Café con Leche y Pan Tostado - Breakfast of Champions

Growing up in a Cuban household means drinking coffee. A lot of coffee. And it means learning how to make coffee at an early age.

For most of us Cuban kids our first words were, “Mami. Papi. Café.”

We’re not just talking about any coffee here. We’re talking super-sweet and tasty espresso. In fact, recalling my early childhood, I think Cuban parents added coffee and sugar to our milk just to get us kids to drink it every day. It totally worked. =D

One of the biggest cultural shocks when we landed on American soil was finding out that American kids did not drink espresso in their milk for breakfast. (I felt sorry for them. I know. Shut up.)

Café con Leche. Warm milk with espresso. That was our breakfast of choice. With hot, buttered (technically grilled!) Cuban bread. Let’s just have a holy moment of silence here… Ay, Dios mio.

Could there be a better way to start the day??

Fast forward to the 90’s with the green-logo’d coffee houses (or Four-bucks as we affectionately called them) popping up on every corner. They were serving something they called “lattes” to caffeine-thirsty consumers for about $4 a serving. I remember reading the description and watched them make one. “Hey! That’s a Café con Leche! I’ve been drinking those since birth!”  (Okay, so I never actually said that out loud because then there would be a grumbling in the line of people needing their caffeine fix and who needs that kind of grief?)

If you do the math, that’s like over $100 dollars a month spent for something that you can make for pennies at home! Besides, no one makes a Café con leche better than a Cuban mami (or tia or abuela….).

The lovely people from the got milk? campaign are sooo on the ball here.  They know what Cuban mothers have known for years – the marriage of milk and coffee are an ideal way to get your share of calcium each day.  How cool is this mug?? 

This has become Adam’s favorite morning ritual. “Mom, make me a café con leche.”
I used to make these for my brother in order to wake him up each day (so I can practically make a café con leche in my sleep, probably because I was always barely awake when making them, but that's not important right now).

Nothing says “Buenos dias” like a sweet, homemade café con leche in the morning.

Café con Leche

6 to 8 oz. milk
3 oz. espresso
1 or 2 tsp. sugar (to taste)

1) Make your Cuban coffee (espresso).
2) Heat the milk in a saucepan over high heat (I suppose you could also zap your milk in the microwave, but we’re talking “old school” here) until it barely starts to foam.
3) Pour the espresso into the bottom of the cup. Pour the hot milk on top.
4) Stir in a couple of teaspoons of sugar to taste.

Serve with Pan Tostado…

Pan Tostado

1 – 6 inch piece of Cuban bread
Butter

Spread butter on both sides of bread and grill in a sandwich press, George Forman grill, or even on the stovetop in a skillet. The idea is to get the bread buttery and flat and toasted. The seriously awesome smell of the grilled toast and hot milk with coffee will make you very popular. It's easy to make friends if you're willing to share. ;-)

Serve the Pan Tostado with your Café con Leche. Talk loudly and gesture a lot while you’re eating in order to experience a truly Cuban breakfast. ;-)

So because the genius got milk? people were so generous to send me an extra….I’m going to share the love. =D

Let’s do a comment giveaway. Tell me about growing up drinking café con leche. Or the best place to get one if I was in Miami. Or just tell me how much you love Cuban coffee. (I’m easy that way. =D)

Leave me a comment and I’ll do a random drawing on Wednesday at 3 pm Pacific time to pick a winner for this cool goodie bag which includes the following:

• A fabulous got milk? mug.
• A cool milk-frothing-device-thingy.
• A packet of caramel iced-coffee mix.
• A bunch of fabulous coffee and milk recipes.

So let’s go….let’s talk latte…..

Me on Twitter: making coffee for the 4th time today. Does this qualify me as a "barista?"

My friend Srcohiba:  just makes you Cuban. :-)))

Picture perfect

Okay. So I know this photo is completely out of focus.

And I know my hair looks witchy-weird (it actually was performing really well, but you can't tell from this picture. *sigh*)

But in spite of all that, I love it.

I love that we were caught by our neighbor practicing our salsa dancing on the front lawn.
("Those Darbys are at it again!")

I love the look on my husband's face that totally shows how much fun wewere already having as we prepared to go to the Cuban Festival thing.

I love it because it so perfectly captures us and our perfectly imperfect life.

(Oh yeah. I'm sooo framing it. =D)

Attention: Lovers of all-things-Cuban

A little Cuban history.....

