The Three Guys descended on Los Angeles on January 6 -- just in time to enjoy about five hours of cold sunshine. The next four days brought weather like we've never seen before. We're talking about non-stop rain, mud and rock slides, torrential downpours, flooded streets, closed bridges, and oh yeah, did we mention that it rained a lot? Our choice of a convertible at the airport proved to be one of the craziest ideas we (Jorge) ever had.

All of the rain did not dampen our spirits and although getting from Point A to Point B became very difficult, we made it to all of our appearances. We were truly amazed and heartened by the number of people who braved the bad weather to attend our cooking demonstrations and book signings.

Friday was an off day, so we took some time to see the sights. The rain continued to fall, the top stayed up on the convertible, and our outside touring was limited. We did get a chance to drive out to Malibu, and then we went up Sunset, drove along Mulholland Drive, and checked out the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Of course we had to stop at Grauman's Chinese Theatre and the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Raúl was scoping out a spot for his star when the skies opened up and we all got soaked. We headed out to Burbank to see where "Friends" and "ER" were taped, and took a brief tour of the NBC Studios.

Because we were so close to Glendale, we had to stop at Porto's Bakery for the best Cuban bread and pastries on the west coast.

Our Saturday morning cooking class was at the Sur la Table in Newport Beach. The staff really went all out on the ingredients and the 26 students in attendance enjoyed some great seafood including several pounds of lobster at $50.00 per pound!

Again we were delighted that we had so many of our long-time fans in the audience at Newport Beach, including several Cubans.

Saturday night found the Three Guys in Carlsbad. We ran into a couple in the lobby of our hotel who recognized us from our Food Network appearances. Another occasion where we wished we had an extra copy of the book!

Putting the finishing touches (steamed clams) on our signature dish, paella! Raúl lends moral support.

We made the short drive down to San Diego and had dinner by the bay. Sunday afternoon brought our largest class -- 33 people at the Sur la Table store in Carlsbad.

Our special thanks to all of the people at Sur la Table who made our job so much easier. Each store had four or five people on hand to do all of our prep work, and the Culinary Coordinators: Melanie Barsuk at Santa Monica, Tim Frank at Newport Beach, and Aliza Ciceronne at Carlsbad made everything run smoothly.

It was a real treat just to show up and do our cooking thing without all of the slicing and dicing -- not to mention all of the clean up!

Raúl's personal fan club!

Thanks to Sur la Table for sponsoring our West Coast trip and seeing that we were treated like royalty every where we went! If you have a Sur La Table store near you, ask the manager when they're going to have the Three Guys From Miami appear at their store! We'd love to visit a city near you!

Come See the Three Guys From Miami

Appearing January 29 in Miami!

Back from a successful tour of the West Coast, the Three Guys from Miami return home for a TV interview and book signing. Look for us this month on local Miami station CBS 4 WFOR.

On Saturday, January 29 at 1:00 PM, join us at the Barnes & Noble in West Kendall. We'll be signing copies of our new cookbook, "Three Guys From Miami Cook Cuban." Come and meet us in person!

Blue Garlic?

Second Printing!

We have been cooking with garlic and citrus all our lives and until recently we had never seen any blue garlic.

However, in the past few months we have been victims of the blue garlic phenomenon. We will be making a simple mojo or maybe making a sauce for tostones and we'll suddenly discover that all of the garlic in our mixture has turned blue!!

Evidently, chefs all over the United States have been running into this problem.

It seems that there are compounds in garlic called "anthocyanins" and when they are exposed to a change in acidity, they can react with the acid and turn blue. Our friends in the garlic capitol of the United States, Gilroy California, assure us that the change in color does not affect the taste or the edibility of the garlic in any way. It seems that when the garlic was harvested and at what temperature the garlic was stored are factors in this transformation.

Why have we never seen this before? Nobody knows for sure. If you are making a sauce or mojo that includes oil, combining the garlic with the oil first before adding your citrus juice seems to help alleviate the blue color change -- but not always!

Blue garlic just doesn't look very appetizing on a plate of tostones!

Finding a copy of our new cookbook, "Three Guys from Miami Cook Cuban," has been difficult lately with many booksellers running out and having a hard time keeping the book on the shelves.

To help alleviate the shortage, the book is now going to a second printing! You can do us a favor by asking your local retailer to order a copy for you.

Too many people, when they don't see the book on the shelf, are just walking away. Because they don't ask, retailers just don't know how many books to order.

When the books do come in, the "discouraged" buyers return and sweep them off the shelves, making it that much harder for everyone else to find one.

So please, let the stores know that YOU want a copy!

These stores are carrying our book nationwide (USA).

In Canada, Indigo Books, Chapters, and Cole's Books are nationwide sources.

Sour Oranges in California

For years, readers in California have been asking us, "where can I get sour orange juice in California?" It seems that laws meant to protect the states citrus industry have prevented fresh sour oranges from entering the state. And for years, no one was growing the oranges within the state. The sour (or bitter) orange is actually the Seville orange, used as the rootstock for most varieties of sweet oranges. During one of our cooking classes in Santa Monica, one of the participants mentioned that he had found sour oranges at a local market -- El Camaguey on Venice Blvd in West Los Angeles.

Thanks to Annette Gallardo, another attendee, for keeping this information for us when our notes ended up in the Sur la Table dumpster. Annette runs a very popular cooking school, the South Bay School of Cooking. Check out her website: http://www.southbayschoolofcooking.com for more information.

Annette also provided us with a list of several Latin food sources in addition to a couple of sources for sour oranges.

CLICK HERE for a complete listing including more information about El Camaguey.

We've never been big fans of the Caja China -- the barbecue box that many Cubans use to roast pigs. We prefer to roast our pigs the same way the Musibay and Castillo families did for decades in Cuba. The caja china, with the coals on top, just doesn't produce the same flavor!

Now a Cuban guy has a new twist on the Caja China. He calls his a "Caja Cubana" or "Asador Cubano." We haven't tried one, but we know he got one thing right -- the coals are on the bottom where they belong!

While we'll stick with our own backyard roaster, you might want to take a look at this new idea.