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The New York Times
Sinatra's Hometown Has a New Latin Flavor
By R. W. APPLE JR.
Published: June 9, 2004
...Although the core of its menu is Cuban, Zafra also serves dishes from Argentina, Mexico (including two kinds of Mexican tamales), Spain, Ecuador, Chile, Guatemala and Brazil… Maria Dominguez, a Cuban-American friend who swears tamales are in her bloodstream, likes Zafra's version so much bloodstream, likes Zafra's version so much that she recently took several to the Cuban writer Guillermo Cabrera Infante and his wife in London.
I will wager that you will never taste a better citrus drink than the incredibly refreshing limeade Ms. Presilla makes with juice, zest and ice, spun in a blender and served in a tall glass. She learned it from a woman in Ecuador, and if my doctor ever forces me to give up alcohol, I could get by on it. Nor will you believe that the meltingly tender, magnificently moist cerdo brujo (roast pork) that she serves, layered with sinfully delicious fat, could possibly have been made from an American animal. It is marinated in allspice, cumin, garlic and orange juice, just as it is in Cuba's Oriente Province.
In a sense, the restaurants are byproducts of Ms. Presilla's 30-year exploration of Latin cuisines for what she hopes will prove to be the definitive work on the subject. She recently handed in the manuscript to W. W. Norton, where it awaits the ministrations of Maria Guarnaschelli, the celebrated food-book editor.
''I have been to every country in Latin America, not once but several times,'' she told me and my wife, Betsey, over dinner at Cucharamama. ''I've been up in the Andes, down in Patagonia, and in the Orinoco Delta, where all they eat is dried fish. This is not an armchair enterprise for me.''
So why Hoboken? Why not Manhattan? Ms. Presilla does not miss life in the big city. ''I have a satisfying life here,'' she said. ''I have neighbors here, and lots of friends, and I like the intimacy of the whole experience.''
Zafra's firm, luscious, caramel-cloaked flan, a model of the genre, is made with premium vanilla beans from Papantla, a village in Mexico, and one of its sorbets is made with açai, a blackish-purple berry from the Amazon rain forest.
Amazing stuff, only 14 minutes from 33rd Street by PATH train.
The New York Times
RESTAURANTS
Out of This Hemisphere
By CATHERINE JONES
Published: June 25, 2000
...In Cuba the expression ''making a zafra'' which means harvesting sugar cane -- signifies doing well. At the opening of Zafra in January, the father of Maricel Presilla, the Cuban-born chef and an owner, gave her a vibrant mural he had painted, depicting the sugar cane harvest, as a good-luck present.
Ms. Presilla and Clara Chaumont have decorated the space with items from their own homes. Guests -- who include hip young Hobokenites and older Latin Americans -- feel as if they are seated in the kitchen in a Latin American house, complete with ceiling fans, flowers and music. Ms. Presilla has imparted her time-consuming recipes and techniques, and her insistence on working from scratch, to the all-woman kitchen staff.
The result is authentic Latin American dishes like those Ms. Presilla feeds to her friends and family. ''We have no liquor license and yet we make a lemonade made with sugar, ice and whole limes that is better than any glass of wine,'' Ms. Presilla said.
While getting her Ph.D. in medieval Spanish history at N.Y.U., she apprenticed one day a week under Felipe Rojas Lombardi at the first tapas bar in Manhattan, the Ballroom. From there she headed to the French Culinary Institute to study pastry.
Zafra is a vehicle in which she can finally show rather than tell. My advice: go often, try everything.
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