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Jorge Castillo: It was actually a good experience for me. I completed my education, I started my first profession, and I met my wife Mary there.

Glenn Lindgren: Mary happened to be my wife Maureen's sister -- or maybe they planned it that way. In any case, I would have never met Jorge if he had stayed in Miami!

Raúl Musibay: And there would only be Two Guys from Miami and no website.

So were there a lot of Cubans in Iowa?

Jorge Castillo: Hardly any! And no Cuban food, either!

Glenn Lindgren: That also ended up working to our advantage. We figured out that if we wanted to eat Cuban food in the Midwest, we were going to have to learn how to cook it ourselves!

How does a Swedish guy from Minnesota end up cooking and writing about Cuban food?

Glenn Lindgren: When I met Jorge, I had never tasted Cuban food and like most Americans, the only Cuban I knew of was Desi Arnaz. Jorge used to receive "Care Packages" of Cuban treats from Miami, and not knowing exactly how much I could eat, he foolishly offered to share them with me.

Jorge Castillo: Wow, Glenn did end up eating a lot of my food!

Glenn Lindgren: I immediately fell in love with Cuban food. It was like, "Cuban food where have you been all of my life?" The passion grew...

Raúl Musibay: ...and so did Glenn!

Glenn Lindgren: The funny thing about the "I Love Lucy Show" -- you rarely saw Desi and Lucy eating any Cuban food.

Raúl Musibay: Not a black bean anywhere is sight!

Jorge Castillo: So our Miami Cuban cookbooks are unofficially dedicated to Lucy -- she really could have used our books!

Glenn Lindgren: Fred and Ethel really missed out on some great Cuban cooking...

In the traditional Cuban household, don't the women do all of the cooking?

Jorge Castillo: Yes, many Cuban households in Cuba and even older families in Miami still follow what we think of as a traditional family unit with traditional roles from the 1950s. It's just like "Leave it to Beaver" with Ward going off to work each day and June staying home to cook and raise the kids.

Glenn Lindgren: Wasn't that an episode of the "Twilight Zone?"

Jorge Castillo: The traditional model has changed however, with succeeding generations of Cuban Americans.

Glenn Lindgren: That's right, many Cuban men can and do cook Cuban food.

Raúl Musibay: It's amazing.

Jorge Castillo: For Glenn and me, cooking Cuban food started out as a necessity...

Glenn Lindgren: There weren't any Cuban restaurants in Iowa and Minnesota in those early days and no Cuban ladies around to cook for us either.

Jorge Castillo: Cooking Cuban food became a passion as we worked to perfect our skills and develop the Three Guys from Miami recipes.

How did you get started?

Raúl Musibay: Jorge and Glenn started by calling the family in Miami to find out how to make whatever dish they craved.

Jorge Castillo: Many times the instructions were somewhat vague -- a little of this, a little of that -- so they required a lot of improvisation on our parts!

Is it true that Raúl doesn't even cook?

Glenn Lindgren: Raúl lives in that 1950s household we mentioned; only in his case, he has three women -- his wife, his mother, and his wife's mother -- all cooking for him every day.

Jorge Castillo: Talk about an episode of the Twilight Zone!

Raúl Musibay: OK, I have to admit it. I have been blessed!

Jorge Castillo: Getting in the kitchen and doing some "hands on" work is something that has gradually happened for Raúl over the last several years as we have pulled him into the kitchen.

Raúl Musibay: Somehow, I always end up peeling the plantains!

Glenn Lindgren: Raúl is, however, the master of the pigroast. Whenever we roast a pig, we all take our directions from the master.

Jorge Castillo: Raúl shares our passion for Cuban food, so he is the ultimate taste tester and critic of every new recipe!

How do you guys collaborate on writing?

Jorge Castillo: Glenn does all of the writing -- that is the skill that he brings to the mix. He has been involved in various forms of professional writing for the past 30 years.

Glenn Lindgren: Raúl and Jorge act as vast resources about life in Cuba and Cuban culture in the United States. They are my primary source for information and inspiration.

Raúl Musibay: We all "live the life" and Glenn writes about it.

Jorge Castillo: The recipes, of course, have been a collaborative and sometimes a competitive effort. We say competitive, because many of our recipes have literally come out of three kitchens -- the Musibay and Castillo Kitchens in Miami and the Lindgren kitchen in Minneapolis.

Glenn Lindgren: We all work to come up with the recipe we think tastes best. We share our ideas and discoveries, and we frequently try to outdo each other. Eventually we all get together and work out our differences.

Raúl Musibay: This "recipe merging" is the result of many arguments!

Jorge Castillo: For example, we went back and forth on the paella recipe for years, with Glenn wanting to do it completely in the oven -- I preferred to do it on the stovetop.

Glenn Lindgren: We now cook our paella on the stovetop and finish it in the oven.

Where do you get your recipes?

Jorge Castillo: Well, first we have a strong base of recipes from several generations of the Castillo and Musibay families. Raúl and I ate these recipes in Cuba. Raúl's mom and my mom are our major sources for these dishes.

Glenn Lindgren: In turn, the roots of many of these family recipes can be traced to the work of Nitza Villapol, the Betty Crocker of Cuba. Jorge's sister Esther still faithfully uses her copy of Nitza's Cuban cookbook.

Jorge Castillo: Another major source is our attempts at duplicating dishes -- we ate something in a restaurant that we liked or we received an email from someone asking for a recipe that we had eaten in the past. Most restaurants are reluctant to give out their recipes, so we generally head to our kitchens and with a lot of trial and error; we come up with something that tastes a lot like the dish we remember...

Raúl... and many times a lot better!

Glenn Lindgren: We have also done a lot of research on old original recipes from Spain -- written in Spanish of course -- they form the bedrock of many Cuban dishes. Our Caldo Gallego recipe for example, is based on several original recipes for this dish from Spain.

Jorge Castillo: We also have received hundreds of recipes from the visitors to our website over the past eight years.

Glenn Lindgren: Usually, we don't use the recipes exactly as we receive them. For one thing, we can't resist the opportunity to tinker.

Raúl Musibay: We rarely make the same dish exactly the same way we did the last time!

Glenn Lindgren: Doing a Cuban cookbook required us to learn a lot of discipline!

Jorge Castillo: When you get 20 different recipes for frijoles negros , you tend to treat the recipes as source material -- looking at some of the twists other people have added over the years and synthesizing and experimenting until we have the flavor we like.

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