a $500 fine, up to two years in prison, or both. Did I mention Cubans are serious about health?!). But my husband and I also like to live as chemically-free as possible. And when a medical student recently commented to me: ‘I always get as far away from those fumigators as possible. I still want children!’ I started thinking twice about opening our home to the noxious treatments.

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September 25, 2009 · 5:54 pm

Cuba is Bugging Me – Part I

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And I don’t mean my phone. I leave that to the State Department [see note 1], which I’m quite sure was listening in last week as I regaled my sister with tales of the turtle project and other juicy tidbits.

No, I’m talking about critters, creepy crawlies, insects – what we collectively refer to as bichos. In general, bugs don’t bother me much. I’m a hike-in-the-jungle, camping kind of girl. I’ve seen tarantulas, been attacked by fire ants, and have encountered too many scorpions to count. Pitching a tent on the beaches of Cuba has taught me to withstand vicious mosquitoes and nasty, swarming clouds of sand fleas. I’ve caught scabies in San Francisco (who hasn’t?!) and laid down with bed bugs in Guatemala. But none of this prepared me for Havana’s day in, day out infestations.

Let’s start with the ants crawling out of the walls, across countertops, and from inside my computer. This last is episodic but makes me damn nervous. I have enough technological challenges as it is. They attack any stray crumb of food and swarm around, up, and over our thermos – thankfully our daily dose of espresso is hermetically sealed against their attempts to mainline pure Cuban caffeine. Sometimes I feel them on me, crawling around my ear lobes and along my neck. Creepy? Sure. Annoying? Abso-fuckin-lutely. Once or twice I’ve found a few stragglers in our bed and more times than I wish to admit I’ve taken a swig from my water glass on the bedside table only to discover – too late – it’s swimming with ants. Gross, I know [see note 2].

But wait, it gets worse.

Our old building – one of those Soviet-style cinderblock numbers – was completely infested with termites from Elvis’ ground floor apartment to Chino’s five flights up. One day, I put my thumb through our front door, it was so soft from their constant feeding and our ply board bed had to be propped on concrete blocks the wood was so damaged. More than once the hubby and I were doing that voodoo that we do so well and a corner board went weak, sending the bed crashing to the floor. Talk about anticlimactic!

I don’t know much about termite behavior up north, but down here we actually only see them once a year, when they magically sprout wings to pour from their hiding places and fly all around the apartment. They’re unconfident flyers and we’d bob and weave to avoid getting them in our hair until they dropped dead in bunches, their iridescent wings littering the tiled floor. Until they performed their annual death dance, the only termite interface we had was cleaning up piles of their droppings and fingering soft spots in the doorframes and windows [see note 3].

When we moved into our new place 18 months ago, I was happy to swap termites for ants. No more of their pebbly droppings on the soles of my feet. No more threat of the bed collapsing while we did the wild thing (although it did present a titillating element of the unexpected). Then one fine Sunday cleaning house, I found myself sweeping up their shit – again – and cursing our luck. But even the infestations of years past could not prepare us for the horror that awaited: while flipping our mattress – an occasional necessity since Cuban mattresses are crappy and lumpy and poke you where the springs have pushed through – we found termites had made a buffet of our bed, burrowing holes all over and through it. Even writing this makes my skin crawl and if I describe what termites eating a mattress looks like I won’t be able to sleep tonight. Suffice to say, it’s nasty. It’s downright fucking nasty and I wish I hadn’t even thought of telling you about it because now it’s imprinted on my mind’s eye.

So ants in my ears and termites in our bed. Looking on the bright side, we don’t have roaches, although our car was strangely infested a while back.[see note 4] At night, these little buggers the Cubans call cucarachas alemanes would come skittering out of the door panels, the dashboard, and the air vents. It was fairly gross and totally embarrassing when these ‘German roaches’ did a cameo for friends, family, and hitchhikers.

On the whole, Cubans are not bug tolerant and toxic chemicals are readily available for rapid annihilation purposes. We took the car in for one good, strong fumigation and we haven’t seen a cucaracha alemana since. Meanwhile, the ‘dollar stores’ [see note 5] are stocked with tall green cans of poisonous spray called I Killed It!, featuring illustrations of mosquitoes, scorpions, ants, and spiders (alas, termites don’t figure in). I take divine pleasure in dowsing the marching columns every so often with a healthy dose of I Killed It, but there’s no keeping those Cuban ants down.

