Florida, Coffee, and Books
Summer 2024 I cross state lines to look at books
Why and How Book readers, there are a lot of you now. I really appreciate you signing up. I’ve written a few things but nothing felt right. I push ideas around, I keep tabs open waiting for something to click.
I changed jobs recently, from the Planner Journal market back to Book Publishing and am working on Cocktail and Cookbooks for the first time. There are even some Kids Books in the mix, so I get to think about glitter. And no, they aren’t Cocktail Books for Kids. Two different imprints. I’m having a blast but my writing time has shrunk a little.
Immediately before that change I spent two weeks in South Florida with my family. Some of it was a break, some of it was my beloved mother in law’s to-do list, and some of it was wrapping up items for my previous employer.
My idea for this installment finally hit me with a text to some friends.
“I went to Miami to party. I went to two bookstores and a library.”
We’ve been to Fort Pierce, Florida many, many times, and Miami often as well but we had yet to visit Coral Gables. Coral Gables as you might’ve heard is a very ritzy locale so we are out for most of what it has to offer but books and coffee are in our budget and it has both.
The Coral Gables location of Books & Books is built around an outdoor cafe. Imagine a U shape with a restaurant cafe in the base of the U and a cafe garden in the middle, books on each arm of the letter. The rooms are filled with books on dark matte wood shelves. There’s a great selection. Not too esoteric but some interesting finds and solid stock for most things I was looking for. I would have sat outside with a book but it was in July. Miami in July makes you understand why the NBA team is called The Heat.
From booksandbooks.com
We hopped back in our van and made our way to the Coral Gables Library which is lined by a grove of palm trees. It’s like a library in a botanical garden. Everywhere you look the jungle is pulsating, waiting for the moment the machine blades are gone. On the inside, it’s plain in comparison but overall it's a stunner of a library.
Photo by the author
In bookstores or libraries there is usually a local flavor section. In South Florida you have not only the Florida connection with that but also Latin America with emphasis on Cuba. It’s an intoxicating mix of culture, flora, food, and place.
Of course there's Dave Barry and Carl Hiassen. Both of whom I’ve read and both I enjoy but aren't to my taste. Lauren Groff is to my taste but a tad too spicy for a man of my age. That said, her writing is intoxicating. Of course, there is the Hemingway. You hear about the Hemingway House. You’ll think to yourself, “It’s just a house. Why did I drive to the bottom of America?” But then you go to and you never want to leave.
Zora Neal Hurston, a mold breaking writer and anthropologist, spent time in Fort Pierce. She died less than a mile from the home of Natalie’s Orange Juice and Pierced Cider Works where I’ve drank a few Habanero Ciders. Randy Wayne White is a gas. He’s like an AirBoat ride.
Elmore Leonard comes up because although he was born and died in the MidWest his books make it clear he loved South Florida. His brand of witty crime and terse typewriter work has always been on my radar but I love it more in middle age than ever.
Besides this, he wrote a character that makes me feel less crazy. Deputy Rayland Givens popularized in the superb television show Justified is from Appalachia, and by the time he retires lives in Miami. The reboot City Primeval is overall about Rayland trying to get out of cold Detroit and back to Miami. This pull to Miami is not strange in his character and although Rayland is often treated as a man out of time as much as place, it works. It works for me too.
Miami always intrigued me. As a kid my family had a friend from Cuba and because of that, she talked about Miami. They loaned our family a rug from Cuba. It was in our living room growing up. The TV Show Miami Vice was the coolest of the cool to me. I had pink and teal t-shirts that I wore with my white blazer in middle school. I had a Panama Jack hat I wore all the time.
I remember in the 80’s other kids would say in aghast shock that their parents told them “No one speaks English in Miami, and it’s in America.” If they were going to the Keys or Florida, they avoided Miami. Honestly, the thought scared me a bit as a kid but at the same time fascinated me.
When I lived in New York I worked for furniture companies. I ended up working with mostly guys and gals from Puerto Rico, Dominica, and Haiti. Not Miami but again, that part of the world and again.
When my wife and I got married we spent our first honeymoon in Fort Pierce, and the USA Network had a Burn Notice marathon on. Again, Miami.
I guess the real test is, if you gave me $1,000 and said you can make a weekend in the Appalachian Gatlinburg of my youth or a weekend in Miami I’d pick Miami every time. Palm trees make me happy.
I wanted to read Elmore on this past trip. I picked up LaBrava at the Kilmer Library in Fort Pierce but didn’t get to it. Since we are on libraries, the Kilmer is a sweet, fairly large library by the marina with a terracotta roof. Hopefully, soon I can get a copy of LaBrava and make that happen. Of course, he wrote the rip roaring Cuba Libre.
The Kilmer, from Wikipedia
At Books and Books, I did buy The Great State of West Florida by Kent Wascom and have started on it. It’s an internet era Western set in this wild political mess we live in in a not so distant future hopped up on roids and crack. The book, Worm, by Edel Rodriguez, about the Cuban diaspora is also vying for attention before the year ends. This is all to say, Florida reading is firmly ensconced on my night stand.
