GULFPORT - When
Josefa Gonzalez-Hastings and her parents fled Castro's Cuba in the mid 1960s, they left nearly everything behind except the clothes they could carry in flimsy cardboard suitcases.
She was about 5 years old, but the owner of the Habana Cafe remembers that she was allowed to take her favorite empire-waist dress, which fell in pleats below the bodice. For nine months, while the family waited in Mexico City to enter the United States, the pleated dress was worn in rotation with a couple of other outfits.
"By the time we got to Miami, it was in shreds," Gonzalez-Hastings says. "And to this day, every time I cook ropa vieja, I think of that dress."
Ropa vieja is a classic Cuban dish in which a flavorful, yet potentially tough, cut of meat, such as London broil or chuck roast, is stewed with onion, green peppers, tomatoes and spices until the meat is so tender, it pulls apart and resembles rags.
In Spanish, "ropa vieja" means "old clothes."
A black and white photograph as tattered as the child's dress it shows will appear in Gonzalez-Hastings' The Habana Cafe Cookbook, to be published in the spring by University Press of Florida. The book is a celebration of family and the lusty cuisine spread throughout the United States by the many people who left Cuba after Fidel Castro took control in 1959. The book will include about 125 recipes, along with photographs by Jennifer Holcombe of St. Petersburg.
"Castro came to power on Jan. 1, and I was born the 14th," Gonzalez-Hastings, 44, says. "My parents thought it would all blow over, but after a few years, they realized it wouldn't."
The Gonzalezes began planning to leave Cuba and join relatives in Florida. The couple had already decided not to have more children. How could they provide for them? What sort of life would they have?
In the case of their daughter, who is commonly called Jo, life has turned out better than good.
Gonzalez-Hastings, who is on extended leave from her job as an American Airlines flight attendant, sits on a bench in her 85-seat restaurant. Behind her is a dairy case of desserts and imported beers. Beyond that are the presses that grill traditional Cuban sandwiches, without blasphemous mayonnaise, tomatoes or lettuce. Regulars and friends stop by or call in a steady steam during the lunch rush.
Her eyes, as dark as Cuban coffee straight up, flash as she talks about the cookbook and the success of the restaurant she opened in 1997.
As if the book wasn't enough to be giddy about, Gonzalez-Hastings is one of 15 finalists in Southern Living magazine's annual cookoff. On Friday, she will make her original Cream Cheese Flan for a panel of judges in Nashville. The grand prize winner takes home $100,000. (The recipe, selected from about 35,000 entries, will be printed in Taste after the competition.)
"It's been an amazing summer," she says. The Food Network, which will air a special on the cookoff in January, was scheduled to go to Gonzalez-Hastings' home last week to film her, but Hurricane Isabel scared off the crew.
Gonzalez-Hastings and the friends she lined up to be in the home audience were disappointed, but you get the feeling they'll get over it.
Especially if they have Habana's luscious pork sandwich in front of them. The Habana Cafe menu is mostly traditional Cuban, with the sauces and seasoning done by Gonzalez-Hastings. She expands the typical offerings for nightly specials when dill, artichokes and blue cheese mambo with mojo.
The restaurant began as a yearslong dream of Gonzalez-Hastings and her mother, Flor, who wanted to open a Cuban restaurant soon after the family arrived in St. Petersburg in the 1960s. Her father, Emilio, who died 12 years ago, resisted the idea. He was afraid they would lose everything - again.
"It makes you scared," Gonzalez-Hastings says. "You know what you have, and then you know what you can lose."
Still, the idea stuck with Gonzalez-Hastings, but she had another person to convince. Her husband, David, is a certified public accountant who has many restaurant clients. He knows how hard it is for a new, independent restaurant to succeed. They finally came to terms, and the high-ceiling, casual restaurant at 5402 Gulfport Blvd. S was born.
Today, Flor Gonzalez, a retired teacher, makes the desserts, and 25 employees cook, wait tables and wash dishes.
Gonzalez-Hastings' story is not unlike those of thousands of Cubans who've flocked to Florida since the 1960s. They have brought tales of life before, and after, communism, along with heads full of recipes for boliche, picadillo, arroz con pollo and drunken shrimp silly with white wine. Hunks of soft Cuban bread soak up the garlic-lemon broth.
The Gonzalez family settled in St. Petersburg at a time when it was more of an attraction than the sideshows at Doc Webb's legendary shopping mecca, Webb's City.
"We'd be speaking in Spanish there, and everyone would be looking at us instead of the mermaid show," Gonzalez-Hastings says.
The well-established Cuban community in Tampa and Ybor City did not spill over much into Pinellas County at that time. But in the Gonzalez kitchen, it might as well have been Havana, 1958.
"My mom would get out of school, go to the grocery store and then start cooking," Gonzalez-Hastings says. "We never had grilled cheese sandwiches or spaghetti and meatballs like other families."
Their Tyrone area home was a beacon for kids with tastes for something beyond tuna salad. The Gonzalezes joined family in Tampa to roast whole pigs, fearing neighbors in St. Petersburg might call the Fire Department.
A few years ago, Gonzalez-Hastings began writing down some of her family's recipes for fear they would disappear over time. Friends encouraged the book, and Chicago freelance editor Andria Kuzeff helped get it in shape to send off to a publisher.
The cookbook was two years in the making, with Gonzalez-Hastings challenged to transform megaserving restaurant recipes into ones for a more manageable six or eight. She hopes the book will introduce more people to Cuban cooking. (The recipes from the book won't be available until closer to the publication date.)
"The book includes a lot of charming anecdotes, and her personality shines right through," Kuzeff says.
Kuzeff says Cuban cuisine is really hot and believes The Habana Cafe Cookbook will be well-received regionally and possibly nationally.
"I've seen some cookbooks on the market, but none as nice as I think this one will be," Kuzeff says.
Elsewhere in today's Taste
Cuban recipes
Days of Awe and tzimmes
From ropa vieja to riches
Dish: explanations from the inside out
Food file
The Nibbler
A sad end to a classic restaurant life
You asked for it
Marshmallows make desserts heavenly
Ropa Vieja (shredded beef)
2.5 lbs. flank steak
2 Tbsp. olive oil
3 mild chilies, chopped
1 carrot, peeled
1 big onion, diced
4 big tomatoes, chopped
1 onion, peeled
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 Tbsp. tomato paste
1 celery stalk
1 bell pepper, chopped
dash cayenne to taste
Put the meat in a pot and cover with water. Add the carrot, the peeled onion, and the celery stalk. Boil, then simmer 1-2 hours or until the meat is tender. Remove from heat and cool in the liquid. Remove and shred the beef when cool. Reserve stock.
Heat the oil in a frying pan. Cook the diced onion, garlic, and green pepper about 5 minutes. Add the chilies, tomatoes, and tomato paste, plus 2 cups of the stock. Add cayenne. Cover and simmer 20 minutes. Raise the heat and uncover until sauce thickens some. Pour sauce over beef. Serve hot.
