"Your Mama's Kitchen" transcript: Episode 10

Your Mama's Kitchen Episode 10: Andy Garcia

Audible Originals presents Your Mama's Kitchen, hosted by Michele Norris.

Higher Ground and Audible Originals present Your Mama's Kitchen, hosted by Michele Norris.

Andy García That early kitchen, mama's kitchen, was, you know, fried spam with a little bit of sugar and powdered eggs and rice. You know, the basics. But, of course, as time passed, then that began to change a little bit. And it really began to change when my grandmother on my mother's side and my grandfather came about four or five years later, everything that my mother knew about cooking came from her mother. She was the real chef. My mother was a good cook, but the grandmother was... she was a shit, you know?

Michele Norris Welcome to Your Mama's Kitchen, the podcast that explores how we're shaped as adults by the kitchens we grew up in as kids. I'm Michele Norris.

Michele Norris In today's episode, we're talking to someone who loves everything about food. Cooking it, shopping for it, talking about it. And that might be a bit of a surprise because most of us know Andy García more as an actor than a chef. If you've been to the movies in the last 40 years, you've seen Andy García in a slew of iconic films: The Untouchables, When a Man Loves a Woman, Hoodlum, Hero. Ocean's Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen. And, of course, The Godfather III. He was nominated for an Academy Award for that one.

Michele Norris Andy García. His role as a family man is even more important to him. He's been married for more than 40 years and he and his wife have three daughters and a son, all adults now. And they all love spending time in the kitchen when they're together.

Michele Norris But of course, that's not where the story begins. Andy was born into a different life and a different culture in Havana, Cuba. His family escaped Fidel Castro's regime with Andy and his two siblings in tow to join a community of Cuban exiles in Miami. It was in Florida that Andy first remembers falling in love with his native Cuban cuisine, often cooked by his grandmother while his own parents were out working, taking odd jobs to make ends meet and eventually becoming successful entrepreneurs in their adopted country.

Michele Norris The kitchen was Andy's favorite room. There was music on the radio, conversation at the table, and something delicious always simmering on the stove. That room obviously left a strong impression because, as I quickly learned, Andy García knows his way around the kitchen. The man has skills. His version of Cuban-inspired chicken fricassee is something you can almost taste as you hear him describe it. Food for Andy is a bridge to a world his family left behind. And we hear about his journey as an immigrant, an actor, and a family man. All that and a lot more in today's episode. So let's get cookin’.

Michele Norris Andy García, I'm so glad you're with us.

Andy García Thank you.

Michele Norris I'm excited for this conversation.

Michele Norris I've always wanted to talk to you. I'm glad we can do it and have a conversation about food.

Andy García If you mention food, I'll be there.

Michele Norris I'm kind of like that, too. You don't have to call me twice. I will be there. Well, this is a podcast where we always begin with a simple question. Tell me about your mama's kitchen. But when I ask you that question, I wonder if your mind goes to your mom's kitchen in Miami or if you could actually remember her kitchen in Cuba?

Andy García I guess I remember it from stories because I was five years old when I left.

Michele Norris Mmhmm.

Andy García I remember more sort of what we call exile in Miami Beach. When we arrived from Cuba in '61, we were able to get this little efficiency motel that you pay by the week or by the day. And they have all these little motels that are sort of shaped like in a U, they're one story and there's a little courtyard in the middle. And these efficiencies were sort of designed for northerners to come down for a week and be able to walk across the street to the public beach. And they are basically like a suite. You have a little living room, a bedroom, and a little kitchenette area. And we were there. We got to that efficiency because, you know, when we came because of the situation of the Cuban revolution and all that, when you left Cuba, they already had taken everything from you. Your businesses, your house, and you couldn't really take anything out, because they had changed the monetary standards and they had taken whatever moneys you had. So we borrowed a dime. When I say we, I didn't. My mother borrowed a dime in the airport to call her brother, who was already there, living nearby this efficiency.

