December 23-29, 2004

mixpicks

Secret Santa

by A.D. Amorosi

Feast

One of my best friends, a Cuban émigré, regales me yearly with tales of what Cuban Christmases were for his family -- that is, before Castro banned most of the celebrations surrounding Noche Buena (Christmas Eve). Though Castro reinstated Christmas in 1997, my friend remembers having to sneak a Christmas as covert as any black-ops specialist’s holiday. Their Cuban Christmas’ festivale food selection always seemed to center on citrus stuff: grapefruits toasted with syrup and fried dough (buñuelos), or marinades like yuca con mojo made with oranges and garlic to be cooked with the pig -- the one caught by the men, freshly killed for lechõn asado. Usually, these roasts occurred in freshly dug pits with guava leaves. Now, my guess is that neither Cuba Libre’s executive chef, Guillermo Veloso, nor its owners, Barry Gutin, Larry Cohen and the Frankowski Brothers, are off chasing hogs for slaughter or digging pits along South Second Street. No, it sounds as if the Old City Rum Bar will serve its pork in a more conventional form as ham, along with turkey and Atlantic salmon, roasted slowly in a citrus-filled caja china, a charcoal roasting box imported from the motherland. (The roast dinner will be served family-style or as an individual prix-fixe dinner for $33.) They will serve up the ham in the familiar mojo marinade, offering sweet stuff (in the form of a killer CL specialty, coquitos, or Cuban eggnog) and organizing floorshow festivities, but bring some guava leaves as presents for the staff. Show them a taste of Cuba.

Cuba Libre Epiphany Feast Special, Fri., Dec. 24 and Sun.-Thu., Dec. 26-30, Cuba Libre, 10 S. Second St., 215-627-0666.