Soaking it all in

When you think of tamales you tend to picture the ones you might buy at a Mexican or Latin shop, typically made with masa (corn dough) and cooked wrapped up in a banana leaf of corn husk. The tamale is stuffed with meat, cheese, chilies or vegetables depending on the taste preference, But Cubans invented a variation of the dish known as  tamal en cazuela , basically consisting of tamale masa with the meat, typically pork, stirred into the masa, and then cooked in a pot on the stove to form a kind of hearty cornmeal porridge . Mom and I took a pound of pork chunks and marinated them in some Mojo, cut onions, salt, pepper and garlic powder. Using a deep casserole pan we cooked the pork and onions in Olive Oil. Once cooked we set the pork aside. In the same casserole pan we added 1 and a half cups of finely ground corn meal and three cups of water, one seasoning pack of Sazon, some cumin, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder. Now is when the fun begins. This is

Mom doesn’t measure much as she’s been making this recipe for years. She uses a pressure cooker to soften the beans. If you don’t have a pressure cooker or afraid to use one you can use canned beans and get close to the real deal. The last big batch of black beans Mom and I made were done with the following: 3 cups dry black beans One Green and red pepper cut into chunks Spanish Olives 1 cup of Red Wine Olive Oil 1 Tablespoon of sugar 8 ounce can of tomato puree Cumin, garlic and onion powder Salt to taste We washed the beans and carefully picked out the ones that were bad or broken. We filled the pressure cooker with water covering the beans entirely with an extra few cups of water. Add in the peppers. Place the pressure cooker on the stove and cook on high until you pressure cooker top starts to move back and forth. At that point turn the heat down to medium and let them cook for at least 45 minutes. After 45 minutes remove from the heat and wait

St. Patrick’s Day is right around the corner. A while back I celebrated St. Patrick’s Day in Savannah to cross it off my bucket list. Too crowded for my taste. But it’s time to break out the green clothing, paint little shamrocks on your cheeks, practice your Irish accent and jig and partake of tasty Irish libations. Let’s see, off the top of my head, those would include Irish coffee, Jameson whiskey, Guinness beer, Bailey’s Irish Cream and Poitin (their version of Moonshine). One at a time, of course, and not if you’re driving. St. Patrick’s Day is special for me beyond the traditional celebration of the man heralded for converting former Irish pagans to Catholicism. In a roundabout way, my mom named me after St. Patrick. My parents left Cuba in the June 15, 1958, amid the chaos, turmoil and struggles of then-dictator Fulgencio Batista and then the man who eventually overthrew him, Fidel Castro. My parents arrived in America, went to school, learned English, got jobs, be