We left the Coral Gables library and went to our hotel for naps, dinner, and then the pool. We watched Smokey and the Bandit 2 that night. Burt Reynolds, born in Michigan, ends up playing football for Florida State in Tallahassee. Bums out his knee so he transfers to Palm Beach State College on the Gold Coast. Besides Burt, Smokey and the Bandit also features Jackie Gleason. Born in New York but he ends up working and living in Miami until he passed away in 1987. Florida again, right in the stretch of land we are staying.
From Wikipedia
Can you imagine working in downtown Miami in the 60’s?
After breakfast we went to another location of Books and Books in Coconut Grove and we bought even more books. I talked to one of the shopkeepers. He thought it was groovy that someone from a Publishing house was in the store. He said, “We never see you in the wild.” Lately, he said he was into short books and showed me a few titles. I told him about George Simenon and Inspector Maigret, slim books that satisfy in a big way. We talked about how a short book is kind of perfect.
We went to the PAMM, checked out some art, perused the gift shop and again, scoped out the books. Art books always tic so many boxes. Great look, great feel, big look, and often cool manufacturing. The PAMM Gift Shop has an excellently curated collection of books. We then headed to Miami Beach for our final night in town.
I lounged in the AC, napped and read George Simenon’s Maigret. Specifically, I cannot remember because I read two Maigret novels during my time in Florida. We took a walk on the beach once the sun had backed off a bit, the ocean in front of us, the Art Deco streets over my shoulder. Seemed like everyone was taking pictures. If 80’s Miami was for the gram, that was grams of Cocaine. The gram now is Instagram.
For the night we stayed on Miami Beach between Washington and Collins and watched the 4th of July fireworks at Lummus Park. After the fireworks I walked alone to a bakery and bought a chicken empanada. Absolute hot neon night.
The Simenon books I read in Florida
The next morning I got up early and went to Cortadito for a Cortado. It was solid. I got my wife a Colada to go. Para llevar. I sat reading George Simenon on Washington Avenue and smiled. After a few pages I strolled back to the hotel. We ended up eating the breakfast buffet on the porch beside a family with a mom from Venezuela and dad from Germany with their baby. They live in Germany now. They had made their way across the United States and were wrapping up in Miami.
Before we drove back to the Treasure Coast we went to Zack the Baker and bought a few loaves of bread. I talked to one of the waitresses. She was from Cuba. She had not been in the United States long. She told me to go to Hileah if I wanted real Cuban food. “It’s another Cuba,” she said.
The next time I go to Miami the search will continue.
Part II
The firework smoke was drifting through the palm trees. Eyes blinking pop streamer light and neon. The streets alive with Spanish. Car stereos and Cuban bands on the corner mixing. My gin and tonic gone, black straw and plastic cup dropped in trash when the Orchestra was still playing. .
Super models and bums on the corner. It was after 9pm and I felt like a walk. The wife and mother in law went for a sandwich. The teens went to the room to game and text friends.
I got a chicken empanada and some latin American soda at the Charlotte bakery. The woman closing up said the soda was like Sprite. The empanada hit the spot wrangling the heat and hunger. I walked back watching the night world go by managing the crowds for a few blocks.
Photo by the author.
Back at the hotel I sat on the porch watching the valets vape and chat. A shower, melatonin and the tv on for the noise, I slip into sleep. In the morning, the same clothes back on, back in the heat and through the lobby that smells like flowers and Fabulosa I take a walk in the morning sun for a Cortado with oat milk and no sugar. Economists warn that you could buy a house with espresso consumption. Perhaps I could.
We had some great food on our trip. Stand outs includes Caja Caliente owned by Monica Mika Leon and La Sandwicherie on Miami Beach. Sandwhicherie was fresh and booming with veggies, fruit, and meat on a baguette. So simple and refreshing. Caja Caliente was fun, bright, tasty and the espresso was savory. My mother in law had Guava Lemonade. It’s was good as it sounds.
I’d like to smoke a pipe. I’d like to drink Mezcal everyday but these things will put you in the grave. Fortunately, there are other vices. I like to read. I like to write, and I like espresso.
Let me say, I’m not a coffee expert. I’ll drink the coffee at church. I’m not exceptionally picky but I do know what I like and am thankful when it happens. For instance, if I order an espresso to go and it comes to me in a regular size coffee cup, it bums me out.
And even with my very giving standards, I had one bad coffee Colada in Miami. I won’t say where but the coffee tasted like instant, not nearly espresso depth and the sugar was like a pack was tossed in, nowhere near espumita.
I asked the waitress and that’s rare for me because I don’t like to be that guy. She told me that some of the staff didn’t know how to make a Colada and that even so, the espumita is not always a given with the drink, it’s a treat. A roulette wheel of the coffee maker so to speak. She offered to make me another one but I declined and thanked her and asked her where she was from. She was Colombian but she had worked at a solely Cuban Cafe and had learned from them. She also said, sometimes they are making 2-3 orders at once and one of the orders will have more, another less, but they all essentially taste the same.