I’ve tried every hokey folk remedy I know: boric acid, black pepper, and cinnamon don’t really work. It keeps them at bay for a while, but cordoning off my computer with a cinnamon blockade gets messy. One memorable day they attacked from multiple fronts, coming from the bathroom tiles, out the kitchen cabinets, and amazingly, from where the wall meets the ceiling in my office. ‘Basta, coño,’ I thought. ‘I’ll show them what opposable thumbs are good for.’ Four legs good, two legs bad my ass. Time to bust out the duct tape (another item I import in my luggage alongside the nuts and grains and Parmesan cheese.)

I shut off their exits mercilessly, trapping them like innocent club goers in a fly-by-night disco. It was almost too easy (and oh so satisfying) to slap a piece of the thick tape over the holes from which they poured. I was on a mission and even devised a way to shut off their hole in the 12-foot high ceiling, perching a swatch of tape on the end of a broom handle and jamming it up there ’til it stuck. They found other ways in eventually, obviously, but I left the tape up there as testament to my small triumph over nature. Besides, for 5 convertible pesos (that’s 6 USD in the real world), I can pay a professional fumigator to fill every single nook and cranny with his precious poison. By leaving the tape up, I’m making his job easier.

Next Up: Mosquitoes

Notes

1. This may sound like paranoia pure and simple, but I’ve been told numerous times that my “file” was first opened in 1993 when I came here (legally) on a volunteer program with the Quakers. I, and other Yuma living here in Havana assume are conversations are being monitored by Uncle Sam. For all I know, the Cubans are listening in too, yawning as they hear me go on about my husband’s high cholesterol and how to cook okra.

2. But not as gross as the time I was sipping coffee with my Mom in Kailua-Kona and drawing the mug away from my lips, I realized there was a roach in my mouth. Needless to say, this place did not make it into the guidebook!
3. Only years later did I discover that the bastards had pitched camp on a treasured watercolor by my oldest brother. The folks at the frame shop refused to repair it because of the threat the termites posed to their wood stock. Can’t really blame them…

4. I should clarify: when I say “our car,” what I mean is my husband’s work car, which is available to us nights and weekends only.

5. If you haven’t heard, Cuba operates on what’s called a double economy where Cuban pesos (worth 20 to a dollar) circulate alongside Convertible pesos (worth 80 cents to a dollar). Ironically, this hard currency is called a “convertible” peso even though you can’t change or spend them anywhere in the world but here. It’s also terribly funny (read: agonizing), that the artificial rate set by the Cuban central bank means they’re “stronger” than the dollar. That means when I go in with 100 greenbacks, I come out with 80 bills of this funny money. Many products – cooking oil, shampoo, butter, bug spray – are only sold in this hard currency. You can see the problems this causes for people without access to convertible pesos, but that’s another story.

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September 16, 2009 · 12:58 pm

Survival Skills for Cuban Cooks – Finale

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Thriving in the Cuban kitchen is akin to being a basketball coach: you have to master the art of substitutions. When a recipe calls for pancetta, you understand bacon. If (and when) that’s not happening, a bacon-flavored bouillon cube is a workable alternative. Bouillons of all stripes – pork ribs, chicken and tomato, sausage – are kitchen staples here and though no substitute for the inimitable Better than Bouillon, I’ve made a killer pasta all’Amatriciana with the little square suckers. Alas, the B in BLT does not stand for bouillon. If a recipe says ‘fresh tomatoes,’ that’s understood as canned for a good part of the year, which in turn becomes tomato puree when all else fails (see note 1). And it will: I recently resorted to the ubiquitous ‘puray‘ for a chicken Masala recipe that my husband is still going on about.

Recipes calling for cream aren’t cause for panic as in other underdeveloped, sweltering climes since Cuba is almost entirely a powdered milk kind of place. I remember powdered milk from my childhood as thin and watery, a vehicle for wetting our puffed rice into something approaching edible. Powdered milk also had to be ‘made’ which rendered it labor intensive in my mind. In short, the powdered variety was nothing like the whole and creamy milk my friends poured straight from the carton onto their Cap’n Crunch and Froot Loops (see note 2). But since living in Cuba, I’ve discovered that powdered milk is a versatile and powerful tool in the tropical kitchen. By adjusting the powder to water ratio you can approximate heavy cream (or at least half-and-half) and while I won’t be serving up chocolate mousse with a dollop of whipped cream anytime soon, I make a mean Fettuccine Alfredo and fabulous flan thanks to powdered milk.

