La Ventanita

Hola, loyal listeners of La Ventanita, Carlos here. This is bittersweet to write.

After six amazing years at the Miami Herald, I’m leaving for a fantastic, unexpected opportunity. I’ll be the new host of Sundial, the daily mid-day show on WLRN 91.3 FM, our NPR station. My goal: to keep telling the stories that make Miami wonderful and weird.

But before we go, Amy and I say our goodbyes (figuratively, we're buds and will always be buds) and banter one last time. On tap:

It's been real. Peace.

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Vicky Bakery is synonymous with croquetas, pastelitos and Cuban bread in Miami.

And Pedro’s father, Antonio Cao, founded the Vicky Bakery that we know today 50 years ago. Antonio was a baker in Cuba. When he immigrated, he bought a small bakery in east Hialeah, kept the name and turned it into arguably the most famous Cuban bakery in South Florida. Pedro became a master baker and took over the business when his dad retired, franchising it to more than a dozen locations — with more on the way.

Now, in the interest of full disclosure: Carlos' mom was raised with the Cao family, back in the tiny country town of Cárdenas, Cuba. (There may even be video of him dancing with Pedro’s younger sister in a quinceañera. We'll look for it for the video version of the podcast on YouTube.)

Plus! Carlos joins Amy's fit life (almost), Philadelphia Inquirer joins Miami Herald in dropping starred reviews, James Beard awards are open for nominations for 2022.

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The man behind Joe’s Stone Crab is actually a Stephen. 

Stephen Sawitz is the great-grandson of Joe Weiss, who founded the Miami Beach restaurant in 1913. Four generations of his family have steered it into icon status. Now it’s Stephen’s turn. He’s the latest steward of Joe’s Stone Crab.

He tells us crazy stories about his grandfather, Jesse, who the restaurant's own website describes thusly: "Jesse was a character. He was a scoundrel, a womanizer to the hundredth degree, a gambler. But everyone who came into Joe's wanted to see Jesse."

He tells us why stone crab claws are boiled the second they come off the boat, whether you can tell frozen from fresh, what his grandparents did to defend Joe's against development, and what it's like to take over a restaurant with $40 million in revenue that is a family legacy and a Miami Beach institution.

Plus: La Planchita's maiden voyage pressing sandwiches, a rom-com themed restaurant and how to help a Hurricane Ian ravaged restaurant in Sanibel Island.

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Antonio Bachour’s beautiful desserts became famous before he did. 

Millions of followers on Instagram watch him make the glistening, colorful mirror-glazed desserts for which he has been named the best pastry chef in the world — twice! — at his Coral Gables shop. And Bachour (pronounced like a sneeze!) travels the world over giving away the secrets to his jewel-like treats.

Plus! The moment you've all been waiting for: La Planchita is revealed. Carlos gives us a tour of how his commercial sandwich press went from restaurant workhorse to blinged centerpiece of his kitchen. (Search YouTube for La Ventanita on Miami Herald to see the video and photos.)

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Vanessa Garcia wrote the story of rum.

Her play, the Amparo Experience, told the true tale of the Cuban family behind the real Havana Club Rum — and it became the hottest theater ticket in Miami, selling out show after show for six months.

Vanessa manages to grab people’s attention with her varied work: plays, journalism, fiction, non-fiction and podcasts. Even the pandemic couldn’t stop her. She wrote a radio play and another performed virtually, “Jenna and the Whale,” with my buddy Jake Cline.

And she’s a voice for Cuban artists and dissidents on the island that the government tries to silence.

We talk to her about her newest work, “What the Bread Says,” a children’s book about how an entire country’s story can be told through its bread. Plus an upcoming play that also involves food with the poet Richard Blanco.

Plus! An update on Carlos' Planchita and Amy climbs her backyard tree like an avocado monkey.

Find all Vanessa's work on IG: @vanessagarciawriter

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Angry vegan diners, Miami food halls and why the FDA had to tell people not to cook chicken in cough syrup required an all-banter episode of La Ventanita, the weekly Miami Herald food podcast.

Co-host Amy Reyes, Miami.com’s editor, had barely asked our guest last week, Ani Meinhold. who were the toughest diners to accommodate when she blurted out, “vegans.” Food editor and co-host Carlos Frías grabbed 26 seconds of her answer for a little tease on Instagram Reels, and, hoo boy, did the plant-eating internet get angry about it.

Today we got into it about why entitled diners — of any lifestyle — are the worst diners. Plus we discussed:

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You can’t say the word “pop up” in Miami today without thinking of Ani Meinhold, who opened Miami’s first one 10 years ago.

That pop-up was Phuc Yea!, a Vietnamese concept that came alive every night, when she and co-founder Cesar Zapata took over a downtown diner every night and rewrote the menu. Now it’s a Michelin-recognized restaurant.

We also discuss:

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It's an all-banter show where Amy Reyes and Carlos Frías dig into all the juicy bits of food news to come out of the 305 in the last week. Among the topics:

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Miami’s first and only “Top Chef” winner, Jeremy Ford, wrestled Anthony Bourdain.

He wrestled with demons as a Miami chef. And he wrestles with raising three daughters.

Ford has a Hollywood vibe, but he's a down-to-earth guy who gave up cooking for a stretch to look after his diabetic mother. It was her diabetes diagnosis when he was 8 that led him to grow his own food for the family and make "clean eating" a thing long before it was cool.

He talks about how his late mother, who was adopted, found her biological family and Ford learned he had an Italian grandmother — who taught him how to cook Italian food at 14.

It changed his life.

We get into all of it, plus his being awarded a Michelin star at his South Beach restaurant Stubborn Seed, his branching out with new restaurants.

PLUS! And update on La Planchita — sandwich days are coming soon, we hope.

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More than a year ago, Jeff Houck told us he was working on a book that would shock the world’s understanding of where the Cuban sandwich came from.

You always hear Tampa vs Miami. But Jeff and the lead author on this book went beyond the debate. To write “The Cuban Sandwich: A History in Layers,” they looked at primary sources — advertisements, restaurant menus and newspaper articles, dating back to the 1870s.

The result? Two new cities entered the chat: Havana and New York.

Jeff’s origin story is just as interesting, though. He’s a former food writer, editor and restaurant reviewer for the late Tampa Tribune (pour one out) whose work has been nominated for Pulitzer Prize. He now tells the food stories of Florida’s oldest restaurant, the Columbia.

Plus! Amy returns from a Detroit crab boil and we discuss Miami's version of Buddy's Detroit pizza, Vice City Pizza.

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