A Match Made in Cuban Coffee Heaven

You know how much we Cubans love our cafecito.

We also love lattes and cappuccinos and café con leche. Any iteration of coffee will do for us.

There's even a subset of us that just love our Americano. All that to say this: We love a cup of strong coffee any way we can get it. Particularly a shot of hot, sweet espresso.

In light of that I'm super pleased and very proud today to welcome my newest sponsor to My Big, Fat, Cuban blog Family:

Café La Llave!

If you click on the link just to the right, you can get an extra 20% off of the best coffee around. (For the record, my favorite is Don Francisco's Family Reserve, but that's not important right now.)

Also, if you're not already following them on Facebook, you totally should. Here's the link: Cafe La Llave on Facebook. They're always doing fun contests and giveaways. Tell them Marta sent you.

Thank you again to the Gaviña family for partnering with My Big, Fat, Cuban Family. We are a match made in Cuban Coffee Heaven

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We grew coffee in our backyard. And we liked it.

Happy National Coffee Day!

A few years ago, our dear friends, Gene and Pam sent Eric two little 3 inch coffee plants for his birthday. They thought it would be fun for us to grow our own backyard coffee.

So we added the little plants to our kind-of-chaotic-we-just-like-how-they-look backyard garden. We watered them along with everyone else who lives out there and the little coffee plants grew.

And thrived.

And we began to notice.

"Have you seen the coffee plants lately? They're getting so big!"

We repotted them and kept them close together so they wouldn't be lonely.

And last year, they produced little white flowers. WUT? "We've got COFFEE BLOSSOMS, people!"

Look at us! Growing coffee!

And then....

The little red cherries appeared. WHAT DO WE DO NOW? (<--Can you read the panic in that question?)

We sent photos to our friends. "Remember those coffee plants you gave us a few years ago? Look at what's happening to them!"

Apparently it was time to harvest. Who knew?

So, Eric set about the task of choosing the ripest red coffee cherries.

We had planned a weekend trip with our friends (the ones who originally gave us the plants) and decided it would be fun to bring some of the magic beans. Gene happens to be quite the coffee snob aficionado and has his own roasting device.

Coffee talk.

He took the beans home and after a few days sent us this:

Success!

We did some of our own harvesting, shucking, drying and roasting (If by roasting, you mean stirring the beans around in a small skillet until they're brown) when we got home.

I personally hated the idea of pulling off those beautiful, bright RED (!) coffee beans from our plants, but that's not important right now.

So we somehow managed to scrape together two small (freakishly small!) cups of our own Backyard Brew.

Also, those 2 cute little plants are so much taller than me now. I know. Shut up!

There were two things we decided after this experience with the Backyard Coffee:

1. As much as we enjoyed the process, we will, from now on, leave the coffee making to The Pros.
2. We have added a descriptive name to our Backyard Coffee. We're calling it, Mission Viejo Brown.

Coffee and Therapy

When Lucy was a freshman in high school, her drama class did a showcase of Broadway tune vignettes. In one of them (maybe it was Grease?) she was paired up with one of the boys to do a dance together in the finale.

The mother of the boy and I didn't know each other before then, but we sat together and pointed in a look-at-our-kids-aw-aren't-they-cute-dancing-together way.

Lucy and Josh looking appropriately awkward before the dancing. Also, she's probably going to kill me for posting this photo, but that's not important right now.

This boy's mom and I started nodding hello more often and talking after rehearsals. When summer came, the kids wanted to do a beach day, which is exactly what we did.

We all went down to Crystal Cove and while they frisbeed and body-surfed and sun bathed, us moms talked. And talked. And talked. And found that as different as we both were, we had so, so much in common. And never seemed to run out of things to say.

"Let's do this again next week."

So, we did. That was in the summer of 2008 and Jana (my blog-friend from The Summer House) and I have been meeting at least once a week since then. For Coffee and Therapy. Every week. For the past 5 years.

Josh has been away at college for a few years now. Lucy is working and going to school and is gone and busy most of the time.

But Jana and I are still meeting every week and having coffee. Or breakfast. Or sometimes lunch. But always therapy. The kind that comes from friends who are up to date on each other's lives from talking every week.

I like that. I love that with all the changes in my life there's a constant: coffee with my friend.

Of course, you know it's not about the coffee.

And it's not about where we go to have coffee (or breakfast or lunch). Although, can I just tell you that Crystal Cove is a fantastic place to have breakfast on a perfect California day. Seriously.

It's the point of connection. I just felt so appreciative of my friend's input this week. I appreciate her understanding and how easy it is for us to be together. I wanted to write about that today because some weeks our Coffee and Therapy is what keeps me moving forward and ready to tackle the next thing in my life.

To be clear, I have lots of really great friends. Many of them live too many area codes away for me to connect with them in person regularly. Thank goodness for the Internet and email and smart phones and Twitter and Instagram and Facebook. I'm so grateful to be living in this technical era where I can follow their lives and we can send each other thinking-of-you messages with such ease.

But, Jana is my every-week-face-to-face-coffee-friend and truly, she has saved me thousands in therapy. And I'm so thankful.

My prayer for you, my friends, is that you would find a Coffee and Therapy friend of your own.

Thanks, Jana. You're a gift to me.

Keeping the Faith - A Giveaway

There have been a lot of twists and turns in my personal life (and in the country at large) this past week. It's times like these that send me looking (running!) for comfort.

Because I'm Cuban, I can usually find my comfort in the kitchen. (Don't judge me.) A fabulous sofrito, a perfect arroz con pollo a la chorrera, or a sweet flan all speak to me of goodness and abundance and home and give me an all-is-right-with-the-world feeling.

However, none of these can compete with the aroma of freshly brewed espresso. It is, to me, the quintessentially Cuban comfort. It speaks of my culture, reminds me of my Papi, and has been the constant in my entire existence on this planet. Too dramatic? Please. I'm having a moment here.

I was delighted that my friends at IMUSA USA have offered to sponsor this week's giveaway. “A buen hora.” (Loose translation: “Perfect timing.”)

An IMUSA Bistro 4 Cup Espresso and Cappuccino Machine and an 4 Cup Espresso Set with Chrome Rack.

UPDATE 11/10/12: The very generous folks at Gaviña Gourmet Coffees are adding a pound of their deliciously Cuban La Llave Espresso to this giveaway package. Gracias, my friends!

Honestly, I've always been partial to the old-school stove-top espresso maker. But this baby now takes pride of place in my kitchen and I'm pleased to report that it's simple enough to operate that I can practically do it in my sleep. (And believe me, most of the time, I'm sleepwalking when I'm making my first cup.)

Eric is in love with the cappuccino feature. He insists that the 3 o'clock hour is mandatory for his afternoon cappuccino. But, then again, he's fully awake and functioning at that hour, but that's not important right now.

For a chance to win BOTH the IMUSA Bistro Espresso Machine and the Espresso Set, please leave a comment on this post. Please answer one or all of the following questions:

• Coffee, tea, espresso, cappuccino?
  
• Do you have a particular hour for your afternoon caffeine pick-me-up?
• Does the aroma of freshly brewing coffee remind you of someone or something special?

For an extra entry, please go "like" IMUSA USA on Facebook and come back and tell me:

• I like IMUSA USA!

I'll choose the winner on Tuesday, November 13th, 2012 at 11 am PST.

“Coffee and love are best when they are hot.”-German proverb