How to make Fufú

 Fufú: This is how you do it 

That image to the right is not a banana, but a plantain (in Spanish platano). 

The plantain is most commonly eaten as a side dish in many Latin American cuisines, where it is simply boiled and then served as a side dish with perhaps a little olive oil and salt to add some flavor, especially if it's a green plantain, which are rather tasteless by themselves. 

The ripe ones are quite tasty and sweet, and are usually served sliced and fried. A few years ago you could only find them in Latin American bodegas, but now most major supermarkets carry them. 

But let's look at the green plantain. 

In most Latin American restaurants where it is offered, it is offered as a boiled side dish. In Cuban restaurants (and many Miami art galleries) it is also served as tostones, which essentially involves slicing up the plantain, frying it in olive oil for a while, taking it out and crushing it, and frying it again. Add salt and you're done. 

But Fufú is the real king of plantain dishes and it is rarely seen in any restaurants, even Cuban ones.

I think that maybe it is because Fufú possibly developed in the eastern part of Cuba (a province once called Oriente), and it may not be as well known or served in Havana, which is the only place that most tourists visit when they visit that unfortunate island and contribute money to the Cuban Armed Forces, which is who owns most of the tourist industry.

With its massive forests and mountains, a large African population from Spain's terrible slavery trade, coupled with its large French immigrant population which migrated to Cuba after the Haitian independence wars, a lot of Chinese working on the railroads that connected the sugar mills, and its concentration of Galician, rather than Castillians, Catalans, or Andalucian Spaniards, Oriente evolved into a very distinct region in Cuba, quite different from Havana and the other Cuban provinces, and so did its Cuban Spanish language and its cuisine. 

Oriente is where Bacardi rum was invented, and where Hatuey beer was created, and where the mojito and Daiquiri were invented... get my drift? 

And in Oriente the humble plantain is eaten as a very delicious side dish called Fufú, with the accent in the last "u" like in Hai-ku.... foo fú! 

Start with a couple of green plantains. Wash then and cut out the tips of the plantains, but leave the skin on. Cut the plantains into three equal pieces per plantain and bring to a boil in water and boil for a few minutes until the green skins start to peel away. 

While they are boiling, in a frying pan heat a generous dose of olive oil with a seasoning dash of salt and pepper (or Goya Sazon is you really want some exotic spices). 

Add chopped fresh garlic and chopped (very small pieces) onions to the hot olive oil and fry the garlic and onions; lots and lots of garlic. 

While the onions and garlic fry (don't overcook), the plantains should be ready, so pull them out, throw away the green skins and put the cleaned hot plantains on a large flat plate and mash them as you would do for mashed potatoes, but not to an extreme - they should be lumpy. 

Once they are broken up some, add the frying pan mixture of oil, garlic and onions and mash it all into the plantain mixture. Salt to taste and this culinary work of art is ready to eat!

The curious and disgusting case of H.G. Carrillo

Via The WaPo, GWU Professor Lisa Page sounds very apologetic as she reveals that a guy from Detroit passed himself off as a Cuban for years and years, and only after his unfortunate death, did his immediate family "out" him.  Read Page's "explanation" here.

Page asks in the headline: When writer Hache Carrillo died, the world discovered his true identity. What does that mean for his legacy?

Seriously? That's in question?

I can tell Professor Page that - at least for me - it (a) upsets me for a reason that I'm not 100% sure as to "why" and (b) leaves me perplexed that a guy from Detroit could get away with this for a large chunk of his life.

Lisa Page is co-editor of “We Wear the Mask: 15 True Stories of Passing in America.” She is also assistant professor of English at George Washington University, where Carrillo also taught.

Five gets you ten that he never participated in a single event in Miami.  He would have been nailed as the impostor that he was within the first few seconds of a conversation with a 10 year old Cuban kid.

How about his writing about the "Cuban immigrant experiences" - from which I can see how a lot of reviewers fawned over?

I've had never read Carrillo - in fact, I had never heard of him until he was outed and THAT made a story in Cuban-American circles, as most of us had never heard of him either.

Shouldn't that have raised an alarm somewhere?

The Babalu Blog notes:

I doubt he visited Cuba, and he apparently steered clear of real Cuban exiles and Miami. According to newspaper archives, he was never featured in Miami’s Nuevo Herald and only once in the Miami Herald (a 2004 review of his novel, but only about the book, not him). In 2005, he visited a college in central Florida to present his novel, and the Orlando Sentinel ran a brief interview with him. Asked who’d had the most influence on his writing, he named several authors–who included no Cubans, not even Reinaldo Arenas, but did include Gabriel García Márquez, who is anathema to the Cuban American community. It should have smelled fishy, but Orlando is not Miami.

 Let's read Carrillo/Carroll and see how long before he starts sounding fishy...

I found a short story titled "Cosas" here, and by the third word in the story my alarms already went up! 

