Tag Archives: cuban food

Split States

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What happened between the Carolinas and the Dakotas? Why did they have to split up? That’s something we never went over in middle school Geography class — or if we did I wasn’t paying attention that day, maybe I was sick.

Side Quest:
*It’s crazy to think that most grown ups have a few blindspots in Science, History, Math, English, Social Studies or some other popular school subject thanks to being sick, on vacation or just not paying attention. Have you found yourself in a conversation with other grown ups and they mention some historical topic that you have no idea what they are talking about, only to discover everyone else learned about it in middle school. That just means you missed that day (either physically or mentally) and now you’re dumb.

So, why did certain states split into a North and South? And what’s the deal with Virginia vs West Virginia? I don’t actually have any real answers, just my thoughts.

Current Geography

When it comes to the Dakotas (North and South), they are pretty evenly split. Looking at the map with your naked eye, a full Dakota would almost make up a perfect square. It seems as if they just tried to split it pretty straight down the middle, no negotiations. A classic 50/50 divorce.

Now, when we jump to the Carolinas (also, North and South) the split does not look so even, like the Dakotas. North Carolina seems to have gotten some more land in the deal. From my short Google research I have come to the conclusion that South Carolina is sort of the poor man’s Carolina, while North is a bit more diverse with a larger population. It’s also more expensive, so maybe South Carolina is the actual winner here.

The last of the split states are the Virginias. This one is a bit odd, because instead of doing an even “We’ll take the North, you take the South” kind of split, it’s only the Western part that went on its own. It’s like only twenty-five percent of Virginians were in disagreement with the other seventy-five percent, so they just gave them a smaller Virginia. They just said, “Go ahead, we don’t need you.”

Future Geography

My last point I’d like to make is that maybe Florida should be the next state to split. I am from South Florida (Miami) and I went to college in North Florida (Tallahassee). There are many differences between the Southern part of Florida and the top part — for example, we have myriad Cuban restaurants down here, but there was only one in Tallahassee — back when I was there (not counting Gordo’s).

In the future, there will be a South and North Florida. After the split it won’t take ten hours to drive out of one state, instead you’ll make your way through both South and North Florida. I would suggest that South Florida includes Orlando and Tampa, not just because of the hispanics, but mainly because I don’t want to have to pay out-of-state prices to visit Walt Disney World.

Ron DeSantis may remain in the top half of Florida with all of his COVID because he is an idiot. We’ll elect Gloria Estefan, The Rock, Pitbull or pretty much anyone else to be the Governor of South Florida and we’ll be better off.

Oh no, wait, now we have 51 states. It’s ok, that’s not a problem, I have a way to fix it. We get rid of Rhode Island. Not get rid of it and the people who live there, we’ll just let it merge into Connecticut.

*Disclaimer: I am no Geographer or Social Scientist. I just started thinking of the split states the other day and these thoughts came to my mind.

Croqueta Roulette

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Something I never really thought about but I do almost anytime I go to Publix in the middle of the day when I haven’t had lunch yet and I’m too hungry to wait until I get home — I always buy some croquetas from the Publix bakery.

SIDE NOTE: For you gringos a croqueta is a fried breaded cylinder usually containing ham inside and some other stuff too. I’ve heard someone call it a fritter before. They can also be filled with chicken, fish, cheese, chorizo, mac & cheese and all sorts of crazy stuff. I would call it the Cuban cousin to the Italian Mozzarella stick.

I’ve always been a ham croqueta person. Ham is the original. If you order a croqueta anywhere you will 99% of the time be given a ham croqueta, no questions asked. If the establishment you are at has chicken, fish, cheese or other types of croquetas they will either ask you, “What type of croqueta?” or you will have to specify, “I want a croqueta de pollo.” (Spanish for chicken croqueta).

What I do at Publix bakery to make my mid-day snack into a fun game is I usually order a few original croquetas (aka HAM) and one of either chicken or cheese (sometimes one of each). They all get thrown into the same bag and since all croquetas look about the same from the outside, it’s a fun guessing game.

The Publix bakery person usually tries to separate them with some fancy bakery paper, but that doesn’t really work because they are getting tossed around all over the bag. Also, I’m going to eat these while driving so I will not look in the bag to see how they are separated.

So, once I leave Publix and I’m driving home or to my next destination I get to play a little game I call CROQUETA ROULETTE. I stick my hand in the bag and grab one at a time. Next, I take a bite not really thinking about what’s going to be inside and I’m surprised each time.

Here’s my croqueta bag from yesterday’s game.

Yesterday I ate the cheese one first. I had ordered three ham and one cheese, so the game ended on that first bite. It was still was and always is a delicious game to play.

So, the next time you find yourself at Publix (if you’re in Florida) order some croquetas (if you’re in South Florida), and play a round of CROQUETA ROULETTE (if you’re in the car). 

You won’t regret it. If you’re not in Florida, find some kind of dumpling place that will let you order single dumplings and try DUMPLING ROULETTE. Maybe a FILLED DONUT ROULETTE. There are many ways to play this game.