I live with a nonreader. Correction. Anthony does read — but it’s mostly comic books, since he is a serious comic book collector. He also sometimes reads books on baseball and martial arts (his two other loves). Still, I don’t think he has ever really understood the hundreds of books in my personal library and why it’s hard for me to let go of even a single book…
So, I am always trying to get him to read. A month or so ago, I picked up the book, Tastes Like Cuba: An Exile’s Hunger for Home by Eduardo Machado. Anthony is a professional cook, so he also glances through cookbooks on a regular basis, always looking for something new to try. Machado’s memoir looked interesting to me. Written as an autobiographical account from a Peter Pan kid (children who were flown from Cuba to the United States during the early 1960’s), Machado explores his world of exile from his homeland through stories of food and specific recipes. I thought Anthony would be interested in the recipes — everything from Newspaper Soup to Swordfish Escabeche is included in the book’s chapters. And I was right. Anthony flipped through and read all the recipes. But he didn’t read Machado’s actual memoir.
But I did. Fans of the Scrapper Poet know that I am a fan of the memoir, and I really enjoyed Tastes Like Cuba — mostly because the author did not come up with any earthshattering answer to the exile’s identity crisis in America. Machado is charming and frank, and often very funny. Because he is an actor (mostly stage), we get to see some insight into some famous actors (including Al Pacino and his role in Scarface).
And who knows? I bet in the near future, with Anthony’s help, I will actually get to taste one of these intriguing dishes found in the book!
The Scrapper Poet 
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