Things get trickier when a recipe calls for any cut of cow. It feels like India over here beef is so scarce and the thought of steaks fuels, in part, dreams of escape (see note 3). The only reliable source of red meat – aside from the trio of tony supermarkets selling a handful of cuts to the foreigner crowd, plus the best off Cubans – is frozen ground beef sold in tubes. Not an ideal stand in for the cubed sirloin holding together my favorite chili recipe but it works and ‘Conner’s chili’ has become a dinner party favorite.

Another key to my kitchen survival is importing staples that are simply not available ever. Most people come home from vacation with a suitcase full of souvenirs – some handwoven cloth or a carved totem, a pair of hand-tooled sandals and a couple t-shirts. But when I head home, I’m limit up – close to 50 pounds – with foodstuffs. That seems like a lot, I know, but do you realize how much a jar of Better than Bouillon weighs? Not to mention canned hearts of palm (my guilty pleasure) maple syrup and tahini, dried mushrooms, apricots, and sun dried tomatoes, tortillas, bulgur and couscous, popcorn, basmati rice, and nuts of all types. I always come packing a big block of Parmesan cheese and at least once a year with some olive oil (which has been known to explode en route. Not at all pretty). Cereal figures big in my importation scheme and a few nooks and crannies of luggage space are always packed with spicy stuff: Rooster or habanero sauce, cayenne or red pepper flakes. If you’ve ever been here, you know how alarmingly bland Cuban cuisine is. Now if I could only figure out how to smuggle in some tofu…

Choosing the right recipe is nearly as important as being able to punt. I have a dear friend who sends all kinds of goodies to my PO box here in Havana, including recipes. Exciting stuff, except when it’s clippings from Saveur or Gourmet. That is to say, utterly useless with all their esoteric ingredients and fancy equipment. My go-to source is Cook’s Illustrated, a no-nonsense monthly with real recipes for real people using an evidence-based, kitchen science approach. Not surprisingly, it’s published by frugal and hearty New Englanders who preserve and can and maintain root cellars. I’ve wow-ed Cuban crowds with eggplant Parmesan, tilapia Meunière, apple brown Betty, and blondies culled from Cook’s Illustrated which by the way, is one of the few advertising-free publications I know.

Online recipe databases are another indispensable tool. Got several heads of bok choy or an abundance of carrots? Hit the search button and you’re good to go. One serendipitous day not too long ago, cream cheese suddenly and quite magically appeared on store shelves. With the closest bagel over 90 miles away, I typically have little use for queso crema, but it had been a long time since I’d seen it on these shores and it would likely be as long before I saw it again. I bought four packages. The general state of things here induces this type of ‘wartime buying’: it doesn’t matter if you need it, when you see it, buy five. So I stashed my little bricks of creamy goodness for safe keeping and logged onto my favorite recipe database. Moments later I had recipe in hand combining the cream cheese and another treasure buried in the back of my fridge: a tub of top-of-the-line dulce de leche brought in by my Argentinean brother-in-law. People are still talking about my individual dulce de leche cheesecakes. Too bad the stars will probably never again align for a repeat performance.

When my psychological hunger conspires to get the best of me, I remind myself (or my husband assumes the responsibility in that special way of his) that we’re lucky. Far luckier than most here in Havana – ni habla of those in the provinces. We travel so can import parmesan and pine nuts, sesame oil and ginger root (see note 4). We have internet so can scour for recipes when the corn is ripe or there’s a bumper crop of cabbage. What’s more, about 18 months ago we moved from our shitty cinderblock box facing a cigarette factory to a little apartment on a shady block. In the old place, even my cacti died, fatally intoxicated by the nicotine and other pollutants. Now, we’ve got year ’round basil and cilantro in the cooler months growing on our sun-flooded balcony. My herbal success encouraged me to try my hand at bell peppers and tomatoes. It’s touch and go…

Still, in weaker moments, when my “psychological hunger” takes on a New York state of mind, I miss bagels and sushi horribly, and regular slices and puri (see note 5) only a bit less. If you’re headed down our way, feel free to pack a care package – especially if it’s edible!

