Zagats in Cuba

I thought this article about food in Cuba from the Atlantic Monthly online was pretty accurate.  When I visited Havana in 2000, any food I had outside my family’s home tasted like ashes, and the service was indifferent when not insulting.  Inside, however, my great aunts were able to work miracles with the little food we’d brought, together with the fresh vegetables that had come in earlier that week from the countryside and sold house to house for dollars.   I remember a big part of each morning involved picking the stones from the rice.  There were also tiny stones in the queso guajiro we ate every night with bread and Menier chocolate from Miami.  Stones in rice inedible, stones in cheese dipped in chocolate, oddly fantastic.