La Americana: Two cultures. Two languages. One home.

THE NEXT AMERICAN HOLIDAY

9:17 AM La Americana 0 Comments Category : All Saints day , All Souls Day , Day of the dead , death , Dia de muertos , Discovery Channel , halloween , holiday , latin heritage , LeeAnn Ritch , Mexico , pan de muerto , PBS kids , pew research , pixar

Photo: Chad Santos for Instagram

Day of the Dead or Día de los Muertos is a traditional celebration in Mexico November 1st and 2nd, in connection to the Catholic All Saints' Day and All Souls Day, as a time to remember ancestors, friends and family members who have died.

Though Mexico grabs largely from an Aztec festival hundreds of years ago, in honor of the goddess Mictecacihuatl, with altars and offerings, modern takes are more whimsical with sugar skulls and candied pumpkins, framed photos, bright marigolds and food and drink favorites set out for those who have passed.

It's Halloween, plus-sized, as an all-out national affair. While both holidays encourage playful dress, the forces behind them couldn't be more different.

Halloween was invented to protect children from ghostly affairs with costumes and jack-o-lanterns, whereas Día de los Muertos invites the afterlife in. Death is viewed as part of a natural cycle and therefore, nothing to be feared.

The two-day celebration is a happy event, including the sprucing up of gravesites with yellow blooms, which allows families to say hello to people they love and miss without taking things too seriously.

The Pew Research Center notes that as of 2012 more than 65 percent of the 50.7 Hispanics in the U.S. are of Mexican descent, and according to another national study, 28 percent of those celebrate Día de los Muertos.

Reasons include keeping family traditions alive, the passing of heritage to children, the unique experience of celebrating both Latin and U.S. holidays and of course, the food that goes with it. The most associated is pan de muerto, a slightly sweetened bread with bone-shaped dough flanked over the top.

Día de los Muertos is relatively unknown in the states, though on the rise, with large-scale parades and festivities, particulary in the western and northeastern regions. Atlanta celebrates, but Savannah has yet to catch on. The only tokens I found here are at World Market.

Pixar is in the throws of an animated feature film based on Día de los Muertos, set for 2015, and mainstream shows like PBS Kids and Discovery Channel have already infused it into various episodes. It's only a matter of time before this is the new American holiday.

I love the idea.

There are many days throughout the year that I would like to remember family members no longer here, but don't always know how to. So I have decided this is the year I will make Día de los Muertos my own, too.

Frankly, I don't have time to give pan de muerto a go, but the kids and I are going to pick out fun cookies in happy colors, probably some other southern sweets thrown in, a little flan for my mom and family pics. What a great way for them to connect to family members they'll never know.

For me, it's a way honor people I miss everyday.

My superstar photographer friend, LeeAnn Ritch snapped the festive decor in Sayulita, Mexico:

If you are feeling adventurous, take a shot at pan de muerto with this recipe from well-known Mexican food blogger, Pati Jinich @ patismexicantable.com:

PAN DE MUERTO

INGREDIENTS 

½ cup lukewarm whole milk 2 packages active dry yeast (¼ oz each), or about 4 heaped teaspoons ½ cup all purpose flour, plus 3½ cups for later on ¼ cup unsalted butter at room temperature, plus more to grease the bowl, and 2 tablespoons to melt and brush on top ½ cup granulated sugar to make the dough, plus ½ cup for dusting the bread 6 large eggs, at room temperature 2 tablespoons orange blossom water, or plain water 1 teaspoon anise seeds, optional 1 teaspoon orange zest, optional Pinch kosher or coarse sea salt.

TO PREPARE In a small bowl, pour the lukewarm milk -making sure that it is not hot nor cold or the yeast will not react- and stir in the dry yeast granules. Give the yeast a couple minutes to sit in the liquid, and stir with a spatula until it is thoroughly and evenly dissolved. Give it time: stir a little, pressing gently on the yeast that has not yet dissolved with the spatula, give it a bit more time to sit in the milk, stirring again, press again. Once it has completely and evenly dissolved, add ½ cup flour. Mix it combining thoroughly, until it has no lumps. It will be gooey, runny and sticky. Leave it in the warmest area of your kitchen, for about 20 to 30 minutes, until it puffs up (to about double or triple its volume) and has bubbled on top. I like to place a sauce pan or cup with boiling hot water right next to it, but its not necessary.

