Ernest Hemingway Never Ate Here

Ernest Hemingway talks about “The Fifth Column”

2010-01-25T08:22:00.000-08:00

Ernest Hemingway talks about writing “The Fifth Column” under enemy artillery fire during the Spanish Civil War.

Ernest Hemingway fishing on the Gulf Stream

2008-07-28T09:36:00.000-07:00

In this segment from the PBS documentary series "American Masters" and the episode entitled "Ernest Hemingway: Rivers to the Sea," a narrator reads potions of an interview with Ernest Hemingway from "Monolougue to the Maestro" (Esquire Magazine, 1936) and then noted some comments by John Dos Passos about Hemingway and writers. Also included are homemade film clips of deep sea fishing and Hemingway and Passos in Key West, Florida.

Saving Ernest Hemingway’s Cuban home

2006-02-28T08:22:00.000-08:00

The Association for Preservation Technology International (APT) has an article about preserving Finca Vigia, Ernest Hemingway’s home in Cuba. It was noted that:

The Cubans explained how five hurricanes in 2005, including much damage caused by Wilma, had each taken some toll and slowed overall job progress, but they continued work on many fronts, including taxidermy, mural conservation (in this case Hemingway's handwriting on the bathroom wall recording his daily weight), and termite eradication. The greatest damage caused by hurricane Wilma was to the large shed roof that protects Hemingway's fishing yacht, Pilar, displayed on blocks at the tennis court.

You can read more about efforts to preserve Hemingway’s home here.

Preserving the Pilar, Ernest Hemingway’s fishing boat

2006-04-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

The Day (New London, CT.) has noted that preservation work is well under way in Cuba on the Pilar, the 40-foot fishing boat on which Ernest Hemingway conceived such novels as “The Old Man and the Sea” and “Islands in the Stream.” It was noted that:

Hewson, vice president for watercraft preservation and programs at Mystic Seaport, toured the grounds of Finca Vigia, he found that Cuban officials had implemented recommendations he had made three years ago and had begun to preserve Hemingway's 40-foot fishing boat, Pilar.

Hemingway had bought the Pilar, a Wheeler Playmate, in 1934 from a shipyard in Brooklyn, New York. He then sailed it it to Cuba where he lived from 1939 until 1960. In his will, he left the Pilar to his boatman who then gave it to the Cuban government.

Cuban embargo slows efforts to preserve Hemingway’s Finca Vigia

2006-05-18T08:54:00.000-07:00

Ernest Hemingway’s Finca Vigia (Overlook Farm) has been battered by rain, humidity, heat, hurricanes and termites and it was included by the National Trust in its 2005 list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places - the only one outside the United States.

Moreover, this 2006 article from the Chronicle of Philanthropy quoted Mary-Jo Adams, the executive director of the Hemingway Preservation Foundation, as saying that:

"We have Hemingway papers that are deteriorating in tropical climates," she says. "We want to preserve them for scholars for decades for come. I think when you sit down with people and explain it, it's very logical."

However and despite the Cuban trade embargo, the Hemingway Preservation Foundation and the National Trust for Historic Preservation have for almost a year been sending architects and preservationists to Havana to advise a Cuban group about how to fix the structural problems that afflict the villa.

The entire Chronicle of Philanthropy article about these preservation efforts can be read here.

Michigan: Where Ernest Hemingway came of age

2010-08-22T08:39:00.001-07:00

David Shribman has written a wonderful article for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about Northern Michigan – where Ernest Hemingway came of age and where he learned to love fishing, hiking and camping. Shribman pointed out that:

And so it was with Hemingway and this place. You may think that his place was Cuba, or Key West, or Paris or Spain, or Idaho -- for in truth so many places are associated with Hemingway, and he with them -- but it was here, on the tip of the mitt of Michigan, that he became the Hemingway we know, here that he was Ernest and not yet Papa.

Moreover, Shribman wrote that:

If you believe that Nick Adams was Hemingway's alter ego, then in the Nick Adams stories you learn a lot about Hemingway, a lot about Michigan and a lot about what Hemingway learned about life from Michigan.

To learn more about Ernest Hemingway in Michigan, be sure to check out the new "Picturing Hemingway's Michigan" by Michael R. Federspiel, a Central Michigan University historian who is also the president of the Michigan Hemingway Society.

A quick tour of Finca Vigia: Ernest Hemingway’s Cuban home

2007-10-08T09:02:00.000-07:00

This October 8, 2007 St. Petersburg Times article offered a sneak peak inside Finca Vigia, Ernest Hemingway’s home in Cuba from 1939 to 1960, and noted that:

-While the interior of Finca Vigia is closed to the public, visitors can peer through open windows into the rooms via a walkway that wraps around the outside.
-A large bullfighting poster hangs on one wall in the living room, alongside stuffed animal heads from hunting trips to Africa. Original bottles of Old Forester bourbon and Cinzano vermouth stand at arm's length from Hemingway's chair.
-Books line shelves in most of the rooms, including the bathroom. At one end of the main room is Hemingway's old RCA record player still in working order, next to a large collection of LPs, from Bessie Smith to Bach.
-Hemingway liked to entertain. Errol Flynn dined at his table. Cary Grant slept on the sofa, and Ava Gardner famously skinny-dipped in the pool.
-Hemingway wrote his books standing up in his bedroom, the only air-conditioned room in the house. His Royal typewriter is there. Materials for his research lie strewn over the bed.
-One room is reserved for cats. There were 60 of them in and around the house. Hemingway kept four cows to provide milk for them. Hemingway also had four dogs, Black, Negrita, Linda and Neron, who are all buried in marked graves in the garden.
-In the bathroom, Hemingway scribbled his weight every day on the wall. By the time he left Cuba for medical treatment in 1960, the wall shows he had lost almost 50 pounds. He committed suicide a few months later in his house in Idaho.