Carlos Manuel de Céspedes del Castillo (April 18, 1819 – February, 1874) was a Cuban planter who freed his slaves, and made the declaration of Cuban independence in 1868 which started the Ten Years' War. Céspedes was a landowner and lawyer in Eastern Cuba, near Bayamo, who purchased La Demajagua, an estate with a tobacco plantation, in 1844 after returning from Spain.

On October 10, 1868, he made the Grito de Yara, declaring Cuban independence, which began the Ten Years' War. That morning, after sounding the slave bell that indicated to his slaves it was time for work, they stood before him waiting for orders, and Cespedes announced they were all free men, and were invited to join him and his fellow conspirators in war against the Spanish government of Cuba.

For this, he is called Padre de la Patria (Father of the Country). In April 1869 he was chosen President of the Republic of Cuba in Arms.

This is where Eric and I will be this Sunday. (Along with my first-born and the ever-present Sheila, but that's not important right now.)

We'll be celebrating the birth of the Father of the Country at an event that's billed as the Cuban Festival of the Century.

Okay, that might sound a bit extreme, but there will be fabulous Cuban music.....and fabulous Cuban food....and fabulous Cuban people honoring our history and sharing a love of freedom. 

In other words, the Trifecta of a Good Time.  =D

El Padre de La Patria Cuban Festival
Sunday, April 19, 2009
753 S. Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA 90014

"A la carga, Cubanos!"

How to Cha-Cha

You know those uber-dorky people who have a dictionary and an atlas sitting near the dinner table so that they can look stuff up when they start arguing during dinner about ways to pronounce words, or the capital of someplace, or what exactly a rhombus is?

We are those people.

By the way... In geometry a rhombus or rhomb is a quadrilateral whose four sides all have the same length. The rhombus is often called a diamond, after the diamonds suit in playing cards.

Yes. Us uber-dorks argue about this kind of stuff. And I'm Cuban, so arguing is like breathing to me. ;-)

When I was growing up it was that same way. The dictionary and the atlas were staples of our meals much like black beans and rice. We eat this stuff up!

But now that we are post-modernists living in the 21st century, we've added the cell phone, which is usually off-limits during meals, but that's not important right now, because now there is Cha-Cha.

And Cha-Cha knows EVERYTHING.

How it works: You text 242242 and ask your question. ChaCha texts back the answer super quickly.

In the past couple of days Cha-Cha has given us the following information:

(I was having a disagreement on the costuming for our upcoming Bye, Bye Birdie show with someone when they suggested the girls wear poodle skirts and I argued <there I go again!> that poodle skirts were pretty much gone by the time the Ed Sullivan show was happening. I was right. =D)
The Ed Sullivan Show aired from 1959 to 1967. Ed Sullivan died in October of 1974. Thanks for ChaCha'ing!

And we also learned this fun fact as I argued (of course I did!) that Alice Cooper was not his real name...
Alice Cooper had his name legallly changed from Vincent Damon Furnier in 1975. ChaCha!

So, we're arguing and ChaCha'ing and arguing and ChaCha'ing and I'm thinking..

"What could be more Cuban? Arguing and ChaCha-ing!" .... My dad would have LOVED this! =D

"Funny, but you don't look Cuban."

I get this all the time.

It's the blue eyes and fair skin that seems to confuse people.  Or maybe it's that all the news lately from Cuba seems to show a sort of third-world-dark-skinned population. And yes, many Cubans are black. And Chinese. And even Jewish. We Cubans come in all sizes and flavors. =D

To clarify, both my parents are Cuban. My grandparents back for a dozen generations on my mother's side are Cuban. Maybe there's a little Spanish (as in, from Spain) mixed in somewhere from my great-grandparents on my father's side...

My siblings and I were all born in Cuba. My kids are Cuban-Americans. My nieces and nephews are Cuban-Americans. And they look like everyone else. (go figure!)

NOTE: Our dear friend and next door neighbor is an amazing portrait/wedding/all occasion photographer and I asked him if he would please do something a little different as a gift for my mom's 95th birthday.  Notice how we hauled out my favorite red leather chair out onto the sidewalk and driveway?   God bless, Rafael who got out of his comfort zone to shoot us. (I think there were moments when he probably wanted to literally shoot us, but that's not important right now. =D)

All that to say this: We are all Cuban. And this is what we look like.

(as captured  by our great friend and fabulous photographer-of-infinite-talent-and-patience, Rafael, on the occasion of my mom's 95th birthday. Sadly, we are missing quite a few family members who were not available at the time of the photo shoot.)

 

 

And because it was a birthday party (as was declared by one of the 4 year olds ) everyone had to wear a hat!

Thank you so much, Rafael, my friend, for capturing the LIFE of my big, fat, Cuban family.  =D

And for documenting such a precious milestone in our lives.

