After His Father’s Murder, Carlos Frías Found Solace In Miami’s Ventanitas

Fernando Frías was a successful cafe and restaurant owner in Havana, but when Fidel Castro came to power, the government nationalized Fernando’s businesses and imprisoned him when he tried to leave the country. Eventually he got out, settling near Miami like so many other Cuban expats. Even though Fernando never went back to Cuba, he was always searching for pieces of his homeland in the Cuban-American community in Miami.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Pashman?

  My whole extended family and I went to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina this past spring. And I gotta say, I came away feeling like, number one, this is a great family destination. Number two, this is a great place to come all year round. The mini golf alone is probably worth, it's like the mini golf capital of the country. They have the most incredible elaborate mini golf courses. They also have more than 80 championship, full-size golf courses, plus 60 miles of beautiful coastline, all-season sunshine. Of course, you can relax by the beach or the pool. There's also jet skiing, fishing charters, paddle boarding, and of course, food. Oh, man, did we eat well in Myrtle Beach. From fresh local seafood to craft burgers and craft beers to kebabs on the boardwalk. With more than 2,000 restaurants to choose from, from legendary no-frill seafood shacks

• 0:43Dan Pashman?

  to chef-driven dining, Myrtle Beach has it all. Plus, live entertainment at the beach, there's always something epic going on. So, summer may be winding down, but in Myrtle Beach, you're gonna find the coastal vacation of your dreams all year long. Start planning your ultimate beach vacation at visitmyrtlebeach.com.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  At Amica Insurance, we know trust isn't built in a day. It's earned over time by showing up in the moments that matter. And it's why customers stay with us three times longer. Visit amica.com to get a quote today.

• 1:18Speaker 02

  Sirius XM Podcasts.

• 1:26Dan Pashman?

  This episode includes discussion of violence and may not be appropriate for all listeners.

• 1:33Speaker 03

  A colada is about four ounces of that sweet Cuban coffee and a little stack of cups.

• 1:38Dan Pashman?

  That's basically like a full coffee cup of espresso, and then it comes with like a stack of espresso cups or plastic shot glasses. It's like the mini Cuban coffee version of one of those like Jug of Joe type things.

• 1:50Speaker 03

  Exactly. This is how you don't show up empty-handed, is you show up with a colada, and nobody ever turns it down. It just automatically kind of hugs you with culture, you know? It just kind of brings you in for the hug, you know? And God forbid you ever try to drink the whole thing directly, or as the late comedian Ralphie May used to say, "You will see into the future."

• 2:18Dan Pashman?

  This is the Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. Now, with Labor Day comes the unofficial end of summer. I know it's sad, but hey, we got a lot to look forward to this fall, including some events I'm doing. In October, I'll be interviewing chef-Alone Shaya at 92NY, AKA the 92nd Street Y in New York. We'll be talking about his new cookbook, Memories of a Good Meal: Recipes of Resilience Inspired by Stories of World War II Survival. Then, in November, I'll be at the food and wine classic in Charleston, doing both a live Sporkful taping and a cooking collab with chef Katie Button that will feature Caskatelli. And hey, if you want something to look forward to in fall 2027, there's still a few spots left for my pasta tour of Italy.

• 3:02Dan Pashman?

  Details on all these events are at sporkful.com/live. All right, let's get into it. Carlos Frias is a journalist based in Miami. He's currently an investigative editor at USA Today. Before that, he covered food, among many other topics, for places like the Palm Beach Post and the Miami Herald. At one point, he had a podcast with the Herald called La Venta Nita. It's named after the little window shops that sell coffee around Miami, where locals gather to chat. Coffee has always been a huge part of Cuban culture. So, when I visited Carlos at his home just west of downtown, that's where he began. He made me a classic Cuban coffee, walking me through the process step by step. First, you brew the coffee in a mocha pot, one of those hexagonal metal coffee makers that you put right in the stove.

• 3:45Dan Pashman?

  When the coffee starts coming out of the pot, you pour the first teaspoon of it into a cup with the sugar.

• 3:49Speaker 03

  And while the rest finishes brewing, you whip it together to kind of emulsify that sugar, and then you combine that with the coffee. And that creates the crema, and basically a coffee-flavored, simple syrup. Now, when you have that on its own, it's heaven. You add a little bit of like evaporated milk to the equation, and it just takes it to a whole other level.