The entire St. Petersburg Times article can be read here.

Preserving Ernest Hemingway's books and papers at Finca Vigia, his Cuban home

2006-10-08T09:19:00.000-07:00

In this October 8, 2006 Boston Globe article, it was noted how the US State Department granted Rosalba Diaz, the curator of the Hemingway Museum in Cuba, a rare visa for her studies at the Northeast Document Conservation Center in order to help her preserve Ernest Hemingway’s books and papers at Finca Vigia:

In the quiet Andover offices, Diaz observed advanced techniques on how to repair damaged pages and restore papers and book covers. She watched how others have repaired torn pages and saw how the center protected aging documents.
“We're working on preserving all the materials we have at the museum," Diaz said in Spanish. “We have books, we have maps, photos, and documents with his writings that need to be protected."
The techniques she is picking up are important, said Diaz. Hemingway's former home is filled with 9,000 books with notes written in the margins, thousands of letters exchanged with famous people of the time, and original rough drafts of some of his well-known works, she said.

The entire Boston Globe article and accompanied audio slideshow can be read here.

Ernest Hemingway’s legacy helps to heal 50 years divisions between the USA and Cuba

2009-01-31T07:54:00.000-08:00

In this January 31, 2009, article for the Scotsman, it was noted how the Ernest Hemingway legacy has helped to heal 50 years of divisions between the USA and Cuba when copies
of a mostly unseen archive of Hemingway's years in Cuba, including thousands of letters, notes and other documents, were sent from Finca Vigia in Cuba to the John F. Kennedy Library in Massachusetts. It was noted that:

The papers were long hidden away in the basement of Hemingway's estate at Finca Vigia, Cuba." It's a wonderful treasure trove and it's wonderful it will be available," said Professor Sandra Spanier, editor of the Hemingway Letters Project at Pennsylvania State University." There has never really been a biographer who had access to the materials of Hemingway's life in Cuba.
"That was a third of his life, a half of his writing life, and this is tremendously important." The materials include corrected proofs of The Old Man and the Sea, a film script based on the novel and correspondence from fellow authors Sinclair Lewis and John Dos Passos."
There are letters among these documents that have been in Cuba since 1961," Prof Spanier added. "It is tremendously intriguing and exciting."

The entire Scotsman article can be read here.

Ernest Hemingway's papers arrive at the JFK Library

2009-10-29T08:28:00.000-07:00

Despite the strained relations between the USA and Cuba, the curators of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and the Castro regime have managed to find common ground over Ernest Hemingway. In fact, the Boston Globe noted in an October 29, 2009 article that Cuba has shared copies of 3,000 letters and documents from the Hemingway archives at the country’s Ministry of Culture. This material filled a hole in the library’s collection, which probably contains the most comprehensive body of Ernest Hemingway’s writings.
The Boston Globe further noted that:

The initial collection of the author’s work made its way to the library after Hemingway’s fourth wife, Mary, received permission from the Kennedy administration to travel to Cuba after Hemingway committed suicide in 1961 in Idaho, three months after the disastrous assault at the Bay of Pigs helped usher in the decades-long pall over US-Cuban relations. The Cuban regime had told Mary that they intended to make the house Hemingway left just outside Havana, known as the Finca Vigía, into a museum. They allowed her to visit and ship his many papers and artwork on a shrimp boat to Tampa.

The entire Boston Globe article can be read here.

The Finca Vigia Foundation brings better relations with Cuba through Hemingway

2009-06-25T08:37:00.000-07:00

Since 2002, the Finca Vigia Foundation has worked with the Cuban government to preserve Ernest Hemingway’s literary legacy in Cuba. In fact and in this June 25, 2009 Boston Globe article by Jenny Phillips and Bob Vila, the co-chairs of the Boston-based Finca Vigia Foundation, it was noted that:

Hemingway’s memory has done what no political leader on either side of the Florida Straits was able to achieve: It has created a joint working group of Cubans and Americans sanctioned by both governments to preserve Hemingway’s home, a timeless, literary shrine on the outskirts of Havana. The focus is purely cultural and collaborative, and carefully sidesteps any political landmines.This work has not been easy. The Bush administration, which placed the most restrictive policies ever on the American embargo, nearly shut the project down. The Cubans, who have kept the Hemingway home as a museum, had to overcome their long-held fears of North American exploitation.

The entire Boston Globe article can be read here.