Ninety-five.

She still dyes her hair and wears makeup every day.
She only wears her glasses for reading because she's a little vain about her looks.
She remembers everyone's birthday.
If you're sick, she'll call you every day until you report that you are well.
She saves every card from every birthday, Mother's Day and Christmas and works diligently to get them pasted into her latest scrapbook.
She remembers the names of the grandchildren of her next door neighbors from 20 years ago.
She hates missing stuff.
She still wears heels when she dresses up.
She's still very bossy. (the acorn does not fall far...)
She still likes juicy bits of gossip.
She still reads voraciously, sometimes juggling 3 or 4 books at a time.
She has never missed a World Series.
She has voted in every presidential election since she became an American citizen in 1974.
She has an amazing memory.
We got her a fur coat for Christmas because she really wanted one. Now she wants us to take her places where she can wear it so she can show it off.
She thinks all of her sixteen grandchildren are nice looking, but if pressed she'll tell you (with a wink) that her own six children are much better looking.
She knows about blogging and the internets, but refers to Google and Yahoo as "Cuco and Yayo." (Isn't that deliciously Cuban??)
 
Today my mom, Luz Verdés y Perez-Puelles celebrates her 95th birthday.

I am truly grateful and blessed to have been raised by this amazing person. She is the life-force of my big, fat, Cuban family.

(The party is at my house next weekend.  She thinks she might like to try Karaoke.....)

Be it ever so humble...

Thanks to all of you who participated in the drawing for the mugs:

I took all of your names and plugged them into a list at RANDOM.org and the following names/comments popped up:

1)

Marti, I think I have been reading MBFCF for about two years. Actually, it's been longer that that. Wow - in the cyberworld, that's probably the equivalent to a decade! LOL. Although I was born here, my mom is from Oriente and my Dad is from Camaguey, although they met in La Habana. I've been to all three parts of the island and I enjoyed each one.

Feel better!

Posted by: Annie | February 17, 2009 at 04:52 AM

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2)

Oriente - la tierra de los martires y los calientes - please.

Posted by: val prieto | February 17, 2009 at 08:03 AM

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3)

Marta, my little touchstone to Cuba ... glad you are up & about! My mami is from Sagua la Granda, Papi from Guantanamo and my brother and I were born in La Habana, where, unbelievably, my abuela's house still stands today. I found your blog via Babalu Blog and am hooked on your recipes.
Besos y abrazos, amiga!
Ileana

Posted by: Ileana | February 17, 2009 at 10:42 AM

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Congratulations and Thank You for reading MBFCF and for sharing your lives with me. I can't tell you just how much that means to me. I often tell people that one of the highlights of blogging for me has been to be able to hear other people's stories.  I love how in your short 3 line comments you shared so much of yourselves. I'm so grateful.

Winners, please email me ASAP - in the subject line write: MARTA, I WON STUFF ON YOUR BLOG!  And send me your snail mail address and which mug you'd like me to send you.

And just for the record:

My mom, Luz Perez-Puelles, was from Puerto Padre, Oriente.
My dad, Rodolfo Antonio Verdés was from Pinar del Rio.
They met at the University of Havana, (this is from my mom's graduation & before they were married in 1939).
My parents stayed in La Habana, married there and started their family.
I was born in La Habana in 1955.
We lived in El Nuevo Vedado.  #33 Avenida de La Loma.

"Home is where one starts from." ~ TS Elliot

Happy Friday!

Ooops! I almost forgot....

If you didn't win, but would still like a mug, please get yourself over to my online store Cuba To Go! (I have other cool stuff there too. =D)

I *heart* Willy

My son, Jonathan will be playing the title character in his school play, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Opening night is two weeks away which means it's crunch time for us and everyone here at Chez Darby has been working tirelessly behind the scenes to make the boy look good.

Which is how I found myself in the humiliating and embarrassing position of being flat on my face on a hard asphalt driveway turning colored squares into Chocolate Factory Walls. (I know. Shut up.)

Step by step:

1) Prime the canvas.
2) Pencil in design.
3) Paint in the large blocks of color (actually our crack team of volunteer moms did this part - Thank you, ladies!)
4) I went in (as humiliatingly illustrated above) with pastel chalks and added highlights and shadows.
5) Eric helped blur the edges and darken the shadows to make the stones look like, well, stones.
6) We sprayed fixative over our creation.

Oh! Look at those factory walls! (We sooo ROCK, don't we? =D)

Jonathan is working hard rehearsing his lines and his songs.

