The Smell of Home - Gaviña Coffee Basket Giveaway

I remember being about 5 years old when I really took notice that my family brewed coffee a dozen times a day. It was almost a Sacred Ritual. This also happened, I took note, in every single Cuban home I had ever entered.

The daily brewing of the perfect Cuban cafecito is something that happens repeatedly throughout the day in Cuban households and ventanitas everywhere ("little windows" - these are mostly found in Miami, but that's not important right now).

I think one of my very first sensory memories has to do with the fragrance of a beautifully brewed, hot, sweet espresso. The aroma is something that evokes warmth and family and men in guayaberas and women in crisp aprons and lots of loud talking. The smell of home.

A few weeks ago I announced that My Big, Fat, Cuban Family had partnered with Gaviña Gourmet Coffee. I'm so pleased that they are my newest sponsor.

In light of this wonderful parnership, I think we need to celebrate, don't you?

And what better way to celebrate than to do a giveaway of a Basket of Coffee Awesomeness from Gaviña? Can I just tell you that my morning cafecito tastes sooo much better when drunk from one of these adorable Cafe La Llave tacitas. It does. I promise.

The Cafe La Llave Cuban Coffee Basket consists of the following:

• 2- 10oz. Cafe La Llave espresso bricks
• 1- 8.8oz. Cafe La Llave decaf. espresso brick
• 4- 1.75oz. Cafe La Llave espresso samples
• 4- "tacitas" - demitasse cups and saucers

1) To enter this drawing for this beautiful Cafe La Llave Cuban Coffee Basket, please leave a comment on this post and answer one or both of the following questions:

• Do you remember the first time you had a perfectly brewed espresso?
  
• Or is this a taste you acquired later in life? Tell me.
  

Please leave your comment on this post and I'll choose a winner on Friday, March 28th, 2014 at 11am PST.

2) For an extra entry, please go "like" Cafe La Llave on Facebook and come back and leave me another comment telling me:  

• "I like Cafe La Llave!"

So that's not one, but two entries. De nada.

If you want even more coffee awesomeness, please click on the sponsored La Llave Coffee link to the right and be sure to enter Cuban20 at checkout for 20% off Cafe La Llave.

Also, please let them know that Marta from My Big, Fat, Cuban Family sent you. It doesn't make any difference to how I choose the winner. I just want them to know you are reading about it here, but that's not important right now.

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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3:05 Miami Cafecito Break (A Winner)

Wow, people! We are some seriously serious coffee drinkers. According to your answers from the 3:05 Miami Cafecito Break giveaway, our attitude is "hey, it's 3:05 somewhere..."

Thanks to all of you who entered and of course, to JennyLee Molina for generously providing such a cool giveaway.

For those of you who are wondering just how I choose a winner, here's how I do it to try and make it as fair as possible:

1. I click over to Random.Org.
2. I insert the total number of entries into the True Random Number Generator and a number pops up.
3. I count each entry and the one that corresponds with the random number is the winner.

So congratulations to winner #7:

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Marianela, you won! Also, how much do I love that there's an office full of people somewhere who know that 3:00 is the time that Lola was killed?? That is so deliciously Cuban. Plus it tells me that it's absolutely true that Miami runs on 3:05 Cafecito. So fitting.

Congratulations, Marianela! Please send me an email with your home address and put HEY, MARTA! I WON STUFF ON YOUR BLOG in the subject line. I will forward to 3:05 Cafecito and they will send your goodies.

Please stay tuned...more cool Cuban giveaways coming up this weekend.

MBFCF Giveaway Week Winners

I want to thank you all for celebrating with me this week. Also, to my very generous sponsors for providing the cool Cuban giveaways I've been priviledged to share. Thank you all. I'm blessed and humbled by your constant love and support.

MBFCF Giveaway #1 - My Big, Fat, Cuban Family Cookbook

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MBFCF Giveaway #2 - WASSUP En LA? Family Gift Pack

goes to...

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MBFCF Giveaway #3 - Cubamerican The Movie, Tickets

The winners will be contacted by the Producers of Cubamerican.

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MBFCF Giveaway #4 - Santayana Jewelers' Leather Bracelet and the Azabache.

goes to...

Also, if you're still interested in this beautiful bracelet (and I know you are), remember that Santayana Jewelers has graciously added a special promotion for MBFCF readers:

$40 off your $150 purchase with the promo code MARTASENTME.

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MBFCF Giveaway #5 - The Cafe La Llave Cuban Coffee Basket

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I want to thank you all for entering my giveaways and for participating in my weeklong celebration of my 7th Blogging Anniversary. 

To all the winners - Congratulations! Please shoot me an email that contains your mailing address. Put HEY, MARTA! I WON STUFF ON YOUR BLOG! in the subject line so that I don't accidentally delete it and I will get your goodies out to you ASAP.

But wait! There's more....

