Being Cuban in D.C.

While I was in D.C., Lourdes took us to a Cuban Restaurant which pretended to look on the inside as if it were a Disneyized version of Havana.  Mark, Lourdes' husband, had to ask for a flashlight to read the menu.  For dessert, I opted for Tocino de cielo...Bacon from Heaven which was served with some fresh fruit and a wafer cookie.  Tocino de Cielo  is very similar to flan.....which prompted a discussion at the dinner table.

Since I'm just married to a Cuban, I learned how to cook Cuban specialties from cookbooks and from talking to Carlos' two aunts, Haidee and Gloria who are very good cooks.  From them, I learned that the difference between the two is that Tocino is made with the yolks of 10 eggs, whereas flan is made with the whole egg.

However, Maggie and Lourdes' grandmother made her flan only with the egg yolks....so this caused some confusion over the dark dinner table.  I've done a little more research and that does seem to be the distinction.  Although the Couciero grandmother called it flan, it seems that it is indeed Tocino de Cielo.

Another Cuban past time is playing dominos.  Whenever we get together, the three of us (and usually my daughter Meg and Mark if they are around) play Mexican Train dominos.  We play with double twelves, and I admit sometimes my scores are so astronomical that I have a hard time adding all those little dots in my head...high scores are NOT something you want.  Mark, who is also a gringo, is here at left holding Sydney a very spoiled Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, and a rare picture of Lourdes with her glasses on.  Carlos doesn't much like playing dominos....he calls them "Dominos lentos."  Slow dominos.

Hopefully, I'll be back to posting more regularly.  I've been trying to catch up on stuff around the house and last week I did something to my rib which has caused a great deal of pain and some fear...and I'm afraid that I'm too tired to post sometimes!