Notes

1. If Cubans are dependent on any one single ingredient, it’s tomato puree (the one item that never goes missing from stores). Known simply as ‘puray’ it’s in everything from eggs and soups to casseroles and cocktails – the Cubanito is a tropical Bloody Mary, technically tomato juice and rum, but can just as easily by watered down puree and rum. On any menu, anywhere in the world, if its shrimp/lobster/octopus ‘a la Cubana’ it means swimming in tomato puree.

2. What up with major cereal brands and bastardized spelling? Seems like kids these days need all the English-language help they can get, starting with breakfast.

3. But it’s not only the emigrants for which the out-of-reach meat holds allure: putting knife and fork to ‘carne roja’ is a mania for traveling Cubans and their beef-based stories are legion. I have more than one friend who returned from Argentina with gout and still get dewy eyed re-living their Southern Cone food moments. I watched as another friend of mine, an artist of note, devoured a 24-ounce steak in a swanky New York bistro, only to vomit it up soon thereafter. My own body has grown unaccustomed to the richness of red meat, so that these days I can only handle a few ounces at a time. And oh the ensuing flatulence! I’m my own biological weapon.

4. If customs confiscates any of my food upon my next arrival, I will be coming for you readers!

5. I’m fairly certain Cuba is the only in the country in the world without a single Indian restaurant. Can anyone name another?

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September 10, 2009 · 5:45 pm

Survival Skills for Cuban Cooks – Part II

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The best preparation for living in Cuba is having known hard times. To paraphrase that paragon of faith and insight Frei Betto: “The rich can handle Cuba for a week, the middle class for two, but the poor can live there forever” (see note 1). Poor folks know what it means to have no lights or water or phone and just how costly a bounced check can become (see note 2). And most poor folk have known, if temporarily, what it means to go hungry.

Cubans know many things – salsa, art, history, sports, poetry, rum, rumors. Cubans also know hunger. In the ‘Special Period in Time of Peace’ adult Cubans lost 15 pounds on average. During these lean times, kids would be fed and sent to bed while their parents laid awake, stomachs empty, fighting off painful pangs of hunger. These were those notorious times when flour “meatballs” were what was for dinner and ‘pasta de oca’ was a staple (see note 3). Thankfully, tales of banana peel hamburgers and shredded condoms standing in for pizza cheese seem to be apocryphal. Except for the condom cheese, I can attest to the veracity of these stories – I first came here in 1993 during the worst of the Special Period and witnessed the privation first hand.

Though some things have improved some, the Periodo Especial endures in ways. My brilliant friend Fernando summed it up like this: we don’t suffer from physical hunger so much anymore. What we suffer from is psychological hunger. That is, it’s the lingering scepter of hunger that haunts us. This explains a lot, from obesity rates in Miami to the savagery that possesses Cubans at buffets and Coppelia (see note 4). Bells started ringing with Fernando’s “psychological hunger” dictum – this is precisely the condition from which I suffer. Sown during the oatmeal years and now in full bloom, I get like a nervous flyer on a haul to Honolulu without my Xanax when food stores are low. Hunger may make the best sauce as the old saying goes, but take cover when it overtakes me.

Coppelia notwithstanding, Cuba’s not the best place for the psychologically hungry. It’s not Sub-Saharan style granted, but it has its moments. Mondays for instance, when all fruit, vegetable, and meat markets are closed. Run out of fresh stuff on a Monday? Tough luck. Need an egg? Go to Plan B (see note 5). I don’t need Bob Geldof to tell me why I don’t like Mondays. Though open daily, regular stores selling pasta, butter, cheese, and other staples close at 6pm and even if you catch them open, there’s zero guarantee they’ll have what you want or need.

Then there are the seasons. Cuba imports 80% of its food supply – none of it fresh fruit or vegetables. That means if it ain’t the season, you ain’t eating it. No chips and salsa in July or mango chutney in October. Guacamole? You’ve got a three month window. And so it goes with everything from lettuce and parsley to scallions and spinach. Some produce (pears, plums, berries of any sort, broccoli, asparagus, mushrooms) is just a dream on that 90-mile-away horizon. This probably sounds like a nightmare to most, but is mostly bearable until one breezy evening when the mouth-watering image of a BLT pops into my head. Agony ensues. It’s too late for tomatoes and nowhere near lettuce time. Ironically, I’ve got the bacon but by the time I can lay my hands on the L and the T, the B will be long gone (see note 6). Needless to say, in almost eight years living here, I’ve never had a BLT.