• 4:13Dan Pashman?

  I first visited Carlos in 2017. We talked a lot back then about his father, Fernando. Then, in 2022, I spoke with Carlos again because of a shocking, terrible development. Fernando was murdered by a neighbor. We'll get to that later in the show, but we're gonna focus most of this episode on Fernando's life and the food story it inspired Carlos to tell. Fernando Frias was part of the early wave of Cuban immigrants who transformed South Florida after Fidel Castro took power in Cuba in 1959. Like many immigrant groups, the Cubans who came here tried to recreate the culture they loved in a new place after being forced to leave their homeland behind. Fernando was one of 11 children, raised on a farm in rural Cuba. When he was in his twenties, he moved to Havana with his brothers, and they started

• 4:56Dan Pashman?

  opening cafes and restaurants just outside the city. Pretty soon, they had several businesses in this major plaza that was at the center of this suburb of Havana called Maranal. And here they were, these young men in their, you know, late twenties, early thirties, running businesses. They brought their parents later, all living in the city in one big house, living the moment, living kind of an American dream in Cuba, right? And then here comes the revolution. And before the end of three years, all their businesses had been nationalized. You know, uniformed military would come into your store. This exactly happened. They said, "We're gonna need you to close the cash register, hand us the keys, and file out. This is now the property of the state." And that's how they lost their businesses.

• 5:41Dan Pashman?

  Fernando applied for a visa to get out of Cuba, but his application was denied. So, he tried to sneak off the island in a speedboat. He was caught.

• 5:49Speaker 03

  And he spent two years in one of the most brutal prisons in Cuba. His first night in jail, he heard 17 men executed. And I think back on it, it's like my dad would have been about 38 at the time. And that's a hell of a thing. I can't imagine, I can put myself in his place in life, but I can't imagine what it's like to then overcome that.

• 6:11Dan Pashman?

  In prison, Fernando met a university professor who taught him English. A Chinese Cuban inmate taught him to play chess, but one day, that young man was taken by soldiers and never came back. After two years, Fernando got out of prison, but he still needed an exit visa to get out of the country. The only way to get that was to earn it by spending two more years in a labor camp. He worked in the fields, cutting sugarcane, digging the trains. Then, one day...

• 6:36Speaker 03

  When the cook of this concentration camp got his exit visa, they looked around and said, "Can anybody cook?" Well, anything was better than working in the field. So, my dad put his hand up and he said, "I can cook, but I need my brother with me because he's my assistant. I've never really cooked without him, so I need my brother." So, that got them off the hard labor.

• 6:57Dan Pashman?

  Out of the fields.

• 6:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:59Dan Pashman?

  And into the kitchen.

• 6:59Speaker 03

  Out of the fields and into the kitchen.

• 7:02Dan Pashman?

  And did your dad actually know how to cook?

• 7:05Speaker 03

  See, because they owned these restaurants and cafes, he had learned by watching and doing simple things. They had a, their chef at their one restaurant was a Chinese Cuban guy. So, he cooked this Chinese Cuban cuisine. So, that's the bulk of his knowledge, is having watched them cook and cooking at home.

• 7:23Dan Pashman?

  Up until then, the only food the prisoners ate was split peas and rice, nothing sweet. One day, Fernando noticed that the workers in the camp had cut down four royal palm trees, and he remembered hearing stories about how, back in the 1800s, Cuban independence fighters survived on hearts of palm. So, he had the workers strip the palm trees and bring him the hearts, the crunchy inner cores. He boiled them with tons of sugar and whatever spices were around, cinnamon, star anise, until it became like a syrupy pudding.

• 7:52Speaker 03

  And he writes down on the board, they had a little chalkboard.

• 7:55Dan Pashman?

  Like the menu of the day.

• 7:56Speaker 03

  And the menu of the day, writes down on the chalkboard, "Che chow and rice, split pea and rice, and dulce de palma frias." Frias dessert, Frias palm dessert.

• 8:07Dan Pashman?

  Frias being his last, your last name, his last name.

• 8:09Speaker 03

  His last name.

• 8:09Dan Pashman?