Michele Norris Oh, wait, wait, wait. Your parents arrived and they literally had to borrow a dime from someone to call a family member.

Andy García Yes. Yeah. And so we came first with my mother. My father came about a month and a half or two months later. And one of the things that happened during that time, there was a thing called the Cuban Refugee Program. You would go to the Freedom Tower in downtown Miami area and you would get rations, and not stamps, but physical food rations. So you would get, almost like military rations. You would get powdered eggs, very large can of spam, a very large block of Velveeta cheese. Rice, I believe, peanut butter. And that was pretty much a staple for a while, you know. Father finally came and was able to get the first job available. He went to work at the Fontainebleau Hotel in the janitorial services, and then kept moving up the ladder. You know, like many exiles with their family, they were doctors, but they just took their first job available. There was no time to say, I'm a lawyer. First of all, you can't be a lawyer in America. You have to pass the bar. And so you just go to work and you begin the process of providing for your family.

Andy García And so that early kitchen, mama's kitchen, was, you know, fried spam with a little bit of sugar and powdered eggs and rice, you know, the basics. But, of course, you know, as time passed, then that began to change a little bit. And it really began to change when my grandmother on my mother's side and my grandfather came about four or five years later, and everything that my mother knew about cooking came from her mother. She was the real chef. My mother was a good cook, but the grandmother was -- she was a shit, you know? And because both my mother and father worked, it was my grandmother who was at home who was already in her early 80s. She was the one that cooked and I would watch her cook. You know, I could see the things that she would do on a daily basis, the things she would put together.

Michele Norris There was a word, you know, apron strings.

Andy García Yeah, that's right. You're looking up at her as she's cooking. And every so often, like my dogs, when you eat and they come and scratch out your leg to see if something drops on the floor. So you're kind of around her also going like -- like a little bird in a nest. You're, you know, you're getting thrown scrap.

Michele Norris With your mouth open.

Andy García Yeah, you're getting thrown scraps.

Michele Norris But you got to taste test things.

Andy García All the time. All the time.

Michele Norris You got to lick the spoon, you got to do –

Andy García All the time.

Michele Norris Does that describe your relationship in the kitchen?

Andy García Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes.

Michele Norris Is there one kitchen in particular when you go back in your mind that you can picture? And if so, take me there, help me see it. Close your eyes and describe it for me. What did it look like? What was going on at the stove? What was going on at the kitchen table, What was going on outside the window?

Andy García When we finally had sort of a kitchen big enough to actually move around in, you know, because we were always cooking for a family of six of us. And then the other grandparents came and they became eight of us. So once that happened, we were cooking. Like I said, my grandmother did most of the cooking because both my parents worked at that time. And when I'd come home from school, she'd be at it, you know? So I'd go to the kitchen, and then...

Michele Norris Wait. Who would be, mom or grandma?

Andy García No, grandma. Mom was working all the time. My mother was an English teacher in Cuba, and she got a secretarial job during those years. And then later on, she went to work with my father because his wholesale business started to grow and she just went to work in the family business.

Michele Norris And you said when you got home from school, your grandma would be at it. What would she be doing in the kitchen?

Andy García She'd be, you know, preparing the stew. You're preparing the recipe for that night, you know, and cooking, you know, you immediately obviously gravitate towards the kitchen when you smell that stuff and you go hey, you give her a kiss. What are you doing? What are we having for dinner? What are you cooking? And then, you know, and she let me taste or I would help her. Or we just watch her. And then I'd run to the park, which was across the street and go play ball, you know? And then we'd all have dinner together at night, you know, when my parents got home.

Michele Norris Isn't that a beautiful thing? To walk in a house? And beautiful, wonderful, delicious smells are coming out of the kitchen.

Andy García Oh, it's amazing. It's amazing.

Michele Norris There's nothing like it. There's nothing like it.