The seasons, the supply chain, and the complete unavailability of some items (not to mention the occasional hurricane and blight) force a cook to get and stay creative here in Havana. Such creativity sometimes results in radishes in your pasta primavera or squash in your stir fry. When I first got here I was unsettled by the frequency with which cooked cucumbers appeared in casseroles, chop sueys, and other concoctions. But now I’m unfazed by hot cucumbers and other inventions like Tandoori spaghetti.

To be continued…

Notes

1. For those of you unfamiliar with Frei Betto, the man is an inspiration to which this wiki doesn’t do justice. He was imprisoned for four years helping people flee dictatorial Brazil and has written 50 (FIFTY) books. His most famous is Fidel & Religion based on umpteen hours of interviews with you-know-who. This book holds some kind of weird record for selling out faster in Cuba than any other title in the nation’s history. I could explain why but that would entail a long and not terribly interesting (for the general reading public) explanation of religious history in revolutionary Cuba. Unfortunately, few of Betto’s books are available in English.

2. Living here for so long, I am woefully out of touch. Do people in the real world even use checks anymore?

3. Literally ‘goose paste,’ this is about as close to pâté as Alpo is to ground chuck. Since the 90s and the worst of the Special Period, the government ration system has relied fairly heavily on “enriched” products to inject protein into the national diet. The most infamous of these is “picadillo de soya enriquecido” or enriched soy pellets. Pasta de oca was along these lines – a gooey, flour-based paste to which microscopic amounts of ground up goose was added. Sounds appetizing right? The point is, pasta de oca wasn’t something to savor, but something to keep 11.2 million from death’s door. Amazingly, it did.

4. Coppelia is Cuba’s world famous ice cream parlor and one of my favorite spots here in Havana. Sure, the lines are beyond what most people reading this blog would ever endure, but put in your 45 minutes and you’ll be sitting down to 5 cent scoops of delicious ice cream surrounded by (real! live!) Cubans. Sure, there’s usually only one flavor available – two in the summer – but the ice cream is wicked and the atmosphere charged. Did I mention the nice price?

What you’ll notice after the monumental mod architecture (inspired by the cathedral in Brasilia) is the ferocious appetite Cubans have for ice cream. Chicks so gorgeous they’d be modeling elsewhere order 4 “ensaladas” without a second thought and tack on a piece of cake while they wait. When the 20 (TWENTY) scoops of ice cream arrive, they set to work. These Cubanas lindas aren’t alone: people all around the place are digging into their own score of scoops and if you’ve ever sat elbow to elbow digging in with them, you know I’m not exaggerating in the slightest.

And if you’re ever find yourself stuck between a Cuban and a buffet, run the other way, fast!

5. In the up north world, an egg is something easily resolved – just head over to the neighbors and see if they’ve got one to spot. Not so here, where eggs are nicknamed “salvavidas” (lifesavers) since they’re a major source of protein. While neighbors reliably loan sugar, salt, rice and other ration book staples, it’s seriously bad form to ask for a protein float.

6. Ironic because Cuba is awash in pigs and pork products – lard, feet, ribs, ears, sausage, and more are all easy to come by – but bacon? No, my brother. I’m not sure why. Any butchers out there who can educate me on this finer point of pork?

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September 2, 2009 · 4:34 pm

Survival Skills for Cuban Cooks – Part 1

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To say I come from a long line of inept cooks is an understatement. My grandmother – a well-heeled dame from Philadelphia’s Main Line – was so artless at the stove she used to have Thanksgiving catered; our observations that she’d mistakedly put the gravy on the green beans and drenched the potatoes in vinaigrette were met with a call for a fresh gin and tonic. In her mind she was a martyr: her mother had live-in help, an entire staff to dress the vegetables and cook the bird. All this living large ended with my mother, the quintessential black sheep who was black balled from the family when she got knocked up at 19.