  So, he named the dish after himself.

• 8:12Speaker 03

  It's like such a chefy thing to do, right?

• 8:18Speaker 03

  So, people just line up, and they're not sure what to make of it. And from the story he tells, you know, they had one bite, and people just lined up for it. The next day, he walks out and they had 12 palms filled, waiting for him to make dulce de palma frias, you know? It was little moments like that that allowed him to escape to a place mentally to kind of survive that. And it's funny, because years later, in Miami, he met a man who was with him in that concentration group, who then owned a restaurant. But as long as that guy was alive, he said, "As long as I'm alive, you eat for free at my restaurant." He remembered that, he recalled that, and he appreciated it. And that, to this day, I think about that, and it's like, you know, you made, food helped

• 9:03Speaker 03

  you make that little bit of a difference for yourself and for a desperate group of men.

• 9:14Speaker 03

  Cuban Americans of my generation grew up with these borrowed memories from our parents. It's a standard that we bear, that no one will ever go back to Cuba, certainly while our parents' generation is alive. But that doesn't mean that there's not an incredible curiosity.

• 9:37Dan Pashman?

  In 2006, Fidel Castro handed over power to his brother, Raul. At the time, Carlos was writing for the Palm Beach Post, and they asked him to go to Cuba to cover the story.

• 9:47Speaker 03

  So, the first call I make is to my father. Because I feel like I still need his blessing to do that. And I call him up, and we have like this conversation full of pregnant pauses. And when I said, "Dad, I'm going to Cuba", he says, "Take me with you." So it was, it was a blessing from him, you know, to say, "I wish I could go with you, but take me there in spirit."

• 10:22Dan Pashman?

  I mean, did you sense that he was hesitant?

• 10:27Speaker 03

  What I sensed, really what I felt when I got back is he was really curious. And he was scared for me. He did, he confided in my mom several times that he, he was worried that, that I would say or do the wrong thing that would get me in trouble with Cuban secret police. And like on my third day in Cuba, like I outed myself as a journalist to someone who was a family friend, who turns out to be the wife of the president of the local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. It's like a community-based buy network, you know, where if someone's doing something wrong, if your neighbor is doing something wrong, you report them to authorities, and the authorities come and knock on your house and say, "Why are you saying such terrible things about Castro XYZ?" And that's how they keep everybody in line.

• 11:12Speaker 03

  So I went to this family friend, and I was telling her I was there as a journalist, and she reveals to me that like, her house is the neighborhood CDR headquarters.

• 11:22Dan Pashman?

  And what were you thinking at that moment?

• 11:24Speaker 03

  I was like, I'm toast. I was like, oh, three days in Cuba. That's, that's, that's as long as I made it before I ended up in a Cuban prison. And, and she said because of her allegiance to my family, that she wouldn't say anything. And, and, but I felt her tense up. And I like, I didn't last more than like, another half hour at her house. And I was like, well, I gotta go.

• 11:42Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 11:43Speaker 03

  Yeah. So, I mean, it, I really did get a chance to feel the pressures that average Cubans live with every day, even in the so-called more forward-thinking Cuba.

• 11:53Dan Pashman?

  And one of those pressures is around food. In the early days of the Castro regime, the government started a system of food rationing that continues today, although in drastically reduced form. You get a booklet of coupons that you can exchange for basic staples like rice and beans, meat and oil. Up until a couple of years ago, most Cuban families relied on these rations to survive. But the country was plagued by food shortages, and sometimes it wasn't enough. Seeing this up close, Carlos was confronted with the difference between his life growing up in South Florida and the world of modern-day Cubans. He always saw himself as Cuban, but...

• 12:25Speaker 03

  The food wasn't any Cuban food that I'd grown up eating. I went into one of the restaurants that's open to tourists, because a lot of the restaurants aren't open to Cuban nationals. If you live there, it's not open to you. It's only for tourists, which is bizarre.

• 12:37Dan Pashman?

  And, and I asked... I mean, it seems, it seems like in a lot of ways, they're like putting up a front for, for the outsiders who come.

• 12:44Speaker 03

  Absolutely. It's a facade. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a Hollywood movie set.