The story starts like this: "Esteban y Casamiro were headed for a place that did not exist and they were out of cigarettes." 

I've never heard of any Cuban named "Casamiro" ---- "Casimiro" with an "i" yes... but "Casamiro" - but maybe it's just me...

I'm on page 2, and it is clear to the most casual observer that this impostor is not Cuban - at least through his writing, which uses Spanish words like "pinche" and "vatos" that are NOT part of Cuban slang (not to mention that he misspells "cerveza" as "cervesa." 

On page 23 I grudgingly give him a "maybe" on his use of "Santo patron" -- doesn't sound "Cuban" - more Mexican, as Cubans usually just say "mi santo" to refer to whatever saint's day it is on their birthday. Also on that page he writes: "Esculpame Padre" - when he should have written "Disculpame."

Page 30 he refers to Cachita as "La Virgen del Cobre" which (maybe it's just me) but sounds very odd, as she's usually referred to as either "La Virgen de la Caridad de El Cobre" or "La Virgen de la Caridad"... but the "del Cobre" bothers me... should be "de El Cobre." He also calls her "Señora", which sounds weird to me in praying to Cachita, which is how Cubans refer to the Virgin. Perhaps I'm being overly cautious now...

Page 30: He refers to a whore as "la maja" - I don't even know what that means? Unless that's a weird reference to Goya's Maja?

Page 33: "Chingao" is a Mexican curse word, not Cuban - If anything Cubans would say "Singao" with a very soft "s" sound.

In page 35 Casamiro curses these words: "Buche! Chancho!" - no idea what those curses mean, but they're not Cuban slang... a "buche" is a "swallow/sip" as "un buchito de cafe" (a sip of coffee).

Page 36: The cursing here is Google Spanish... makes me cringe that somehow this passed as Cuban cursing... any reader of Cuban ancestry would immediately start dialing numbers in Hialeah.

Last page: Mofongo is a Puerto Rican dish - not Cuban -- this is the ultimate insult!

I'm torn by the fact that this fabricator of a false identity perhaps got where he got - including a faculty post at George Washington University - by eschewing his African-American identity in exchange for an Afro-Cuban identity, and in the process perhaps... what?

Lisa Page (and others) seem to give him a "pass" because he was clearly a nice guy and loved by his students.  It saddens me that his family, and his mother (who after his death was quoted as saying that she was "really hurt by the whole façade" had to live through this fakery and most immense of cultural thefts.

It saddens me that Herman Glenn Carroll - his real name - had to live for over two decades with the weight that this immense lie must have carried on his conscience. I feel sorry for him.

And I still cannot comprehend how... in the age of information, this happened - did not a single "real" Cuban-American or Cuban scholar ever read anything that this guy ever published and raise an eyebrow?

Does it say something about the critics that reviewed his work and the organizations the heaped prizes on him?

Makes my head hurt.

Update: I've expanded the article here.

Jacob Lawrence

When I was in the Navy, moving every 2-3 years was part of the deal - and I hated each one!

One of the few good things about moving is when you find things that you had forgotten that you had stashed away. And a nice surprise during one of my last moves was the re-discovery of this small (7 inches x 5.5 inches) portrait of one of my professors. 

It's a portrait of Jacob Lawrence that I created back when I was a student at the University of Washington School of Art many decades ago.

He is/was of one of the most influential and courageous American artists who's never been given a show at the National Gallery of Art  -- although the Phillips Collection did step up to the challenge of a major Washington, DC area art museum actually focusing on a great artist who just also happened to be an African-American, and put up a great exhibition a few years ago.

On Referral Commissions

Artists and art dealers should always remember this rule (especially in a small town such as the Greater DC area is): You reap what you sow. 

A few years ago, a well-known DMV area curator emailed me to let me know that she had referred to me a collector who was looking for figurative drawings. 

The usual referral commission in the business of art is 25%, so I emailed her back and asked to verify that percentage and she did. The collector then came to my studio (a.k.a. the laundry room of my house) and bought a couple of drawings, and I immediately sent the curator a check for her commission. 

She then emailed me back a few days later and thanked me for my promptness.

Conversely, a while back a couple of different curators approached me asking for help in finding some artists for a specific acquisition project. I spent some time with each one of them, and then gave them a list of artists, as well as the artists' contact information. 

I then contacted those artists and/or their gallery dealer, and told them that I was referring curator so-and-so to them in order for the curator to view and possibly purchase work from them. 

There were about 15-20 artists that I referred and who were then contacted by the curators of these two separate projects. 

Some of the artists are represented by us, and thus they know (because our contract is very clear on that issue) what a referral commission is. Several of the other artists (whom are not represented by us, or in some cases by any other gallery) emailed me to thank me for the referral, and subsequently even a few of them emailed me to let me know that the curators had purchased artwork. 

