Three Guys From Miami: The Interview
In which they talk about their new Cuban cookbook and try to answer more than 20 years of questions...
What are your qualifications for writing Cuban cookbooks?
Jorge: We are not professionally trained chefs. We owe our skills to many years working in the culinary trenches, actually cooking and eating Cuban food.
Raúl: Oh yeah, a whole lot of eating!
Glenn: We are just three guys who share a passion for good food, good conversation, and a great party. What that means to the average person is that every recipe in our book can be easily prepared by the amateur "at home" chef.
Jorge: The only skills required are a rudimentary knowledge of kitchen appliances and most of all, a good sense of humor!
Raúl: Our Cuban cookbooks represent three lifetimes of enjoying Cuban food and a long process creating, collecting, and refining our recipes.
Jorge: In our books, you'll find the dishes that we have cooked and eaten in our own homes for many years.
Glenn: Talk about field testing!
What made you decide to write Cuban cookbooks?
Glenn: It was a natural outgrowth of our website, which in turn came about because of our passion for Cuban food and culture.
Jorge: Glenn actually came up with the idea of creating a site that would share Cuban culture with the entire world. Not having the benefit of growing up Cuban, Glenn quickly assimilated the culture he "discovered" through Raúl and me.
Raúl: Let me tell you he fell in love with Miami and our culture -- he couldn't wait to share his newfound passion.
Jorge: Like me, Glenn first learned many of the basics of Cuban cooking from the "masters" -- the women of the combined Musibay-Castillo families.
Raúl: Years of cooking and eating later he has become a great cocinero Cubano -- a true Cuban cook!
Tell us more about your website...
Glenn: We created the first site in July of 1996; the site became iCuban.com: The Internet Cuban in 1999 and Three Guys from Miami became a website reality in 2000.
Jorge: Originally, the site was just something fun we did after one of many fishing trips. Glenn wanted to create a site about Raúl and Miami. He told Raúl then, "I may never make you rich, but I will make you famous."
Raúl: Little did we know how true that statement would be!
Jorge: Originally, the site was about Florida fishing and we covered a few Cuban topics. Soon, people started writing in asking if we had this or that Cuban food recipe.
Raúl: We obviously had many recipes of our own, and we'd also ask family and friends for their recipes.
Glenn: We also discovered another need. We saw that many visitors to Miami would like to experience Cuban culture, but they just didn't know how.
Raúl: We created a whole Miami travel section on our website to show people how to enjoy the Cuban side of Miami with the best places to go, to shop, to eat and have fun.
Jorge: Our site has grown exponentially over the years and has become one of the most popular Cuban sites on the web.
Glenn: More than six million visitors have experienced a taste of Cuban culture through our sites.
What about your individual backgrounds?
Glenn: Well the Department of Homeland Security has run a complete background check on the three of us and they pretty much discovered what everyone else has known all along -- wow, these guys are crazy!
Jorge: Raúl and I grew up in Cuba and we both came to the United States about the same time.
Glenn: I grew up in Minneapolis, far from the influence of hot Havana nights and warm tropical breezes.
Raúl: In 1980, after years of trying, I was finally able to take my family out of Cuba through Spain and then to the United States. Jorge followed not long after that in the Mariel boatlift.
Jorge: Contrary to the movie "Scarface," the vast majority of Cubans who came to America in the boatlift were not criminals.
Glenn: I can vouch for Jorge. Although some of the things he's done in the kitchen have bordered on the criminal!
Jorge: I ended up moving to Iowa not long after I arrived in Miami. I just looked at a map and picked a spot in the middle of the country. I figured Iowa would be the best place to refine my English and learn about American culture.
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