Andy García Yeah. The curious thing was that one of the jobs that my father ended up doing, he got a job managing a catering company, and what we call the cantina. And this is a thing where I'm not sure if you've ever been witness to this, but again, this is the early 60s. You would sign up, let's say, as your family, and you would order on a weekly basis for food to be delivered to you when you got home because you were working, you're a kid, so the cantina was like almost like those military tins, so they would stack on top of each other.

Michele Norris There's a -- you see them in India a lot.

Andy García Yeah.

Michele Norris Trying to remember the name of those. Yes.

Andy García They slide down.

Michele Norris Tiffin!

Andy García Yeah. And they slide down these two rails and they stack up against each other and they're all about maybe like eight inches in circumference or something like that. And so you'd have the soup on the bottom or the black beans and the first tin and then the rice and then the meat that you would order where there would be picadillo or ropa vieja then fried bananas. And then I think maybe a dessert on top or something like that. And that would be left at your house.

Michele Norris This sounds like a great -- wait. This sounds like a great idea. I mean, I would do this today if someone was doing this.

Andy García Yeah.

Michele Norris That sounds delicious.

Andy García And you would fill out, you know, what do you want on Tuesday? What do you want on Wednesday? And they give you options like the meat on Wednesday would either be like picadillo or ropa vieja. Or a pork or chicken or a fricassee, you know, and you would fill out your weekly thing and this would be delivered every day.

Andy García Now, my father worked for this gentleman for a while and then eventually bought the company. It was called Biarritz. As in the town in France.

Michele Norris Mmhmm.

Andy García And we did that for a while and, you know, and he would bring, you know you couldn't keep the food an extra day there. So whatever was like leftover he would bring home and give it to the local families that needed food that you know, maybe couldn't even afford at the time, you know. So he would bring sort of those leftovers home to everybody. Anyway, we did that for a while, so we weren't so much cooking so much at home because everybody was working, you know, even my brother, who was a time in the early 60s, he was like, he's six years older than me, René. He was working. He was 11 years old. He would go to, before going to junior high, he would get up in the morning and go to the Sterling Hotel in Miami Beach and the Carillon or the Deauville. But mostly he worked at the Sterling and he would work for a gentleman by the name of Murph the Surf, who was a notorious individual. He was a jewel thief and brought surfing to South Florida.

Michele Norris Wait, he worked for Murph the Surf?

Andy García Yeah. Are you aware who Murph the Surf is?

Michele Norris Yes, I've heard of Murph the Surf. There's a whole documentary about Murph the Surf. He worked for Murph the Surf?

Andy García Yeah.

Michele Norris What did he do for him?

Andy García He had the concession of all the pools there in the Carillon and the Deauville and the Sterling. There were a whole group of hotels there. And he would go there in the morning and throw out all the cushions on all the chaises lounges, and then go to school and then come back after school and work the afternoon and then bring them all in in the end of the day, and then work the weekends. And he would bring me on the weekends because, you know, those pools in those hotels in those days were magnificent, you know, four diving boards. And it was just so beautiful. And I would go with him on the weekends and pick up the cigarette butts off the, you know, with the little thing you push down and the scoop opens and then you sweep it in there...

Michele Norris Yes! Boy that's a memory, isn't it? And they were everywhere for a while because everybody smoked.

Andy García Yeah. And then I would, you know, in exchange I would get a cheeseburger and I was able to swim in the pool all day, you know, and go -- and go to the beach. That was a great time, really. I got sidetracked. Anyway. So anyway, everybody was working. So the cantina became an important part of everyone's life in exile.

Andy García A curious thing about food is that it brings back very particular memories. Taste, smell... induces this kind of nostalgic times in your life that hopefully are positive, you know?

Michele Norris Yeah, but that's got to be complicated for you and your family, because as much as you love Cuban food, I wonder, particularly for your parents, if they tasted sadness when they ate that food, if it was a connection to something that was yanked from them?

