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Overview
"Best Cuban Food"--Beach Life, 1998
"Best Cuban Food in Tampa Bay Area"--Tampa Bay
Magazine, 1999-2003
"Reading this book is like sitting at the
Gonzalez-Hastings kitchen table with a cup of espresso,
exchanging favorite Cuban recipes with your best
friend."--Pat Baldwin, retired food editor, St.
Petersburg Times
The Habana Cafe's list of "Bests" began in 1997, soon
after the Cuban family restaurant opened its doors on
Florida's Gulf Coast and served its first steaming
platters of homemade picadillo, arroz con pollo, and
lechon asado--a mouth-watering dish of roasted pork
seasoned with fresh garlic, oregano, white wine, and bay
leaves and topped with grilled onions.
Culinary wizard and cafe owner Josefa Gonzalez-Hastings
offers this extravagance of Cuban cooking as a
celebration of her heritage. Many of the recipes were
passed down to her from her mother and aunts; others are
"nuevo Latino cuisine"--a fusion of traditional Cuban
foods with modern dishes. Cuban food and preparation
always has been varied, she says, flavored by the
ancestry of the island, with contributions from Spanish
conquistadors, African slaves, Asian laborers, and
Indian natives.
Of course, she also includes Habana Cafe's standard
sides of rice, black beans, and glazed golden-brown
plantains. Customer favorites are all represented here
in easy-to-follow recipes and colorful photographs--from
appetizers and soups, seafood and vegetarian entrees, to
classics (Cuban sandwiches and flan) and beverages (mojitos,
sangria, cafe con leche, Cuba libre). Gonzalez-Hastings
also provides a glossary explaining typical ethnic Cuban
ingredients such as bijol, a condiment used to give rice
a yellow color; naranja agria, the tart Seville orange
often used to marinate meat and make mojo sauce; and
malanga, a mild, nutty root that flavors soups and other
sauces.
"In my Cuban family," she writes, "two things were
always certain-- food and good times." Gonzalez-Hastings
shares family stories and photographs of life in
pre-Castro Cuba, re-creating the days when Havana was a
dining mecca, Ernest Hemingway frequented La Floridita
restaurant, and the island gave birth to the daiquiri.
Josefa Gonzalez-Hastings is head chef and owner of the
Habana Cafe in Gulfport, Florida. |
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