Wordsmoker

When I was eleven-years-old, my next-door neighbor Juan—a Cuban immigrant who had fled Castro in 1961—invited me to a pig roast for his oldest boy’s thirteenth birthday. Prior to that, pizza was about the most ethnic meal I had ever tasted, but that day I fell in love not only with that sweet, crispy pork, but also with the entire ritual—at least the part that I had seen in my neighbor’s back yard, which was basically spitting the pig and roasting it over a fire. Read the rest of this entry →