Andy García Well, it was. All the exiles that came at that time period came with the hope of going back. They had that hope. They believed that that regime could not last. People who came, you know, 15 years later, they by then maybe it was going, well, this thing is not going anywhere. You know, this is a mess. And what are you going to go back to? I think privately everybody had that deep nostalgia and sadness for what went down and would pray for those who were there, who were suffering, and they would pray for a change, all that was going on. But I never saw it deter their appetite for life and for family or get in the way of their work ethic. But of course, then after dinner, people would gather and smoke and talk about, as you can imagine, Cuba.

Michele Norris Yeah, yeah.

Andy García And what was going on. And hey, I heard this is going on, and it's like, is that a crack in the veneer? Is that going to be the thing that takes him down? And people were connected. And of course, in those days, in the early 60s, you had the situation with the Bay of Pigs. You know, we were in Cuba during that time. I was in Havana during the Bay of Pigs. I was literally under a bed as the people were firing. And the next day I went out and collected all these empty shells that were, you know.

Michele Norris You're kidding.

Andy García Yeah. But then later on, you had the missile crisis. We were in America at that point. But there was always something going on, you know, like a little glimmer of hope that something might take this regime down. But unfortunately, it's been now 64 years.

Michele Norris You were a little boy under your bed during the Bay of Pigs.

Andy García Yeah. Yeah.

Michele Norris And you can still remember that, the sound of that.

Andy García Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Because they were strafing, you know, there were anti-aircraft gunfire in Havana going up, and we heard it all. And to this day, I can feel the terrazzo floor on my cheek.

Michele Norris Is that something that you've had to work through? Because that's trauma. That's a tough memory to...

Andy García No, I choose not to work through it.

Michele Norris Huh. You want to remember it?

Andy García Oh, yeah. That's who I am.

Michele Norris Yeah. And you want to remember what it represents?

Andy García Yeah. And honor it, you know? And we appreciate it, I would say. And we still do, the embrace that America gave us and the opportunity to pursue our dreams freely without any kind of oppression or indoctrination. We had the freedom of speech. Not to say that America necessarily is a perfect place. There's no such thing as a perfect place. But compared to most places, it's pretty perfect, you know, kind of thing. And everybody has different experiences and the country grows hopefully every day in a better direction. We're making better decisions and acknowledging our flaws and our past and not repeating them. But in general, it is still a place where you can make choices, speak freely. And that's an important thing. You know that you have choice. You can vote, you know, you can criticize and you won't be put in jail. You know.

Michele Norris That's something you would never take for granted.

Andy García No, absolutely not.

Michele Norris Having heard what you grew up, you know, stories you grew up with.

Andy García Yeah. I mean, if it wasn't for the journey and the courage that my parents had to leave, you know, to start a new somewhere, I think of myself that I had to leave at the age of 45 with young children and had to move to somewhere where I didn't know the language and had to start a life.

Michele Norris Hard to imagine, isn't it?

Andy García Yeah. With nothing. You know, that's it's a very courageous thing. And if it wasn't for that courage, I wouldn't be here talking to you right now. You know. You wouldn't care what my mama's kitchen was. You know what I'm saying?

Michele Norris Your arc of your life would have been different.

Andy García Mmhmm.

Michele Norris To be sure.

Michele Norris When you decided to become an actor? I bet there were some interesting conversations at the dining room table, maybe at the kitchen table with your family about that choice. What did they have to say about that?

Andy García Why?

Michele Norris Why! Was that -- Why? Why? What did they want you to do instead?

Andy García Well, we had a family business that was flourishing at that point. You know, that I was very involved with. I grew up in it and...

Michele Norris What was the family business?

Andy García Well, it was many things that led up to this this new phase of it, which was

the fragrance business.

Michele Norris Mmhmm.