Of course, I think, maybe I don’t know what makes a Colada.
I remember the first time I had a Colada but maybe that was really the second time. The publishing house where I work has a Spanish division. One of the sales guys and I used to go eat lunch at out of the way places. He took me to Back to Cuba one day and he did the ordering. I think we had pollo y arroz. When we prepared to leave he suggested a Cuban Coffee and he laughed “You’ll be up for days!!!” We split it. I remember liking it, it felt like a buzzy rush.
The first time I clearly, without a doubt, remember was at Mervis Cafe in Fort Pierce. I’d been there a few times but as I really began to study the menu words began to make more sense and stand out. Desayuno, I learned, was breakfast and everything fell into place. For a while I had disculpe and desayuno mixed up and said to folks in the market, “Desayuno” thinking I was saying, “Excuse me.”
The word Colada, like Pina Colada but not fruity like a Pina Colada, seemed intriguing and fun to say. I ordered, took the drink, sat at my table and saw stars. I looked at the waitress and said, “This is delicious” and the waitress in a smug droll sleepy manner said, “I know.”
This was around the first summer we went to Miami but it all blurs together in heat and memory. At the time I reached out to the Mystery writer Alex Segura, who wrote the excellent Pete Fernandez mystery series set in Miami. He told me we had to go to Versailles. It was touristy but essential.
The first time we ate at Versailles it was dinner so we didn’t get coffee but we got guava pastelitos to go. The next time, we made sure to hit Versailles for lunch and have an after lunch cafe. If I could do this every Sunday, I would. We ordered two Coladas, asked for a few little cups to share and a few Guava Pastilitos.
Versailles has a ventana, a coffee window. You go up, you order, it’s fast. You stand there and you can watch the waitresses make the Colada. The first bit of coffee comes out of the maker like sludge and they pour it into white sugar. They stir vigorously and it turns to foam. I watched, rapt and then she poured the rest of the coffee into the foam. They hand it over. Watching this, I realized how special this was.
It was a culture, not a scene. Not disaffected hipster coffee served by someone that wishes they were anywhere but at work but someone sharing their life. Maybe I make too much of it. Maybe I am romanticizing it and yes, there are plenty of hot stuff coffee shops making solid coffee with disaffected hipsters at the controls and I bet there are plenty of lackluster Cuban Coffee shops in South Florida but at its best the Cuban coffee is magic.
The stirring of the coffee and sugar into espuma bewitched me and the Colada, The Colada! The cigar smoke and birthday cake mix taste!
The Colada! Picture this. I am getting my hair cut at Legit Cuts in Fort Pierce, run by Jose Ruiz and in comes one of the barbers with a Colada he had got up the street at Mervis Cafe and little cups. Imagine the little cups you might see creamer come in at a diner. He starts passing out the little cups and pouring and sharing the Colada. I took a cup and we all drank up. Some sort of salsa rap reggae booming in our ears. Maybe that’s the Reggaeton talking.
I’ve tried Cortadito, the restaurant. Their Colada is solid. They do it right. Cortadito is like Chipotle for Cuban Food. I like Chipotle so I mean this in the best way. The Latin Cafe on Brickell was a good Colada.
Havana George in Ft Pierce makes a nice one. Defunct Falcon Coffee in Nashville’s We-Ho served a Colada, and did a solid job but the fate of that location seems to be up in the air.
If you are in Nashville, there is only one Colada that I know of existing. The good news is Soy Cubano in Nashville, owned by Javier Salado, takes supreme care with their version. Always espumita, always the perfect rich espresso taste. The Spanish word Sabor seems the most fitting. Perhaps because I’ve had conversations with Javier and his superlative team, they make the one that is in the back of my mind whenever I am in South Florida as the bar to meet. Additionally the food is as good or better than anything I’ve had in South Florida. Javier crushes the magic of those flavors. He doesn’t make anything harder than it has to be. Rice and Beans with a fried egg? Tostada to dip into coffee? Ropa Veijo? Yuca boiled? All of them are the essence of what makes those things a pleasure, executed without any unnecessary fuss.
From https://eatsoycubano.com/gallery
I hope you enjoyed this detour on coffee. Note that when drinking an espresso I try to be reading, so books are involved. I’ve never been to and I want to go to CafeLaCarreta. The link takes you to their instructions for a Cuban Coffee, which in this case sounds like a Colada. Again, I wonder, maybe I don’t know anything about coffee.
I am always fascinated by the Colada but I’ve become a Cortado guy.
I rarely eat sweets. I am not a desert guy. I sometimes nibble on dark chocolate. In recent months I have switched to the Cortado with Oat Milk for me and no sugar as my go to, saving the Colada, just a shot or two, for a time with family and friends and hopefully future times at the barber shop.
Photo by the author