Some never even emailed or contacted me to thank me for the referral, but most did. So far only one of those artists has asked what our referral commission is, and I am sure that if/when a sale is made, that the gallery will get a check for that commission from that one artist. 

Let's see what happens with the rest of them... you reap what you sow.

Lest we forget




"Studio View, 9/11"
Oil on Canvas c. 9/11/2001 by David FeBland

Artists and Art Fairs

Years and years ago I related how now almost two decades ago, the founders and organizer of a European art fair called Art Basel (which of course, takes place in Basel, Switzerland), decided to try an American version of their successful European model and started an art fair in the Miami Beach Convention Center and they called it Art Basel Miami Beach or ABMB for short. 

And I also told you how that one mega art fair spawned a few satellite art fairs in Miami at the same time and how by last year, before the Covidian Age disrupted the world, there were over two dozen art fairs going on around the Greater Miami area and art collectors, artists, gallerists, dealers, curators and all the symbiots of the art world descended on America’s coolest hot city in December and art ruled the area. 

I also pointed out, that if you are a visual artist in the 21st century and are not aware of these events, and are not trying to get there (get your artwork there is what I mean), then something really big is missing from your artistic arsenal -- unless you’re happy just painting or drawing or photographing or sculpting, etc. and could care less who sees and possibly acquires your work – if that’s the case, then skip the rest of this post and more power to you! 

But, if like some of us, the commodification of your artwork doesn’t bother you, and the fact that when you or your gallery sell one of your pieces, you feel honored and pleased that someone laid out their hard earned cash to simply add one of your creations to their home or collection, then Miami in December should be in your radar once the art fairs (hopefully) get re-started after we defeat the Covidian monster. 

But how to get there? 

The fairs are mostly gallery-based – that means that galleries are invited or juried to exhibit; not usually individual artists --- more on that later – but there are some other ways to begin to crack the Miami art fair presence, and today I want to share some of my ideas. 

Let’s start with gallery-based artists. If you are already represented by a gallery, why not discuss Miami with them? The enormous expenses associated with the art fair scene are the main reason that most art galleries do not consider them. And this is a darn good reason, as most galleries are run by the skin of their teeth and the expense associated with doing an art fair are enormous and could wreck an entire financial plan in less than a week. 

But, what does it hurt to bring it up to your gallerist? Who knows where that may lead? I am still shocked at how many art dealers are not even aware of the potential financial and exposure rewards of doing an art fair. Let me be clear: I don't want to hype this issue as a surefire path to moving artwork. 

But, this much I know… for roughly the same amount of money that a gallery spends on a full page ad in a national art magazine, you can get a small booth in some of the satellite fairs and the return on their investment has a lot more avenues than taking a chance with an ad. 

Gathering information is the key thing… bring the subject up to your dealer, and if they want more info, have them email me… the best thing for art is more art. 

How about if you are a cooperative gallery? Why not consider applying to one of the art fairs and spreading the cost of the booth amongst the exhibiting artists? A word of warning: the better fairs are juried and that means that someone gets always rejected. But the same key that allows cooperatives to survive for decades (spread the expenses) should and must be the key to give them a presence at the art fairs! And many, many co-ops are routinely showing now at art fairs in Miami, NYC, LA, London, Madrid, etc. The fact that they are returning to the fairs means that they’re having a positive experience there. 

The look and feel of the fairs is different as well. Many of them are booth fairs – that means that a white cube booth of plain white walls, ready to be drilled and hung with art, is the main model. 

Fairs such as the original Art Basel Miami Beach, Volta, Scope, Art Miami, Context, etc. are on this model. Some of the other fairs allow individual artists to apply - and as the art fairs get re-invented past Covidian Age, we may see more of that.

There are also hotel fairs. These are fairs that essentially take place in a local hotel, where the room is often emptied out and turned into a temporary gallery by the out of town galleries. The best hotel art fair in the world, according to many, is the Aqua Art Fair, held at the Aqua Hotel in Miami Beach, and having participated in it in the past, add my name to the list of people who thinks that this is the best hotel art fair on the planet. And at past Aquas I saw at least two cooperative galleries.

There are also individual artists-based fairs – after all, with 22-25 art fairs around the area, new models are apt to develop – and they have! Although not yet in Miami, the family of Superfine! Art fairs is in this model.

 A little Googlin’ of Miami art fairs (or just art fairs in general) will reveal just how many fairs there are and where. The key thought to leave you with: think art fairs and think Miami, New York, LA, Chicago... and think of a way to get there.

New uniforms

 When I was in the Navy I did dozens of illustrations for newspapers (such as The Stars & Stripes), and sketches of his shipmates and other US Navy sailors in ports in the US and European ports.  Most of these drawings and paintings were given away to his shipmates, but I also kept many of them - this one has been in storage for over 40 years and was recently found!

In the mid 80s the US Navy started a transition to switch back to the old, classical uniforms...