Andy García Importing fragrances. Aenecccdcghrgrrbdnvjhlrtbrddflkjnnrhvklrhcrct

nd I was very much part of that with my brother and my father that began that. And at that time I'd finished college and decided to continue to pursue my interest in acting. So, they come from a generation, not so much my brother, but we don't have any people in the entertainment business. So, to even think about how do you make a living as an actor? I could imagine my father would think, you know, an actor, that's Clark Gable and, you know, Humphrey Bogart and, you know, I love my son, but he's not Humphrey Bogart. You know, I could imagine that, all those worries, and I know he did worry. His main concern was don't get lost in it. You know, you have a great opportunity here with this business. They'll get lost in it. You know, you can have a great future here that you've worked hard for. Don't, don't lose yourself in something that's kind of like impossible to attain, I guess, in his eyes, you know.

Michele Norris He was worried about the long game.

Andy García Yeah. And opposed to my mother, who would say and this goes attribute tribute to her character, he would say, hey, let him fly. He's got to fly on his own. He's got to fly. You've got to let him go.

Michele Norris Would she say that to you in front of your dad or would she pull you aside and say, "Listen."

Andy García Both. Well, she said that to him for sure many times, because he would be the one with more concern. And she would say, like, if you break a wing, come back. Heal. And then if you need to go fly again, go ahead. But she said to him, you gotta let them go. Gotta let him go.

Michele Norris And she was persuasive.

Andy García He wasn't prohibiting me from going. He was just very concerned.

Michele Norris Mm hmm.

Andy García And later on, friends of his would come to me and say, Oh, your dad, you know, he would come to me and, you know, very concerned for you because he was, you know, he hadn't -- they had no concept of how you even make a living as an actor, you know? That was so foreign to them, you know?

Michele Norris Well, I understand that.

Andy García It was foreign to me. And I wanted to be an actor, you know.

Michele Norris Because there are so many ways to do it. And the criticism, and I'm

sure he was concerned about, you know, how you would create a life.

Andy García Yeah, exactly.

Michele Norris I understand that.

Andy García Although he had seen me on stage, it wasn't like he thought I didn't have talent or anything like that or that, he was not... He understood that I had a real passion for it, but he was just concerned, as any parent would be, you know?

Michele Norris Where did that interest in acting come from? Were you always a tada kid, someone who was always performing at the table, or was there a particular film or a TV show that you saw that made you think, I want to do that?

Andy García I mean, I maybe my parents would say that as a kid I would sing and dance and all, but that's really every kid. But I wasn't like a song and dance, man. I was always interested in music all my life.

Michele Norris And you were an athlete?

Andy García I was an athlete. That was my focus. That was my focus. Although I was enamored with film, I would go to the movies all the time and sit through movies and all day long and, you know, go see a film like on a double bill, especially in the summers, on Lincoln Road. They had a lot of double bills -- James Bond movies or, you know, the Cruising Pirate, adventure movies, Steve McQueen, you know, Burt Lancaster, Errol Flynn, Sean Connery, all these kind of action heroes, you know, at the time, action adventure heroes. And I would just go all day long. I'd go there, started the matinee at noon and leave at 8:00 at night, never leave the theater. So I had a that was inside of me and I was enamored with, would get lost in it, as we all do. But maybe, perhaps I had even a deeper connection to it that was -- that eventually grabbed me and picked me and said, this is what you need to be doing.

Michele Norris So I want a picture of what it was like for you when you came home and your acting career had taken off, and you had done The Untouchables and you had done When a Man Loves a Woman and you go back home. Were there horns and confetti or was it…?

Andy García No, no, no.

Michele Norris Because sometimes when you go home after something like that, they're like bringing you back down to earth.

