Word: bodega
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Julio ("Chino") Mercado, the narrator of Ernesto Quinonez's fine debut novel, Bodega Dreams (Vintage Books; 213 pages, $12), knows the projects of Spanish Harlem in New York City. So he also knows that the best way to survive them is to get out. He and his pregnant wife Blanca are putting themselves through college at night. Their goals are the usual ones: to get nice jobs, to buy a house...
...MAGGIE GREEN BODEGA BAY, CALIFORNIA Parents of murder victim...
...York Times best-seller list for the past 566 weeks, announces that he is sponsoring a $10,000-a-foursome golf tournament to promote "spirituality, golf and the fine art of business management." Business biggies will tee off this weekend at Peck's home course in Bodega Bay, California, hoping to enhance both market share and their own spiritual levels by developing a healing sense of community...
...weather to turn back. "These people are out of their minds," he says. "This is a difficult period of the revolution, but I wouldn't even think about doing it, no matter how bad things get here. It's just too dangerous." Felix, 38, manager of a government-run bodega, complains that supplies are the leanest he has ever seen. "I don't see how they can send any less and expect us to survive," he says. He feels guilty when customers complain. "But what can I do?" he asks -- a depressingly familiar refrain throughout Cuba these days...
...beer. No meat. Yet Eugenio will not be rafting. He is a master of resolviendo -- the Cuban art of barter, the cut corner, the gray market. His wife works in a cigarette factory and brings home unofficial samples. With the purloined packs, Eugenio heads for the local government bodega to find the old man who sits on the sidewalk outside to trade illegally in yuca. He sells his yuca for 10 pesos per lb., but tobacco is always an acceptable substitute. Thanks to such enterprise, Eugenio eats well enough. "We survive because we're strong," he says...