In the bowl of a mixer, over medium low speed, beat the butter until soft. Add the sugar and beat until combined and fluffy. Add one egg at a time. Once eggs are incorporated, add the milk and yeast mixture. Then adding ½ cup at a time, add the rest of the flour (3 ½ cups). Stir in the orange blossom water if using and if not, add plain water. Also add the anise seeds and a pinch of salt. The dough will look wet, runny and sticky, but continue beating anywhere from 7 to 10 minutes, until all the dough comes off the sides of the mixing bowl. It will be elastic and sticky, but it will hold itself together.

Butter a large mixing bowl that can hold the dough, and will be able to hold it as it doubles or triples its volume. Place the dough in the bowl, cover it with a cloth or clean kitchen towel and leave it in the warmest area of your kitchen, that is draft free, making sure that it is not next to a window or door that gets opened. Leave it to rest and puff up anywhere from 2 to 3 hours, until it doubles its volume at least.

Punch the dough with your fist, flip it over, cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator over night. The next day, remove the plastic wrap, place a cloth or kitchen towel on top and let it to come to room temperature.

Take off a third of the dough to make the bread decorations: make a 1 to 2-inch ball and use the rest to make 2 ropes. They need not be smooth nor perfect, as the dough is quite sticky, and no need to worry they will look beautiful once the bread is baked (and covered with sugar).

Butter a baking sheet or a bread or pizza stone, and make a ball with the rest of the dough. Place it in the center of the baking sheet and flatten it a bit on top. Place the dough ropes making a criss-cross -Mexican bakers usually shape the ropes to resemble bones, having thicker and thinner parts- and the ball on the top, right where they cross. Cover the bread with a cloth or kitchen towel, and let it rise and puff up again, for 1 to 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350. Bake the bread for for about 35 minutes. Halfway through baking, after about 20 minutes, cover the loaf with parchment paper or aluminum foil to prevent it from browning too much.

When they are ready, they sound “huecas”, or hollow, if you hit the bottom of the bread.

Melt the butter and brush all over the bread. Sprinkle sugar all over until completely covered.

SALTED AND STYLED: THE BEAN COLLECTION

9:24 AM La Americana 2 Comments Category : black beans , Chia Chong , Cuba , Cuban food , Libbie Summers , Salted and Styled , yuca

This week I am thrilled to guest blog for the insanely talented women of Salted and Styled, which was recently awarded 2013's Best Food Blog by the International Association for Culinary Professionals with the likes of Alice Waters, Marcus Samuelsson and their peers nearby.

THE BEAN COLLECTION

It is impossible to wrap Hispanic Heritage Month, which ends October 15^th, without mention of a Latin American staple – beans.

They are an integral part of everyday life and vary from country to country.

In Havana, Cuba, my husband's home, by far the most common dish is black beans served with white rice. Properly done, the beans are flavored, not overpowered, by a sofrito, a sautéed base of garlic, onions, oil and salt, which is added to a simmering pot of four parts water, one part whole beans, cumin, a bay leaf, and red or green bell peppers (depending on what's available in the unpredictable outdoor markets).

Black beans entered my life in college, wrapped in a burrito with rice, sour cream and tomatoes. It was instant love.

But it wasn't until my first trip to Cuba in 2001, where I met Luis as as tourist in search of Havana Vieja, that I tried the island's classic black bean soup, served in a small side bowl, to be dished over a mound of rice. With the exception of breakfast, every meal I ate those two weeks was served with the duo.

A year later I found myself again in Havana's José Martí airport, following months of platonic email exchanges with Luis. Only on that trip, there were fireworks. Later engaged, it was another two Cuba-centric years, a gazillion phone bills, airline tickets, nail-biting visits to the communist isle and loads of black beans later that the visa we worked so hard for was finally approved. Luis moved to Savannah in 2004.

Like many newly married couples, we had a learning curve, but given the vast differences of our backgrounds, it was more like a steep hill we both had to climb.

I have traveled and lived in a number of different countries, but I come from a Germanic family that's been in Savannah more than 200 years. Luis is from a large city with international influence, but his home is a tropical paradise cut off from most of the world. At the time he spoke Spanish and Italian, but zero English.