Andy García No, no, no. It was very, there was a sort of the same dynamic there. He was, they were very proud. Obviously, I took my mother and father to the Oscars when I was nominated for The Godfather Part III. And he sat there with me. He was already, you know, dealing with an illness that eventually took him down. But he was very proud, sat there in the second row because I was nominated with me. And he was very proud and relieved, you know, I'm sure you know, and he would always, you know, as a conservative businessman, you know, he'd always want to know. Every time I got a job, he would, you know, kind of rub his fingers together, like, say, how much? How much? And I would never tell him. I never tell him how much. I said I'm okay. I don't worry about I'm doing good. I got my kids to, I'm taking care of the family. Don't worry about it. And then he'd nod and go, but how much? But how much? And so, you know, finally, at one time, I told him when he was very ill in the hospital and he really wanted to know what. And I finally... Because, you know, sometimes, you know, you don't want to share with someone, you know, that they're paying you X amount of money that for a month, thirty days of work, that it took them a year or three years to make, you know. So I didn't I never wanted to give him that perspective other than I'm okay, everything's cool. I don't want you to worry about a thing. I'm good. And he understood, you know, he did relish, as did my mother. The idea that all their kids, my brother and my sister were were very successful in that sense in their own field. So they were very proud. And because I was more sort of like in the limelight, celebrity kind of thing, then they could play around in that sense of I was always and will always be their son. But they would go around, say I'm his father, you know, kind of thing. So.

Michele Norris Remember what I told you at the top of the episode that Andy García loves talking about food? You might be thinking, Wait a minute, we haven't heard him say that much about food yet, but that's because we've saved the tastiest bits of that conversation for this part of the podcast. Andy took a deep dive into the world of Cuban cuisine. Describing some of his favorite traditional dishes.

Andy García Picadillo which is like a meat hash...

Michele Norris And techniques...

Andy García I just mix out altogether, you know, sort of like a Cuban carbonara dish, you know...

Michele Norris And ingredients...

Andy García Just rice eggs and sweet bananas, you know, fried bananas.

Michele Norris He went on and on. I could barely stop him.

Andy García When you slice the onion, don't slice them so thin that they'll just break apart on it. You know keep ’em long...

Michele Norris He talked all about his process. It was like being in a classroom. I learned new words...

Andy García What we call Moros y Cristianos, or congrí, which is basically you make the black beans and then you cook the rice inside the beans...

Michele Norris New techniques...

Andy García The classic thing is not with the crackers, but with the Cuban bread that's pressed, you know, in a press. And then you dip the bread into coffee.

Michele Norris New expressions...

Andy García We had like a ropa viega, which is like a shredded...it's called old clothes. It's like a shredded flank steak that you... old clothes, yeah. And basically it's like a flank steak...

Michele Norris I mean it's clear listening to him that he can throw down in the kitchen.

Andy García Many different ways. Either in an open pit or in chunks fried. And in those days, lard.

Michele Norris See, I told you, he's still talking about food.

Andy García And it's not a great habit to be waking up every morning to do a baguette of bread and butter and coffee...

Michele Norris Don't you want to go eat at his house after listening to all this?

Andy García I just love to cook and I appreciate it. And it's very therapeutic, as you as you know, to sit and cook and have a glass of wine and watch a little football and cook some more, you know, and spend the day just doing that.

Michele Norris As Andy explains, traditional Cuban cooking can resemble rustic country food. Hearty dishes centered around native vegetables, rice, beans and basic proteins like chicken and pork. And because most of these dishes derive from Mediterranean and Spanish cultures more than, say, of Mexican or Central and South American cuisine, they also don't include some of the heat you might expect. But that doesn't make Cuban cuisine flat. Not in the least. These dishes are built around complex flavors and techniques. They cook for a long time, and so the flavors are almost layered. And the result is meals that, as I listen to Andy talk about them, will make your mouth water. So given all of that, I couldn't wait to hear about Andy García's favorite Cuban dish that he makes when he's looking for that special taste of home.

Andy García And I have a couple of dishes that I like to sort of go to that I choose to do when I get those cravings.

Michele Norris Like what? What are those dishes?

Andy García Well, chicken fricassee is one of my favorite ones I make. And there's an offshoot of that, which is a chicken and rice, but I like it the fricassee the best. For some reason, you know.

Michele Norris Now, tell me about the chicken fricassee. What's in it? How do you prepare it?

Andy García Well, I only use dark meat, first of all.

Michele Norris Thighs?

Andy García Thighs. Some people will use boneless thighs and skinless if you don't want skin, you know. But I use a bone-in, with skin.

