March 15, 2010

I Have A Love Affair With Cuban Bakeries

I do not know exactly what it is with Cuban bakeries, maybe something so familiar with my culture (I was born and raised in Argentina and moved to the States when I was 19), and came to Miami after living in San Francisco for a decade), and found a lot of comfort in Cuban food. But it all happened when I moved here. (Okay I will make it short, as you know I tend to always fly away from the subject- ADD someone?). I have been looking for that perfect experienced at a Cuban bakery and the one I feature on this video is a place that my (lovely) parents showed me when they were here last time visiting from Argentina. At the end of the video you will see Gianfranco who (this is a true story), is 74 years old and has been running Roma Bakery for 25 years, the truth of the story? (let me built it up to that). He took me to a tour of his bakery, from pastry preparation to gelato making to introducing me to the sweetest man who has been doing Cuban bread for 20 years. I sort of became so...attached to all this (in less than an hour =). He had all sort of stories, he told me about how Miami was 20 years ago - which I treasure this deeply...but the most shocking story was that although he has an Italian name (Gianfranco, it can not get more Italian than that=), he was born in Argentina, and lived as a child in the same town I am from! He moved from this town at the age of 7 and was brought to Miami by his Italian parents. This definitely touched my heart as you can imagine. Again, I have to stress the fact that he is 74 years old and still makes all of the cake designs and runs the entire bakery! I have a lot more to say about this day and how lucky I was meeting someone like him..., but I do not want to extend this post any longer (you might her bored? - please let me know), I shoot some video for you to (hoepfully) feel the same passion I do when I meet locals who every day put so much work to express their art through food...