We're still adding finishing touches to the inside of the factory (you know I'll be sharing more about all this later) but right now there are props to finish and of course, Willy's beautiful purple suede coat (think Gene Wilder...)

...which I'm sewing even as we speak.

So it's All-Willy-All-the-Time around here lately. 

In fact, I even have Willy playing on my iPod as I sew.  ;-)

Yes, Willy on my iPod!  But probably not the one you're thinking of right now.... 

(This Willy features Arturo Sandoval on trumpet, but that's not important right now.)   ;-)

Words with the Older and Wiser

Kikita here.

I didn’t watch the inauguration yesterday. I was in bed with a migraine.
My abuela, on the other hand, watched the whole thing.
So this morning she started to tell me all about it. All about the people cheering, and the beautiful speeches, and how the word “change” was in every other sentence . . . and how it reminded her so much of when fidel first came to Havana that it was scary.

She was telling me how there are “Obama burgers” and chicken nuggets being sold for 44 cents because he is the 44th president . . . among other things.
And how there were posters of fidel welcoming him to the city and how she had one up in her house too.

She told me how the people of Chicago were up early and out and cheering in the snow and freezing cold. Then she told me how fidel had gone to pay his respects to La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre and they had lined up to watch. And that they didn’t move even when the rain started to pour. She said it was so ironic because there he had been at church and then it turns out he was a communist, and “communism is the enemy of the church.”

She ended by saying that she’s praying for the president and hoping that we aren’t getting fooled again.

The Consolation Prize

There are places that I remember in the Havana of my childhood that continue to fascinate me to this day.

One of those is the Hotel Nacional de Cuba.

I remember driving by it as a little girl and thinking it was a magical place.  Built in 1930, it played host to the rich and famous who visited our island home until our world imploded on January 1, 1959. 

Still, that era (the 30's and 40's) and this hotel embody a sense of nostalgia to me.  I'm guessing it stems from seeing photos of my young parents during those years, but that's not important right now.

I exchanged some emails with my blog-friend and faithful MBFCF reader, Ody earlier this year in which I told her about my fascination with this place.

Just recently her husband was planning a trip to Havana.  She gave him strict orders to bring back a souvenir from Havana, specifically from the Hotel Nacional, for me. (Shut up. I know. =D)

I could just stop right there and gush about how generous and awesome Cubans are in general and my readers specifically.  How thoughtful is that?!

Well, the husband, José, took his trip.  And even though he had his strict orders, he wasn't able to get to the Hotel Nacional to get the souvenir (which, can I just say, would have made him a golden god, and okay, maybe I'm kind of disappointed even though I really have no right to be because I had no idea any of this was happening in the first place, but that's not important right now and hey, thanks for trying José!)

But José, being a good Cuban husband, was not about to come home empty-handed.

He brought back this Cuban artisan-type plate, which Ody sent to me and is now hanging in my studio on my RED wall where I think it looks very cool. 

It says Malecón de la Habana. The car and the El Morro castle are actually in relief so they pop out and I was a little worried, but now that it's actually hanging on my wall, I'm so delighted with it. Seriously.

In fact, there's a little more to the story...

Like I said at the beginning of this post, there are some places in my hometown of Havana that fascinate me.  The Hotel Nacional is definitely one of them, but there's also something about The Malecón (the sea wall) that has always intrigued me....

The lights.  Those distinctive, funny looking, T-shaped lights (to the left this photo), along the Malecón that are also depicted on the plate.

Those lights went up in the 1950's to illuminate the beautiful Malecón.  It was quite a big and prestigious appointment. Imagine being the Electrical Contractor on that job!  Those modern (well, for the 50's) lights that went up along the sea wall became an iconic part of the Malecón.

February, 1961. 

I remember taking a long, last look at the Havana skyline as our flight left in the middle of the night.  I remember catching a glimpse of the magical Hotel Nacional and then the amazing Malecón all lit up like a diamond necklace.

I could see those lights for the longest time.  It was the very last thing to fade as we headed north towards the Florida straights and our new lives.

And I remember thinking how wonderful it was that my Dad was the one who was responsible for making that look so beautiful.

Yes, my Papi, the Electrical Engineer. 

He never could have imagined that one of his company's last jobs would give me the very last memory I would ever have of Cuba.  Those iconic lights were the very last thing I saw of the land that gave me birth. 

Just like José couldn't have imagined that the silly plate he picked up in Havana as a consolation prize for this Cuban blogger in California would be so rich with meaning and induce such powerful memories.

I don't believe in coincidence; I believe in God.

Gracias, Ody and José for such a kingly gift.