Michele Norris More flavor.

Andy García Yeah.

Andy García First of all, most important is that overnight you marinade the chicken in a glass container or in a huge Ziploc, if you'd like. You do a marinade of half lime juice and orange juice like a cup of each. And put all your onions like I have for eight or ten people. You use like three onions, but white or Spanish on you. Not the purple onion, garlic, bunch of garlic cloves and -- eight, ten cloves -- and chop them up, rub the chicken in them, you know, a little pepper and the lime orange juice mixture. And you marinate the chicken and leave it overnight. And then basically you brown the chicken first, you brown it, then set it aside and then you do a sautée of onions, green, yellow, orange, yellow peppers, all sweet, nothing spicy. Cuban food, there's nothing hot, you know, in Cuban food or in Spanish food. People think, 'Why don't you like spicy, you're Cuban?' And I explain this all the time. I say, No, we don't eat, you know, jalepaños or hot sauce and that kind of stuff. So anyways, you sauté the onions, the garlic, and you put some dry sherry wine, a good sherry like a high -- the more top shelf, the better, you know, not just a cooking wine, but a good Spanish, you know, sherry, dry. So it gets in the onions and it just kind of burns off. And you throw all the marinade, all the onions and peppers, all that in the in the bowl that you were...

Michele Norris In the pan that you were doing the chicken in.

Andy García In the pan you were doing the chicken. Yeah. And that pan already has like a crust, a little bit of a thing. And then, you, that acidity of the orange stuff or deglaze the pan, and you start getting this kind of, you know, citric roux kind of thing going on.

Michele Norris I'm smelling this. It's so delicious.

Andy García And then you cook the onions down, not all the way, just enough to maybe you're not trying to caramelize them, but you. You sauté them, break them down, then you put tomato paste, couple of little cans of that, and you put raisins, green olives, capers, and then you kind of stir all that together. Once that, you know, gets going, you throw the chicken back in. And then you stir fry that chicken in there for a little bit, you know, to get it all together. And then you put water in there to cover the chicken for a long time. So then you go on a medium low. You know, so just a little bit of a bubble going on. And at the end, before you serve it, you put green peas in there so you, they don't get mushy, right?

Michele Norris Mmhmm.

Andy García And then you make a white rice on the side, and then you make very ripe plantains, you know, And they have to be like black, you know. The black blacker, the better. And then you slice that and you cook that in a vegetable, or you fry them up. So you have white rice, the fricassee next to it, and the plantain. And then a typical salad would be sliced avocados with very thinly sliced onion. Those two ingredients with extra virgin olive oil. And I like balsamic vinegar, you can just use a red wine vinegar, you can use plain vinegar. You can just use lemon.

Michele Norris Just to splash on top of that.

Andy García That with a little black pepper, a little salt, and that's it. You know.

Andy García So that dish is kind of a go-to dish of mine and, and I make enough of it where I'm in like day three.

Michele Norris And it probably gets better with every day.

Andy García Oh, amazing. As you know, you know, sauces, anything that's, is a sauce base casserole base the next day, two days after whether it's a ragu or, you know, anything, it just it's a totally different thing.

Michele Norris So you have thoroughly tortured us listening.

Andy García Yeah.

Michele Norris It sounds so good. [Laughter.]

Michele Norris When you live in a family that is in exile, does the kitchen provide a space for a particular kind of victory that you can hold on to something that was taken from you, that you can continue to gather...

Andy García Well, yeah.

Michele Norris And combat the kind of brokenness that so many people experience in exile. Was the kitchen sort of a victorious space in your family?

Andy García If you have the blessing to be able to get out, you know, because people weren't able to get out, families in Cuba would suffer tremendously to have something on their kitchen table because their life existed with a ration card. So you would have to get in line to see what your ration of milk would be for the month. Or of rice or an egg or whatever. And then good luck if it was even there.

Michele Norris That's back in Cuba.

Andy García Yeah.

Michele Norris For those who couldn't get out.