• 12:47Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 12:48Speaker 03

  In a lot of ways. And, and I asked for a Cuban sandwich, and they looked at me like I had two heads. And so a lot of these dishes, like they would have steak on the menu, but it wasn't a palomilla steak, which is what we know here. And they didn't have vaca frita, because beef is, beef is actually reserved only for tourists in Cuba, or it was at the time when I went. Like, if you were a Cuban national, for you to have beef and have it not be illegal, you had to have a prescription from your doctor that said that you had a protein deficiency and you needed beef. How do I know that? I have, I have a cousin who's a Cuban doctor. And he's like, "I remember writing scripts for my mother, so that she's, you know, this frail little bird of a woman, so that she could have some meat protein." They lost access to certain important ingredients, like you, maybe you couldn't get fresh garlic.

• 13:33Speaker 03

  Maybe you couldn't get cumin. And it's like, you've just eliminated two of the most basic things in Cuban cuisine. So you know what? I saw a lot of, a lot of pizza. And yet, and yet, people find ways, like the best meals that I ate were cooked in Cuban households, like friends in the family who would make like a, this succulent pork chop. They were using oil and using salt, and there was lard in it, you know? And like, they had lard, so they had it nailed.

• 14:00Speaker 03

  And she made beans and rice, and the beans were right, you know? And, and you could, you could feel, oh, it's still here. But you had to go find it in Cuban households. And they were making do with what they can with the memory of the cuisine that they remember.

• 14:14Dan Pashman?

  Am I correct that the Cuban food that you find in South Florida today is more similar to the food that your parents grew up eating than the food that they have in Cuba today? Is that fair to say?

• 14:29Speaker 03

  Oh, absolutely. I think if my, I think if my parents went to, went to Cuba today, to a restaurant in Cuba, they wouldn't, they wouldn't necessarily recognize it. The reason that Cuban food in Miami looks the way it does is because of that generation of Cubans preserving it and then handing it down to their kids.

• 14:48Dan Pashman?

  But as much as food was always a way of staying connected to Cuba, the cuisine of South Florida has evolved. Cuban-American chefs have put their own spin on their grandparents' food, pulling from a range of influences. As for Fernando...

• 15:00Speaker 03

  I think about it now. My dad came over at age 42, so I'll be 42 in a couple of months. And he's now, he'll, he's turning 90 this year. So I joke with him that he's more American than he is Cuban now. He's lived here in this country longer than he was in Cuba.

• 15:16Dan Pashman?

  What does he say to that when you make that joke?

• 15:18Speaker 03

  He just laughs, and he has to like, recognize that, that, yeah, that he is, that he has a stake in being American.

• 15:35Dan Pashman?

  That was me and Carlos in Miami back in 2017. We kept in touch after that visit, and I continued to follow his writing about the Miami food scene. Then, just before the start of the pandemic, I saw a tweet from Carlos sharing the news of his father's murder. I wanted to talk to Carlos again, first to see how he was doing after what happened. But also, when we talked that first time, my focus was on Fernando's life in Cuba. He never talked about his life in Florida, which, as Carlos pointed out, was actually where he spent most of his life. We'll share that conversation when we come back. Stick around.

• 16:15Speaker 04

  Time to cook up some advertisements.

• 16:20Dan Pashman?

  I grew up on Lando Lake's cheese. I still remember going to the supermarket deli counter with my mom and her ordering Lando Lake's American cheese. And now, Lando Lake's cheese and butter are a huge part of my home. There are so many easy weeknight recipes using Lando Lake's cheese and butter that bring delicious restaurant taste right to your table. From chicken parm to weeknight shrimp pad thai, Lando Lake's has plenty of quick dishes that'll have the whole dinner table talking. Visit landolakes.com/reцепes/collection for easy weeknight dinners.

• 16:50Dan Pashman?

  Last year, right around this time, I got a new jacket from Quince, a lightweight fall jacket. And it has turned into my favorite jacket. And this is why you need a lightweight jacket, and probably a new one, because it's time to freshen up your look. You need a lightweight jacket from Quince because the beauty of a lightweight jacket is you can wear it in the early fall, you can wear it in the early spring, but also it goes over a sweater, over a sweatshirt. And then suddenly, your lightweight jacket is a great accessory for pretty much the whole winter. Bottom line, when the temperatures start to drop, Quince makes it easy to build on those everyday staples with versatile layers designed to keep you warm and comfortable all season long. They make elevated everyday essentials using premium materials and designs that are timeless, thoughtfully crafted, and made to be worn again and again. So find your next fall favorites at Quince.

