I've often shared how my family, instead of baking Christmas cookies for gifts, makes a super delicious please-don't-call-it-egg-nog Cuban "egg nog." We call it Crema de Vie and it has been a Cuban family tradition for as long as I can remember. I remember as a child getting to have a sip on Christmas eve. (Shut up. The rum was only used as a ...
Cuban Christmas
Celebrating Abuela’s 12 Days of Christmas – a lo Cubano
Last year around the Christmas season, Jonathan and I got a call that the lovely and talented Jenny Lorenzo (that's Abuela to you) needed some background people for a Christmas video she was shooting. Would we be interested? Without hesitation, our answer was a resounding, ABSOLUTELY! Also, would I be able to make and bring a bunch of maduros? ...
My Big Fat Cuban Christmas Gift Guide 2017
{This is not a sponsored post. All the businesses I'm promoting happen to be ones that I personally like and can recommend.} Christmas shopping is wonderful and terrible, isn't it? We are all generous people and if you're anything like me (and I know you are) you're always looking for the very best Christmas gift for the people on your Nice ...
It’s Cuban Christmas Crema De Vie Time!
It really is the most wonderful time of the year. And as I'm fond of saying, Christmastime is absolutely the best time of the year to be Cuban. Why? I wrote all about that right here: 10 Things That Are Awesome About Being Cuban at Christmas. You're welcome. You'll notice that the very first thing on that list is Crema de Vie. It's our own ...
Get It Before Christmas
Let me explain Cuban Gift Giving for just a moment. At least how it has always worked in my family. The Scene: You're at a family gathering, which for a Cuban family pretty much means any night of the week or stray weekend. You mention that you saw a cute ________ (<--insert name of cute thing you saw in passing) at a shop nearby while you were ...
How to Make a Cuban Roast Leg of Pork
Every year around Christmastime, I think I'll post the instructions for how to roast a Cuban-style leg of pork. Because that's what my family (and most every Cuban family I know) eats on December 24th as we celebrate our traditional Cuban Nochebuena. And every year when there's a garlicky, porky, fat mess in my kitchen, I forbid cameras because ...
10 Things That are Awesome About Being Cuban at Christmas
It's December. I don't know how we got here so quickly, but here we are. It's time to celebrate our traditions and embrace some of the Cuban crazy that is ours alone this Christmas season. It's not just the food that's fantastic (and it totally is!) - it's all the fun, idiomatic things we have that make the holidays special. I always like to say ...
Nochebuena in the O.C. (¡Oh, Sí!)
I'm just now recovering from the Food Coma that has ensued since our fabulous Nochebuena celebration. Once again it fell to me to host My Big, Fat, Cuban Family for our big Cuban feast on December the 24th. Cubans celebrate Christmas Eve more so than Christmas Day. It's a fall-back, I think, to the days when we actually celebrated the 12 ...
El Wiwichu
There's so much that I love about the holidays. My earliest Christmas memories are all filled with abundance and magic. I think one of my favorites happened as we were learning the language and the customs of our new adopted country. Our default greeting was always "Feliz Navidad." But here in the U.S. things were a little ...
It’s beginning to look a lot like…
I often say that the best part of Christmas for me is being Cuban. Our traditional Nochebuena celebration begins with the fabulousness that is Lechón Asado. A roasted pig. Or, if you don't have 50 of your closest relatives coming for dinner on Christmas Eve, then a 20 lb. pork shoulder will do. If you're a cheater, like me, you can also ...
Nochebuena is coming and everyone’s invited!
We Cubans celebrate December the 24th. It's our BIG Christmas celebration with the extended family. And when I say celebrate, I mean we pull out all the stops. It's a PARTY. The meal is usually roast pork (lechón asado), white rice, black beans, plantains, yuca con mojo. And a great big flan (and assorted sweets) for dessert. It's ...
Happy Dia de los Reyes!
Happy Dia de los Reyes. Day of the Three Kings. Day of the Magi. It's always so strange to try and explain some of our Cuban superstitions traditions. And yes, I know we've been exiled for 50 years now, but some traditions we still keep. Even if they are now mostly just as a nod to our heritage. Enter the Three Kings. Or the Three Wise ...
Everything I wished for…
Happy New Year, everyone! I know some of you are wondering what happened with the Dark Christmas Tree. Here's the story: My son, Adam flew in from the Bay Area at the crack of dawn, landing at around 7:30 AM on Christmas eve. Lucy and Jonathan went to pick him up at the airport while Eric and I finished up the last minute touches around ...
It’s Nochebuena! And everyone’s invited. Again.
My big, fat, Cuban family consists of pretty much the same people year after year. Except for the occasional birth, marriage, or divorce, I'm still related to the same people. It's still just "us." (Sometimes "us" can get to upwards of 40 people, but that's not important right now.) We Cubans have our BIG ...
Cheaters Lechón Asado (don’t judge me.)
It's raining like mad here in So Cal. And we live in The Bubble (aka. The O.C.). And Nochebuena falls on a Friday. And the men-folk are all working. What does this mean? It means that there will be no Cuban Caja China Pig Roasting for us. (*insert sad face here*) Of course, this does not mean that we won't have our lechóncito. We are, ...
“Making Christmas?” or “Resolviendo”?
Our home is small. You could say it's freakishly small, but I prefer to call it cottage-like. (That makes it sound so much cuter.) So hosting my big, fat, Cuban family for holidays is often a challenge. We have to move furniture around to make room for everyone. Can I just add right here that even though it's kind of a challenge, ...