I wasn't quite prepared for the ridiculously generous show of support from my Cuban Cubiches and now I have some more sponsored giveaways coming up this weekend!

Please stay tuned for MBFCF Giveaway Week - The Sequel.

Many thanks to you all for entering and sharing. I'm overwhelmed with pride and love for all the friends of MBFCF. Seriously.

"Mas café por favor!" (MBFCF Giveaway #5)

I hope you're enjoying the week long celebration of My Big, Fat, Cuban Family being here on the web for 7 years now. I'm so seriously delighted with the generosity of my sponsors and I'm grateful to all my Cuban cubiches who are helping me celebrate by offering such fun prizes.

This summer, Eric and I had the wonderful opportunity to enjoy a day at Gaviña Gourmet Coffee Roasters.

La Llave is my husband's absolute favorite espresso. In fact, (warning! over-share alert!) he makes happy, yummy sounds pretty much every single morning as he's having his La Llave. This, of course, pleases me greatly. I love that such a simple thing makes him happy.

I further love that he's embraced this part of my Cuban heritage.

This is Eric happily supervising the vacuum packing of the La Llave coffee on the Gaviña tour.

"Mas café, por favor!"

He says it with an almost flawless accent. It reminds me of my dad and I feel a catch in my throat. My husband happily drinks his La Llave from one of these gorgeous little cups every day. His wife sits in wonder at the continuity in her life.

My good friends at Gaviña & Sons Coffee have graciously agreed to sponsor a La Llave Cuban Coffee Basket for today's giveaway, which includes those same awesome La Llave "tacitas."

Isn't it fabulous?

MBFCF Blogiversary Giveaway #5

The Cafe La Llave Cuban Coffee Basket consists of the following:

• 2- 10oz. Cafe La Llave espresso bricks
• 1- 8.8oz. Cafe La Llave decaf. espresso brick
• 4- 1.75oz. Cafe La Llave espresso samples
• 4- "tacitas" - demitasse cups and saucers

1) To enter this drawing for this beautiful Cafe La Llave Cuban Coffee Basket, please leave a comment on this post and answer one or both of the following questions:

• Do you drink espresso? How often?
• Do you like it sweet? With milk? Latte? Cappuccino? Tell me.

Please leave your comment on this post and I'll choose a winner on Wednesday, October 9th, 2013 at 11am PST.

2) For an extra entry, please go "like" Cafe La Llave on Facebook and come back and leave me another comment telling me:  

• "I like Cafe La Llave!"

So that's not one, but two entries. De nada.

Also, please let them know that Marta from My Big, Fat, Cuban Family sent you. It doesn't make any difference to how I choose the winner. I just want them to know you are reading about it here, but that's not important right now.

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.

La Llave Coffee Basket - A Winner

Someone's Mami is in for a wonderful surprise.

Congratulations to the winner of the La Llave Cuban Coffee Basket for Mother's Day.

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Nery, please send me an email with HEY, MARTA! I WON SOMETHING ON YOUR BLOG in the subject line, so I don't accidentally delete it. Also, include your name and mailing address so I can forward to Gaviña Gourmet Coffee so that they can ship that beautiful coffee basket out to you ASAP.  

Thanks to all of you who participated in this giveaway and for sharing your love of Cuban coffee. It never gets old, does it?

A very special thank you to my friends at Gaviña Coffee for their generosity. Also, go "like" La Llave on Facebook (if you don't already). They are always having promotions for some seriously delicious Cuban coffee goodness.

In case you don't know the secret to making Cuban Coffee with KILLER Espuma, here's my daughter, Amy Kikita to show you how.

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

Freshly Ground Heaven (MBFCF Giveaway #5)

Last month I was privileged to visit the Gaviña Gourmet Coffee Roasters in Vernon, California. The occasion was the introduction of the new Gaviña Holiday Collection. That's right, people. A COLLECTION. Of COFFEE. *swoon*

The Gaviña Holiday Collection (!) is a selection of seasonal coffees especially curated to “warm the hearts of coffee lovers during the holidays while brewing support for local Children's Hospitals.”

I was pleased to be able to sample the holiday collection (a Collection, people!) of coffees prepared by former U.S. Barista Champion Bronwen Serna. Gaviña has joined forces with her, local restaurants and coffee shops to brew support (get it?) for local Children's Hospitals. Five percent of the Holiday Collection (!) coffee sales will be donated to Children's Miracle Network Hospitals on behalf of each participating customer.   

Available September 1st through December 31st exclusively at participating restaurants and coffee shops throughout Southern California, the Gaviña Holiday Coffee Collection (!) features:

• Pumpkin Spice - Homemade pumpkin pie with fragrant spices.
• Eggnog - Rich and creamy, perfect for the holiday season.
• Candy Cane Cream - Smooth and crisp peppermint in a swirl of rich cream.
• Caramel Spiced Rum - Caramel and butterscotch with a hint of rum. (They had me at “a hint of rum.”)

