Fabada Asturiana is the signature dish of the province of Asturias in Spain. A good fabada is thick and flavorful; chock full of tender white beans and chunks of salty, smoky ham! The bean to use in this dish is a faba bean, what is sold in the United States as a butter bean. That's where this soup gets its name -- fabada!

Quesillo is a very traditional Cuban dessert. There is nothing gourmet about this one. It's prepared like flan, and tastes a lot like cheesecake. This is a great recipe for your kids to prepare. If you don't have a kid, why not rent one for the afternoon and enjoy quesillo tonight after dinner?

So many Cuban restaurants are run by professionally trained chefs who insist on turning simple Cuban fare into something gourmet and foreign. Some of the best Cuban restaurants are run by people who got all their training in the family kitchen.

Gladys Gutierrez got into the restaurant business preparing cantinas -- tin containers that were traditionally used by restaurants in Cuba to deliver hot food to people's homes -- for a loyal and growing list of customers. Working from her home, she soon ran afoul of the local authorities.

Faced with this ultimatum -- find a professional kitchen or shut down -- Gladys almost left the business. Then the owner of a local Mexican restaurant on Sunset came to the rescue. She could use the kitchen at his restaurant in the early morning hours to prepare her cantinas. Four months later she came to her husband with a proposition. Why not buy the restaurant and get into the business full time?

More than 16 years later, Gladys still arrives at El Cochinito early every morning to prepare menu items for that day...

There is nothing better on a lazy Sunday afternoon than Arroz Imperial, the rice dish that is the frequent star of many a Cuban table. The exact origins of this dish are unclear -- is it really Cuban? We do know that it is universally loved by Cubans and you see it on menus all over Miami. We developed our original recipe with the help of a lady in Hialeah who used to cater weddings and Cuban parties. Over the years, we tinkered with the recipe a bit and now it is one of our most requested dishes.

No more blue backgrounds!

We've completely re-designed our Three Guys from Miami pages to make them easier to see and navigate. We've also added new pages and updated many of the older pages with the latest information.

The result is a great looking site with plenty of information on the Cuban culture of Miami. Check out our new pages for the best places to go for restaurants, shopping and other Miami attractions. All from a Cuban perspective, of course!

In the Internet business we're used to having an idea in the morning and seeing it "in print" on the web by noon. However, the traditional print publishing business runs on a much different timetable, and we mean much slower -- a snail's pace! The publishing guys have taken the concept of "Cuban time" to new levels!

We are working very hard to get our new cookbook, "Three Guys from Miami Cook Cuban" out of the print shop and into the stores by September. Thanks to everyone who has badgered their local booksellers over the past two months, building a great buzz for the new book.