When we settled into my aunt and uncle's small, garage apartment there was a lot of fine-tuning and figuring out. One upfront, he didn't cook, but grew up with a mother with enormous natural talent. To the contrary, I was a kitchen hobbyist, a recipe follower, though I had shifted from the smothered foods and casseroles of my childhood to more simplistic plates, filled with grilled meats and seafood, stuffed potatoes, roasted vegetables and a killer homemade caesar dressing over romaine.

He ate my food, but over time it was sacrifice. Luis's palate is more adventurous than mine, open to explore, but he missed home.

I wanted to bring Havana in, but I didn't know how to wade in Latin Caribbean meats, textures and organs so foreign to me. Ropa Vieja, pollo en salsa, liver, tongue, chilindron (goat in a tomato-based sauce), plantains and the root vegetables, yuca, malanga and boniato.

So about five years ago Luis took matters into his own hands. He started throwing things around in pots and pans, inspired by his mother's kitchen. It was a daily science experiment in our house and what I thought was a phase he would outgrow, but I began to realize that not only did he like toying with familiar smells, he also thrived in the chaotic mess of it all, the unprescribed creative freedom.

Sometimes the meals worked and sometimes they didn't, but he kept at it.

One of the first recipes he nailed was yuca con mojo.

Yuca, also known as cassava, is a root crop grown throughout tropical and subtropical areas and in its dried form is tapioca. It is peeled and boiled like a potato and topped with mojo, which can vary in regions, but Luis makes it with olive oil, a chopped Vidalia onion, a few garlic teeth and salt smashed with a mortar and pestle, which keeps the garlic from flying from the pot, and a spot of vinegar at the end.

Remove the woody roots before you eat and it's creamy, just sweet enough and so good that whenever my friends or family visit they all react the same: “What IS that?”

Beans, however, were a bit more of an effort.

No one uses cookbooks in Cuba, but Luis eventually referenced a handful of online recipes for guidance and then rid of them completely, settling on his own blended versions.

As he became more comfortable in the kitchen, and in the U.S., he edited the classic recipes further to ones that reflect our bicultural life.

One afternoon he arrived home with a huge box of simple, clear containers and propped them in our kitchen pantry, after filling them with whole, dried organic beans of all shapes, sizes and colors. Nothing high-end about it, but you can see the purity and mazes and patterns of the beans, which I find beautiful, just as I do in oversized grocery store bins.

Next to the black beans were his new muses: black-eyed peas, green lentils, slivered red split lentils, which are a distinct bright coral hue in bulk, navy, fava and kidney beans, red azukis and uneven, round garbanzos.

Our bean collection.

He began testing the protein-packed varieties in the pressure cooker, which baffles me, but it's a terrific piece of equipment and one every Cuban owns, tapering each recipe to a bare minimum so the natural flavors dominated. I found each one uniquely delicious and an added bonus, all were healthy.

Cubans are known flavoring with pork, but I haven't eaten it or beef in years. I had never asked for special treatment or substitutions, simply eating around what I didn't want.

Yet, Luis uses almost none now, only a piece of chorizo here, a chunk of turkey bacon there, after questioning the necessity of additional fat, and has been able to do so without forgoing taste.

Curious, I asked how. He shared one of his secrets.

“This is the key,” he said, smiling, as he swirled whole cumin seeds in constant motion in a small pan, held about an inch over the stovetop flame. “Huele,” he said and lifted the toasted seeds under my nose. Strong and fragrant, but delicate.

He slid them into the mortar, gave them a quick pestle grind to release the flavor and added them to the black beans, already simmering with the sofrito, followed by a cup of red wine, a splash of vinegar and un tin de sugar.

I can't stand the smell of the vinegar burning off at the end and always leave the kitchen, but he immediately turns the heat off and lets the final flavors meld. When served, each bowl of beans is drizzled with olive oil.

Put the yuca con mojo in the black beans and it's all over. I mean the best of the best. A few slices of avocado sprinkled with salt on the side, or in the beans, too, and this is as good as it gets to me.

Forget Cuban or American food, there is something powerful about feeding your children quality, wholesome meals, a driving factor in Luis's evolution in the kitchen. It's also, he notes, a direct way for him to share Cuba with his kids.

We all gobble it up nightly and I personally can't wait to see what he'll come up with next.