We got to sample every one of the new brews in the Holiday Collection (!) and I decided that my personal favorite was the Caramel Spiced Rum. (By the way, that's my trademark red lipstick on each cup in the taste-fest, but that's not important right now.)

If you look closely, you can find me yakking away at around the 0.32 mark. (I know. Shut up.)

Also, I was delighted that we were treated to a tour of the Gaviña Roasting facility which was informative, amazing, and fragrant! Something that only mountains of bags of fresh coffee beans can provide.

That's me. In a hairnet. With mountains of coffee beans behind me. Which means I can actually use the word, “redecilla” - my favorite word in Spanish - in a blog post. And it's applicable! “¡Mira que comica se ve Marta en su redecilla!”

I'm so grateful to the Gaviña family for their most gracious hospitality. Read their history here.  

L to R: Pedro Gaviña, me, Leonor Gaviña-Valls

Theirs is a wonderful American success story with rich and deep Cuban roots.

See what I mean?

I'm pleased and proud to announce that Gaviña Gourmet Coffee is sponsoring today's giveaway.

MBFCF Blogiversary Giveaway #5:  

A Gaviña Gourmet Coffee Basket, which includes their new Holiday Coffee Collection (!)

This beautiful Gaviña Gourmet Coffee basket includes the following:

• 2 Gaviña travel mugs
• 1 - 8 cup French Press
• 3 -  2.5 oz ground bags of Pumpkin Spice
• 3 - 2.5 oz ground bags of Candy Cane Cream
• 3 - 2.5 oz ground bags of Eggnog
• 5 - 2.5 oz ground bags of 100% Organic Guatemala Dark
• 4 - 2.5 oz ground bags of 100% Organic Mexico

Leave a comment on this post for a chance to win a Gaviña Gourmet Coffee Basket - they have generously provided two (!) for this giveaway, (valued at $75 each) - please answer one or both of the following questions:

• What is your first cup in the morning? - Espresso? Cortadito? Americano?
• Do you have an afternoon cup?
• Which one of the coffees in this Holiday Collection (!) sounds the best to you?

Full disclosure: My first cup of the day is brewed Don Francisco Gourmet Coffee by Gaviña. Freshly. Ground. Heaven.

I'll choose the winners at the end of MBFCF Blogiversary Giveaway Week on Monday, October 8th, 2012 at 11 am.

“I believe humans get a lot done, not because we're smart, but because we have thumbs so we can make coffee.” ~Flash Rosenberg

3:05 Cafecito break in the 305 (area code)

I just got back from a fabulous trip to South Florida (more about this later). One of the biggest draws for me when I am visiting Miami (Area Code 305), besides visiting family and enjoying the mostly perfect beach weather is, of course, the Cuban food.

Bistec de palomilla, moros y cristianos, maduros (you could die from such beauty):

I had this suberb meal at a place called Casavana in Homestead, Florida.

Another very Cuban phenomenon in South Florida is the mass consumption at all hours of the day and night of authentic Cuban espresso. Always ordered with the diminutive "-ito" at the end.

"Un cortadito."

"Una coladita."

"Un cafecito."

"Un (insert your favorite coffee drink)-ito."

When I'm at home I don't usually have much more than two cups of mild coffee in an entire day, but being in the 305 makes me crave Cuban coffee after every meal and at all hours. It must be a recessive gene stimulated by geographical proximity to the Motherland.

If nothing else, we have an informal "coffee break" in the afternoons. At my house, we call it Taka Taka Time. (If you're on Facebook you can "like" Taka Taka" here.)

Watch my daughter, Amy Kikita making coffee and you will understand about the Taka Taka at about the 1:37 mark. (What's up with all these numbers today, Marta?)

Which begs the question: what time exactly is Taka Taka Time? In Miami, there's a movement to make 3:05 (like the area code) the official Miami Cafecito Break Time. I love that!  That's right. Thanks to the genius of JennyLee Molina of JLPR who came up with the concept and my friend, Elena Santayana Power, who shared it with me (of Santayana Jewelers, who also happen to be in the 305, but that's not important right now) the 3:05 Miami Cafecito Break has its own Fan page. Click here to "like."

Although, I'm thinking that here on the West Coast, the Cafecito time would be at 3:10. (For those of you who don't know, since Pitbull never sang about our area codes, 310 is the area code for greater Los Angeles. You're welcome.)

There is something so sublime about that first sip of freshly brewed Cuban espresso with the perfect Killer Espuma^®.  (Please ignore my 305-frizzy hair as this photo was taken in the middle of a rain storm. Thankyouverymuch.)

I got so used to the multiple coladas during the day, that I had a hard time adjusting to the lack of Café Cubano windows on every corner like there are in The 305.

So much so that I had to resort to the next best thing, but at 3:10, of course. I know. Shut up.