Three Guys from Miami Cook Cuban - Hardcover

Glenn M. Lindgren; Raul Musibay; Jorge Castillo

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 158685433X ISBN 13: 9781586854331

Publisher: Gibbs Smith, 2004

Synopsis

Written by the trio that has spawned a renewal of interest in Cuban cuisine, this guide to the flavors of Cuba reveals the island as a tasty confluence of Spanish spices, tropical ingredients, and African influence.

About this title

About the Author

The Three Guys From Miami are all brothers-in-law. Brought together by fate, they became fast friends who share a passion for good food, good conversation, and a great party. The Three Guys from Miami provide Cuban cooking tips and advice for professional and amateur chefs all over the world. Their recipes have been included in several cookbooks, newspapers, and national magazines. They also have made several appearances on the Food Network, were featured in a Public television documentary, have appeared on the Travel Channel, and are frequent guests on public radio.


Glenn Lindgren first came to Miami in 1984 and fell in love with the city, the people, and Cuban culture. A freelance writer by profession, Glenn documents the antics of the Three Guys from Miami in books and on the Internet. When not in Miami, Glenn lives in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife, two daughters, and a son.

Raúl Musibay, born in Cayo la Rosa, near Bauta, in the province of Havana, spent one winter in New Jersey but has been a full-time Miami resident every since. He and his wife have two married children.

Jorge Castillo was born and raised in Cayo la Rosa, Havana. He came to the United States via the Mariel Boatlift in 1980. He now lives in Miami's West Dade with his wife and two daughters.

From the Back Cover

Meet the Three Guys From MiamiTM -three hombres who love Cuban culture and food so much that they started a tremendously popular website-iCuban.com: The Internet Cuban. Millions of people have already discovered these Three Guys and their tasty recipes-and now you can too!
"This [garlic] soup is unlike anything I had ever experienced. It's like bread pudding, but savory, and so light it's buoyant. It was a pot-licker that night, I'll tell you what."
--Chef Boy Ari, food columnist
"These fellows are funny , , , The website was [originally] simply "'something fun to do'" among friends with a passion for succulent eating-a.k.a. lovers of family gatherings around a pig in a pit, of pounds and pounds of salmon on the grill, of thick frijoles negros bien cuajaditos (black beans of impeccable consistency), of the mashed plantain dish fufu."-Fabiola Santiago, Miami Herald

From the Inside Flap

$29.95 U.S.From simple Cuban fare like frijoles and tamales, to elaborate dishes like a rich, seafood-packed paella, this hot recipe book is packed with Miami Cuban spice and local color. If you can't get to Miami for a Cuban sandwich, the next best thing is making your own-or maybe it's even better. One thing is certain: the Three Guys will make the experience both fun and memorable.Enter the sensational world of Cuban cuisine, which blends the spices of Spain, the tropical tastes of the Caribbean, a strong African influence, and some new-world spices to boot. You don't have to be a professional cook to make these extraordinary recipes, and you definitely don't need to be Cuban to cook and eat them. But don't be surprised if you develop a yen to visit the Cuban neighborhoods of Miami as you savor the mouth-watering flavors of Cuban cooking. The recipes in this book represent twenty years of experimentation, refinement, and a lot of trial and error to make them uniquely their own. Many of the recipes were created "from scratch" by the Three Guys after enjoying a meal at a restaurant and trying to duplicate it in their own kitchens. Some are long-time family favorites from Cuba, re-interpreted to take advantage of the abundance of food and ingredients in Miami. All the recipes include a special ingredient: a heaping tablespoon of humor. As the Three Guys say, "If we're not having fun in the kitchen, we're not doing anything in the kitchen!" The Three Guys From Miami are all brothers-in-law. Brought together by fate, they became fast friends who share a passion for good food, good conversation, and a great party.Glenn Lindgren first came to Miami in 1984 and fell in love with the city, the people, and Cuban culture. A freelance writer by profession, Glenn documents the antics of the Three Guys from MiamiTM in books and on the Internet. When not in Miami, Glenn lives in Minnesota with his wife, two daughters, and a son. Ra?l Musibay, born in Cayo la Rosa, near Bauta, in the province of Havana, spent one winter in New Jersey but has been a full-time Miami resident every since. He and his wife have two married children. Jorge Castillo was born and raised in Cayo la Rosa, Havana. He came to the United States via the Mariel Boatlift in 1980. He now lives in Miami's West Dade with his wife and two daughters.Three Guys from MiamiTM have appeared in 2002 on Keith Famie's Adventures, and in2003 on Tyler's Ultimate, and in Christmas in America-all on the Food Network. Your kids may recognize them as "Mariel's dad" and "Mariel's uncle" on two episodes of Switched on the ABC Family channel!