Photos by Salted and Styled.

A special thank you to the superfab ColorBoxx Salon for working my hair and make-up for the photo shoot!

GET THE RECIPES FROM SALTED AND STYLED
BLACK BEANS
YUCA CON MOJO

THE CULTURE OF BEAUTY

8:22 AM La Americana 4 Comments Category :

By most Latin American standards, I'm no beauty.

My waistline isn't cinched and I don't fill out jeans in an overwhelming way. While some in South or Central America and the Caribbean may find my light eyes and blond hair interesting, freckles and pale skin are not all the rage. Slim thighs don't inspire.

Jennifer Lopez, Sofía Vergara, Shakira, Salma Hayek and Roselyn Sánchez are Latin America's beauties, guitar-shaped with whittled middles and toned volume everywhere else.

Beauty, defined by one's culture, is a topic that fascinates me.

Latina beauty icon Sofía Vergara

Gwyneth Paltrow sets the U.S. standard for many

I have friends who would appreciate their shapes if they had the grace to be born in a different part of the world. In Latin countries the men would adore them, I say, though it makes little impression. They live here where of course, most strive to be thin, thin, thin.

Evolutionary and behavioral science PhD and Psychology Today contributing writer, Gad Saad, notes that a number of universal beauty metrics do exist. Studies show that babies around the world will stare at symmetrical faces longer than asymmetrical ones; clean skin and high cheek bones are consistently attractive and waist-to-hip ratios matter, whether it's an intentionally plumped-up female figure in central Africa or a skin-and-bones catwalk model in the U.S.

That said, social influence is huge.

In the months before Luis and I married, I reshaped my body in reaction to a number of pounds I put on while briefly living in Budapest, as daily apple strudels will do what they do. My cousin introduced me to the book, Body for Life, which chartered regimented eating and workout plans that I followed to a T. With no particular goal in mind, any excess I had fell off. To date, that is the smallest I have been as an adult and I did enjoy fitting into sizes I never had before.

In Savannah, people congratulated me on how great I looked, wanted to know what I was doing. But when I arrived in Cuba in April after not seeing Luis since January, his friends and family nearly gasped in concern at the sight of me. Was I ok? Was I sick? Why had I dropped so much weight? I wasn't eating enough they whispered.

The striking difference in opinion intrigued me. I thought: what is pretty and who decides?

Personally, I'm a firm believer in doing the best with what you've got, whether it's big, brown eyes, a pretty pair of lips, rounded, strong shoulders or nice feet. There are clever ways to tuck in and around what you don't like and accent what you do.

But Latin women are considered some of the most desirable in the world, crisscrossing various cultures. So what is it that attracts so many?

Based on my experience around Latin women, of which there are many in my life, they're feminine, they like perfume and jewelry. They put on clothes that hug, not hide, their curves. They make outfit changes on New Year's Eve.

Last December we had dear friends stay with us to celebrate. Santiago is from Cuba, Karina is from Panama and at the time she was 6-months pregnant with their fourth child.

It was closing in on midnight and she asked me if I was going to switch out my leather leggings and sweater I had on for a dress. She had an additional outfit for herself for the ball drop. I nearly laughed out loud thinking, I'm happy to be clean. My daughter was 5-months-old at the time, Marcos was 5 and Luis, Jr. 14. It was nothing short of a miracle I was even awake. But the truth is that even had I not had a house full of young kids, I still wouldn't have made the wardrobe switch. It's not in my DNA.

A lot of women here, and of course I'm including myself, often look for convenience. Many of us want to look nice, but there is practicality behind it.

I'm a simpleton. I like modern, straight lines. Nothing frilly. I don't wear a lot of jewelry or makeup and the bottle of Bvlgari perfume Luis gave me five years ago sits on my dresser half full.

I tend to get into rhythms, scoring a few things I like each season and wearing them until I can't anymore. Luis teases me and calls them my uniforms.

That night, Karina ultimately decided to forgo the costume change, perhaps because of me, but a few minutes later she did return with a freshened face and newly applied lipstick. I think I swiped my lips once with gloss in an effort to keep up.

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THE NEXT AMERICAN HOLIDAY

SALTED AND STYLED: THE BEAN COLLECTION

THE CULTURE OF BEAUTY

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