Miami in Three Parts: Part Two of Three

Not the version I read, but awesome

 

Miami through Miami

Food references I can recall from the Didion book:

1. Chicken vol-au-vent, in reference to the complete assimilation of Cuban exiles into not only white Miami culture, but into the upper-crust philanthropic establishment. As in the paraphrase, “charity benefits hosted by Cuban socialites, featuring fashion models and chicken vol-au-vent.“
2. Fried bananas, black-bean soup, gourds, plantains, and iced coconuts, as examples of the exotic Latin flare that newspapers generally considered to be the Cuban contribution to Miami.
3. Paella for two thousand (2,000 mussels!)
4. The courtyard of the Malaga restaurant on Calle Ocho
5. Versailles, the flagship of Cuban restaurants, where Didion says the most visible members of el exilio (the Cuban exile community) show up late at night, and where JB, Pete, and I once got drunk on mojitos. Also, where someone who disagreed with a man named Luciano Nieves’s proposed non-violent methods of deposing Castro, once broke a chair over Luciano Nieves’s head. 
6. pollo asado
7. carne con papas

I read Miami on the way to, and back from, Miami (on an old tip from APKeats) as an extension of my drink-wine-from-the-region-the-food’s-from/listen-to-music-from-the-city-you’re-visiting mantra. It was pretty spectacular: a portrait of a singular U.S. city, geographically positioned so far south and so close to Cuba, as to serve as an intercultural wormhole, just south of Grapefruit League spring training. If nothing else, it gave me something to talk about with English-speaking Herald reporters whom I encountered, and something to try and talk about with Spanish-speaking el Nuevo Herald reporters whom I encountered.