• 17:35Dan Pashman?

  Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was this pork full. It's the best way to support the show.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  At Amica Insurance, we believe trust is earned over a lifetime. With Amica Life Insurance, you can count on us to help protect the life you're building and the loved ones you're building it with. For us, trust is what life insurance is all about. And that's why generations of customers trust Amica to be there in the moments that matter. Visit amica.com to get a customized quote today. Amica, empathy is our best policy.

• 18:29Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman and I want to hear from you. We are getting ready to tape an episode of callers. And if you have a food dispute or disagreement with a friend or loved one, I want to know about it. If you have a food hot take to share, I want to know about it. Send me a voice memo or email. Tell me your name, where you are, and what the issue you want to discuss is. Send that to me at hello at sporkful.com and you could hear yourself on an upcoming episode. Okay, back to the show. Fernando Frias never did go back to Cuba, but he was always trying to reconnect with it in America. Fernando came to Florida the day after his 42nd birthday in 1969. He lived in Hialeah, near Miami. His future wife, Ira dia, was also a Cuban exile.

• 19:14Dan Pashman?

  They met while she was shopping for a fridge. He was the salesman. She bought the fridge. And two months later, they were married and in business together. At first, they bought ice cream trucks selling frozen treats in their neighborhood. After a few years, they sold the trucks and opened a jewelry store. As a kid, Carlos often hung out there. Remember the cooking skills his father picked up running those cafes in Havana, then honed in the labor camp? They came in handy.

• 19:38Speaker 03

  I always say that I was raised by a man in an apron. Because my dad and my mom worked at this little mom and pop jewelry store in a city called Carroll City. And he would work the front of the counter in his like a suit jacket and a tie every day. But at midday, he would put an apron on over his suit. And he'd go into the back of the store where they had a little four burner stove. And he would cook, cook food that he learned to cook, you know, when he was in prison, you know? Really flavorful food. Like my dad was not easy on the spices and like a lot of salt and oil. And, and lots of cumin and everything. He really loved to taste everything in his food. He loved to like feel the life in it. You know what I mean?

• 20:24Dan Pashman?

  Growing up, Carlos learned about his parents' lives in Cuba. His father surviving the labor camps, his mother leaving on a freedom flight in her 30s. But when he stepped outside of his house, he was in Broward County, a calm, quiet neighborhood that was also very white. His mom's cousin had found a good deal on a house and Fernando took it and moved in. But Miami's Little Havana, the center of the Cuban diaspora, was 20 miles away. It felt like another world, a world Fernando always wanted to be a part of.

• 20:51Speaker 03

  Three times a week, four times a week, we'd drive into Miami to visit his mom, my grandmother and all my cousins. You know, the 15 cousins and, you know, nine aunts and uncles, we'd all meet there, you know, every weekend. And a couple of times throughout the week. So it was like a little bit louder. It was like this tactile excitement. What's funny is that he had always wanted to live in the center of Cuban-ness. He wanted to live in, in the city of Miami.

• 21:19Dan Pashman?

  Fernando's desire to live in the center of Cuban-ness rubbed off on Carlos. After college, he started writing for newspapers, first in Cincinnati, then Atlanta, then Palm Beach, an hour north of Miami. He felt like he was slowly making his way home. Finally, he got a job at the Miami Herald food section and moved into a neighborhood called Flagami.

• 21:37Speaker 03

  So it's this kind of real central old Miami neighborhood. My neighbor is from Venezuela. She's lived here 30 plus years. My neighbor across the street is Cuban and she may or may not partake in Santeria. So it's like this neighborhood that's really well established and feels very, um. It's just very authentic.

• 22:00Dan Pashman?

  And so when you first moved in there, how did that feel?

• 22:03Speaker 03

  Oh my God, it felt like home. It felt like, uh, like the place where I had wanted to live my entire life. And it was just like this kind of buzz that still, living here, just going on seven years. Still, I have not gotten bored with.

