|
The
Cuban Cuisine Primer
Ramona V. Abella
•
Ajiaco
•
Arroz con Pollo
•
Carmen's Famous Caramel Flan
•
Chicken Fricassee
•
Cuban Bread with Garlic & Olive Oil
•
Cuban Style Guacamole
•
Fluffy White Rice
•
Mojito
•
Picadillo
•
Plantain Chips
|
|
Ramona V. Abella
Ramona Abella arrived on US shores at 13 years
of age in 1959. She has lived in New York, Miami, and Boston since then
and traveled the world for 3 decades, first as a charter member of the
international group "Up With People!" and then as a Flight Attendant for
Eastern Airlines.
She finally settled in the Seacoast area of New
Hampshire in 1975 and tells us with great enthusiasm that she still loves
her homeland's cooking best!
Although a consultant, educator, and
therapist by vocation and profession for the last 20 years, she wrote "The Cuban Cuisine Primer", a collection of her family's favorite
traditional Cuban dishes, following her visit to Cuba in January 2000. Ms. Abella volunteered to serve as
a consultant and interpreter to Nova
Technology Corporation, a participant at the first USA Health Care
Products Exhibition in that country in nearly 40 years. It was a
nostalgic return to her homeland.
She explains: "This journey to my
homeland helped crystallized an idea which had been in seed form for many
years. It became clear that creating a cookbook about the basic, every day
Cuban cuisine with which I grew up would be an excellent way to bring
renewed awareness to the United States and the world about Cuba's culture,
beauty, and rich traditions. It is my hope and intention to make a small
contribution through The Cuban Cuisine Primer cookbook by increasing
communication with and interest about Cuba, thus helping my island
country reclaim her rightful place in the family of Western and American
nations".
Ramona has dedicated The Cuban Cuisine Primer to her Mother, Carmen, who
always was her teacher and inspiration in the kitchen. "Carmen was an
expert at creating magic by blending together a few but perfect
ingredients to produce the most incredibly flavorful dishes".
Cuban food
is the optimal example of how mastery over simple recipes can render
amazingly complex and surprising flavors. Ramona says that with plenty
of garlic, a lot of lime, and some common spices, you can add a Cuban
touch to your cooking.
Ramona ~combining her cooking experience and her
psychological insights~ summarizes her philosophy about the importance of
cooking and being a good chef with these words: "Excellent cooking engages
all our senses and our creative 6th sense. When we learn to relax into the
process and trust our intuition in the kitchen, a chore is transformed
into an experience that is about fun and creative self-expression.
Furthermore, food is immensely powerful because it satisfies so many
levels of human need ~from physical survival to our needs for the
expression of love through nurturance, and the necessity to form social
bonds through sharing. Since food is symbolically and inextricably
associated with 'nurturance', 'love', and 'life', so are all its related
activities: cooking, eating, and sharing it around the table. The
affirmation of love, life, creativity, self-expression, and having lots of
fun in the process, that's what cooking is all about!"
Ms. Ramona V. Abella's website:
The Cuban Food Fairy
|