Reviews

This cookbook boasts solid renditions of Cuban dishes, but readers will have to suffer through the cheesy repartee among its three authors, who have a Cuban culture Web site, www.iCuban.com. A brief introduction entices with information about Cuban migration to Miami, but margin notes to the recipes tend toward repetitious and obvious exchanges. A recipe for Fried Stuffed Potatoes, for example, begins with Raúl commenting, "This is one Cuban snack that if you haven't tried, you probably don't know what in the heck it is." Still, the food itself is alluring. Avocado and Pineapple Salad is refreshingly unusual, and marinating Cuban-Style Skirt Steak in a mix of onion, herbs and sour orange juice before grilling delivers maximum flavor with minimal work. The authors nicely cover savory snacks like Cornmeal Pancakes, numerous types of empanadas, and Plantain Chips. They also remain true to authentic Cuban cuisine by not skimping on the frying, though fat-phobic Americans will probably avoid the Fried Pork Chunks. Occasionally the recipes slip into a cutesy tone (one for Cuban Bread cheerleads, "it's a little sticky, but you can do it!" then begins a later step with, "When you return from the pool..."). Overall, this effort stands out less because of its appeal than because it has so few competitors.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

We are not classically trained chefs. We have, however, been cooking and eating Cuban food all of our lives except for Glenn. He s only been cooking and eating it for twenty-three years, but he s working real hard to catch up! Are we experts? We d certainly like to think so, but how can we be experts when we are learning something new every day? What we can say is that there is no one more dedicated to Cuban food and we have the waistlines to prove it!

If you are new to Cuban cuisine, you are about to enter a new world of flavor. Cuban cooking combines the tastes of Spain with the tropical flavors of the Caribbean. Throw in some New World spices and ingredients and a strong African influence and you have the essence of Cuban cookery. Cuban food is highly spiced but NOT spicy hot. Cubans just don t use the hot peppers that are such an integral part of many Latin American cuisines.

Our recipes also reflect, quite naturally, ingredients and methods that were refined by Cuban exiles after they came to the United States. Here they found an abundance of foods that were either very scarce or completely unavailable in Castro s Cuba. Fish and seafood are two examples of foods that were rarely enjoyed in Cuba after 1959. It was also impossible to get real olive oil an ingredient that gives so many Cuban dishes a distinctive Spanish flavor. Exile in the U.S. also exposed Cubans to ingredients they never saw in Havana. Salmon is very popular with Miami Cubans, for example, but unheard of back home in Cuba.

This cookbook represents three lifetimes of enjoying Cuban food and a long process of creating, collecting, and refining the recipes we present here. These are the Cuban food favorites that we have cooked and eaten in our own homes for many years. Many of our recipes are based on longtime family recipes from several generations of the Musibay and Castillo families. In all cases we present our dishes as they are enjoyed today by Cubans in Miami. Although we have added our own twists over the years, our recipes are rooted in the classic dishes of Cuba. You won t find any "Nuevo Latino" or Pan-Latin recipes here!

Wherever possible we have made these dishes simple to prepare. You don t need to be a professional chef to create any of the recipes in this book. You also won t find a lot of esoteric, hard to find, or expensive ingredients such as truffle shavings, couscous, arugula, or anything in aspic! Best of all, you don t need to be Cuban to cook and enjoy these delicious recipes. If a Swedish guy from Minnesota can cook Cuban food (and he does it very well), you can too!

We must also acknowledge Nitza Villapol, the "Betty Crocker of Cuba." We can t agree with her political beliefs, but she did help standardize Cuban recipes for the masses. In the 1950s, every new Cuban bride received a copy of her cookbook. Everyone cooking Cuban food today is indebted to her pioneering efforts in collecting Cuban recipes. In fact, several of the dishes we prepare today have their roots in her early work. Just about every home in Miami has a tattered copy of this Cuban food bible; Raúl s wife, Esther, still uses her copy faithfully.

Finally, we owe a debt of gratitude to the many visitors to our website from around the world who have helped us with recipe ideas and suggestions, questions and comments that have inspired us to do better, and complaints when a recipe just didn t turn out like it should have. Their encouragement and appreciation have been our inspiration.

So thank you so much for purchasing our book! We hope that you and your family enjoy these delicious dishes!

Edition details

• Publisher: Gibbs Smith
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 158685433X
• ISBN 13: 9781586854331
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 234