Andy García Yeah. And they made do with what they could. But at the end of the day, I think the tradition of still eating together and trying to make do and connecting, I don't think that went away. But in terms of what was on the kitchen table, that was a struggle for them and for us. It was of course a struggle. But, you know, you can go to the grocery store and there would be things on the shelf. And you didn't have a ration card. You can, you can get what you could afford.

Michele Norris Mmhmm.

Andy García Or like in the early days, you had the help from the refugee program where you got some rations, where at least you were able to bring some staples home and cook for your family, even though you didn't have a lot of money to go to the actual, you know, food fair, as they called them in South Florida and actually buy some chicken. So you had a moment where you can kind of gather yourself, catch a breath, feed your family and look for work, and begin the process of building a new life.

Andy García So I would say that when you did have the opportunity to now have sitting around a table and cooking and being proud of the fact that you have provided this meal for your family -- and you have, I guess, survived the constraints of an indoctrinating regime. And so, you know that you say, you can take -- you can take everything from me, but you're not going to take my family from me. That's not going to happen.

Michele Norris And you're not going to take my food, my traditions around that food.

Andy García You're not going to take that from me. You can -- you can take over Cuba, but you can't take over the Cuba to me. Right?

Michele Norris Andy García, I've loved talking to you.

Andy García Likewise.

Michele Norris This has been fun.

Andy García Thank you. I appreciate it. I enjoy the show very much.

Michele Norris I look forward to making your fricassee.

Andy García Let me know. Send me an email.

Michele Norris I'll let you know how it goes.

Andy García Send me a picture.

Michele Norris I will! I will. And we're going to share this recipe with our listeners and

we'll ask them to share their picture as well.

Andy García That'd be great. Thank you.

Michele Norris Thanks so much.

Michele Norris Boy, did I love talking to Andy García about his life and upbringing back in Miami Beach. The García family might have had meager beginnings here in America, but their courage brought them stability and eventually success. And their strong ties to their heritage, brought to life on the stove and at the kitchen table, allowed them to carry their beloved Cuba with them wherever they went.

Michele Norris Now, if you were as intrigued as I was listening to Andy García discuss his family's chicken fricassee recipe, you are in luck, because you can get the complete recipe right now on my Instagram page, and I have a feeling that citric savory roux will be simmering soon on some of your stoves. Share your thoughts. Share your pictures. We'd love to see them. We'd love to hear about all of it. I'm sure that that will make Andy García happy to know that a piece of his culture and his heart has made its way into your homes, too.

Michele Norris Thanks so much for listening to Your Mama's Kitchen. I'm Michele Norris. See you next time.

Andy García We'll see how often you cook the recipe between now and then.

Michele Norris I'm probably going to cook it this weekend. I cook a lot.

Andy García I might do the same because, you know, it's been a while.

Michele Norris You see, he's still talking about food. I can't believe it. I'm Michele Norris.

This has been a Higher Ground, an Audible Original produced by Higher Ground Studios. Senior producer Natalie Rinn. Producer Sonia Thoon, and associate producer Angel Carreras. Sound Design and Engineering from Andrew Eappen and Roy Baum. Higher Ground Audio's editorial assistants are Jenna Levin and Camilla Thur de Coos. Executive producers for Higher Ground are Nick White, Mukta Mohan, Dan Fierman and me, Michele Norris.

Michele Norris Executive producers for Audible are Zola Mashariki, Nick D'Angelo and Ann Hepperman. The show's closing song is 504 by the Soul Rebels. Editorial and web support from Melissa Bear and Say What Media. Marketing from Inside Projects. Our talent booker is Angela Peluso, and special thanks this week to Waterman Sound in Los Angeles. Head of Audible Studios, Zola Mashariki, Chief Content Officer, Rachel Giazza. And that's it! Goodbye, everybody. Come back next week and until then, be bountiful.

Copyright 2023 by Higher Ground Audio, LLC. Sound Recording. Copyright 2023 by Higher Ground Audio LLC.