A tour of Finca Vigia: Ernest Hemingway's Havana house

2007-07-17T09:11:00.000-07:00

This July 17, 2007 Guardian article also includes a wonderful audio slideshow tour of Finca Vigia, or Lookout Farm, the home Ernest Hemingway called home from 1939 to 1960.

The Ernest Hemingway legacy bonds Cuba and the USA

2009-03-13T08:41:00.000-07:00

In this March 13, 2009 BBC segment, Michael Voss noted how the USA and Cuba are working together to preserve and protect the legacy of Ernest Hemingway. Scholars will be given access to restored archive papers due to a lift on trade embargoes between the USA and Cuba.

Inside Ernest Hemingway’s home (Finca vigia) in Cuba

2009-12-11T09:31:00.000-08:00

It has been seventy years since author Ernest Hemingway first moved to Cuba. However, his home there where he wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls and the Old Man and the Sea is now in the process of being restored.

Ernest Hemingway in Michigan

2010-04-26T08:10:00.000-07:00

Until his early 20s, Ernest Hemingway would spend most summers in Michigan. This short three-minute video segment from the Michigan Humanities Council and the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs features The Great Michigan Read and The Nick Adams Stories.

Key West: Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum tour

2010-05-12T09:40:00.000-07:00

Take a peak inside the Ernest Hemingway residence and check out descendents of his famous 6-toed cat. The home also features a pool that was the largest in South Florida when it was first installed in the 1930s.

La Bodeguita del Medio: Home of the real Mojito cocktail and one of Ernest Hemingway's favorite drinks

2009-07-03T10:18:00.000-07:00

Michael Palin visits La Bodeguita del Medio in Havana, Cuba, to learn about the Mojito cocktail and Why Ernest Hemingway once said: “Liquor is my best friend and my severest critic!”

Ernest Hemingway’s birthplace in Oak Park, Illinois

2009-08-07T07:40:00.000-07:00

Here is another quick tour of Ernest Hemingway birthplace. Its located at 339 N. Oak Park Avenue, Oak Park, IL 60302 while the Hemingway Museum is located at 200 N. Oak Park Avenue.

An Ernest Hemingway Daiquiri Recipe

2009-08-07T22:42:00.000-07:00

In this episode of Imbibe Sips, Jeffrey Morgenthaler explains how to make Ernest Hemingway's favorite daiquiri or Papa Doble.

Here is one Hemingway Daiquiri recipe:

6 tablespoons fresh grapefruit juice
2 ounces white rum
1 teaspoon maraschino liqueur (or maraschino cherry juice)
1 teaspoon fresh lime juice
½ cup crushed ice
Slice of lime
In a blender, blend all ingredients at high speed until thick. Serve in chilled martini glass, garnished with slice of lime.
From Eating Cuban
Nutrition facts per serving: 168 calories, 0 g fat, 0 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 9 g carbohydrates, 0 g protein, 1 mg sodium, 0 g fiber

Here is a second Hemingway Daiquiri recipe from when Hemingway drinks with A. E. Hotchner in his book Papa Hemingway:

2 jiggers Bacardi or Havana Club rum
(1 jigger = 1 1/2 ounces)
Juice of 2 limes
Juice of 1/2 grapefruit
6 drops of maraschino (cherry brandy)
Fill a blender one-quarter full of ice, preferably shaved or cracked. Add the rum, lime juice, grapefruit juice and maraschino. Blend on high until the mixture turns cloudy and light-colored (See Islands in the Stream, page 281 for a more Hemingway-esque description).
Serve immediately in large, conical goblets

1930s Havana Cuba as Ernest Hemingway saw it

2009-09-02T10:08:00.000-07:00

A tour of the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West

2009-09-10T09:36:00.000-07:00

Here is an amateur video tour inside the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West, Florida. The tour takes approximately 1 hour to 1 hour 30 minutes and it includes a tour guide. Entry is US$7 per person.

Ernest Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea

2010-08-01T09:13:00.000-07:00

Readings from The Old Man and the Sea, plus interviews with Cubans who knew Ernest Hemingway, including Ernesto Garcia Gutierrez. This excerpt is from the “Ernest Hemingway: Rivers to the Sea" which originally aired on TV as part of the PBS series. "American Masters."

Michael Palin's Hemingway adventure in Uganda (Africa)

2009-10-01T09:58:00.000-07:00

In this episode of Michael Palin’s Hemingway Adventure, Palin visits Uganda to see the site on the River Nile where Hemingway survived his African airplane crash.

Great Museums of Havana: Curious about Cuba

2009-11-03T09:52:00.000-08:00

Produced for Public Television by Great Museums TV, the episode “Curious about Cuba” not only featured the museums of Cuba and the City of old Havana, it also featured an exploration of Ernest Hemingway’s life at the Hemingway House Museum, Finca Vigia, which was his home from 1940 to 1960.

Ernest Hemingway’s house in Ketchum, Idaho

2009-09-14T06:57:00.000-07:00

Taylor Paslay, the caretaker of Ernest Hemingway's Ketchum, Idaho home where Hemingway committed suicide, gives a special tour of the house.