Four kids and a lousy divorce later, the wolf was at our proverbial door. We were headed for the skids and stories of these lean times endure. There was the time we survived on nothing but oatmeal, three times a day, every day (see note 1) and the Christmas when my mother somehow scored a ham. As we slept, she dog tired from trying to make a poor Christmas joyful and us kids tossing and turning in anticipation, our beloved beagle Barney pawed open the refrigerator door and wolfed that whole ham down. What we awoke to wasn’t carols and candy but Mom, furious as we’d rarely seen her, chasing that beagle with a rolled up newspaper. Needless to say, that was the end of Barney (see note 2).

Some years later, we’d volunteer one Saturday a month to cut mammoth slabs of tasteless cheese into manageable blocks that we received in kind from the Park Slope food co-op near where we lived. One time, when there was another windfall like the one that brought us Barney’s Christmas ham, Mom bought half a cow. It was cheaper that way. “Bessie” sat in our freezer for a year getting eaten little by little until a Cuban-style blackout forced us to cook all those cow parts in one fell swoop.

Except for the week or two of oatmeal (family accounts differ as to how long we actually had to survive on that slop), I didn’t realize how poor we were when it came to the dinner table. Sure, we knew our classmates were eating burgers and fried chicken while we sat down to ratatouille, jambalaya, and moussaka (see note 3), but we figured it was an insatiable interest in other cultures that brought these exotic dishes to our table and not precarious finances. But the fact is, most ethnic food is poor people’s food, made with whatever happens to be on hand.

In “food insecure households” such as ours, it pays to know how to cook and I’m convinced my mom learned her way around a kitchen out of necessity (see note 4). My brothers, sister, and I followed suit, habitually making stock from chicken bones; reviving old bread with a few sprinkles of water and some minutes in the oven; transforming stale crackers into breading as tasty as any herbed panko; and hacking mold from cheese and scraping surface scum from maple syrup and sauces (see note 5).

All of this is to say that this culture of waste not, want not is serving me well here in Cuba.

To be continued….

Notes

1. To this day, none of us can stomach the sight of it. To us, oatmeal is survival gruel.

2. Before you get all PETA on me, let me underscore the premise here: if an animal, any animal – pet, barnyard, or wild – is taking from your children’s mouths, the beast, in my opinion, has got to go (what my buddy Jack calls the “25 cent solution” – apparently this is what bullets cost in his stomping grounds).

3. This last was usually meatless – no lamb, no ground chuck – meaning it was pure eggplant. We dubbed it “moose kaka” a name that stuck.

4. Incidentally, my mom is not only a creative cook, she is also efficient (and somewhat diabolical: every year on Halloween, she’d make us sit down to big bowls of pea soup before we could go trick or treating. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment!) When we were young, she used to cook a week’s worth of dinners each weekend and freeze them so she wouldn’t have to come home from several jobs and work some more cooking for us. Monday we’d extract a meatloaf, Tuesday a lasagne and so on. Sometimes however, her system had dramatic, unforeseen results…

I remember when I was 11 (a brutal age for girls then, now, and evermore), I was desperately trying to make friends. Being the poor daughter of a divorcee made me an easy outcast, plus I was generally considered just plain weird, so when someone had the bright idea for me to host a Valentine’s Day party with all my little prospective girl friends, I was game. There was a pretty successful scavenger hunt, plus candies of all sorts of course; all in all, everyone seemed to be having a helluva time. As the afternoon drew to a close, it was time for the party’s highlight: a beautiful heart-shaped chocolate cake made with all the love in the world by my mom during one of her marathon weekend cooking sessions. When Stephanie – the most popular girl in the 5th grade and the prime target of my fledgling attempts at friendship – cut into her cake, out tumbled a chunk of ham. Apparently the offending cube had straggled behind, escaping from being cooked into what would be Friday night’s quiche and slipping into the cake batter instead. That was the end of my attempt at pre-teen popularity; thereafter I was truly weird.

5. We have friends that didn’t grow up like we did, who aren’t down with reviving old food like we do. So when Mom recently hauled out a sack of year-old madeleines from the freezer to invent something, there were gasps. A year old! Frozen that whole time! No matter that the cookies were from Café Baloud. But mom knew better and whipped up that poster child of poor folk dessert: bread pudding. M’hija. That year-old-Baloud-madeleine bread pudding was so delicious even the naysayers couldn’t wait for dinnertime, spooning it up to wash it down with their morning coffee.

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