• 22:19Dan Pashman?

  Carlos's father stayed in the suburban house Carlos grew up in, but he continued to make regular trips into the city. He and Carlos would meet up, sometimes just for coffee, sometimes for much bigger events. Like when Fidel Castro died in 2016 and Cuban Americans poured into the streets to celebrate. Fernando was there in the middle of it all, dancing. In 2019, Carlos's mother died suddenly. She had been dealing with health issues for a few years, but one day she became unresponsive and needed emergency surgery. She never fully recovered and died a month later.

• 22:50Speaker 03

  My dad says, I really don't want to live alone. Would it be okay if I live with you? And my heart like leapt because I'd wanted nothing more over the years. As my parents got older, I wanted them to move closer to me, to Miami. He moved in with me in, uh, in November. And I begin to get to show him the Miami that he had always wanted to live in. So there's this strangeness and kind of showing something new to your dad. So here I am taking him to Cafe La Trova, which is like an, uh, old Cuban themed bar and restaurant. And watching him sing along to these old Cuban songs, drinking cocktails, you know?

• 23:35Speaker 03

  In this very Miami vibe and taking him to my local bar to have a beer. Take him to the local wine shop that plays loud music and serves tapas. And really get this incredible Miami experience.

• 23:49Dan Pashman?

  Back in 2006, when Carlos went on his reporting trip to Cuba, his dad told him, take me with you. He meant to take me with you in spirit. But now, in a way, Carlos could take his father with him to the center of the Cuban diaspora in Miami.

• 24:03Speaker 03

  In January, we have an annual parade down Cayocho. La Parada de los Reyes Mago. It's the, the parade of the three kings. And it becomes an event, like the place gets full. And my dad says, I'd really love to go to this. I've never been to this. And I was like, Dad, Cayocho, it's such a nightmare. It's, it's such a, it's gonna be a mess, you know?

• 24:27Dan Pashman?

  Like so crowded, you mean, like you're not gonna be able to park, not gonna be able to go anywhere, like mad house?

• 24:31Speaker 03

  Over people. He's 92 years old. And he's like, ah, it's okay. I understand. I understand. And later I felt bad and I was like, you know what? Screw it. Let's get in the car. And he's like, no, if it's too much trouble. No, no, it's not going to be any trouble. And I drive down there and I drop him off as close as I can. I park, make my way through the crowd. And there he is watching the parade with his cigar in his hand and his big hat. And he's next, standing next to Domino Park, which is this park for those who are 55 and older. And a little old lady who's playing at the park points at my dad and says, come on, we need, we need four. You guys come play with us. And she turns to me and she goes, it's only 55 and over, but you know, we'll let, we'll let you in so you can play.

• 25:14Speaker 03

  So I sit down there and I play dominos with my dad and these two old folks and we have a great time. And I was so glad that, that I had done that with him, especially looking back, you know? Giving him something that he really wanted to do. And frankly, we ended up having one of the most memorable times that we've had together.

• 25:36Speaker 03

  In my entire life, I'd never been closer to my dad. He got to be around, you know, his granddaughters, you know, my daughters who, who lived here. And he had his own room in my house and to wake up in the morning and see him and make coffee for both of us. You know, stir together some sweet Cuban coffee and just sit next to each other and sip and look out the window and sit in the yard and talk about life and being able to introduce him to the Miami he'd always kind of aspired to live in. I mean, it was really one of the greatest moments in our relationship.

• 26:10Dan Pashman?

  Was he still cooking at all when he was living with you?

• 26:13Speaker 03

  Uh, we were kind of like cooking together, you know? Although I do remember at least once he came home and he'd kind of dug through, you know, the cans and fresh food. And, and he'd started like a big stew, which is the thing that he always made at home, like. And that made it feel great that you had created a place that, that both you and your dad could feel at home. So it was really special.

• 26:33Dan Pashman?

  Did he ever make you Dulce de Palmas Frias?

• 26:37Speaker 03

  You know, my one regret is we never, we never got around to making that together. But it's one of those things that kind of, that I have in the back of my mind, like this is a thing that I should make at some point in my lifetime. Although part of me feels like the, the moment has been lost, you know, to do something like that together.

• 26:57Dan Pashman?

  So I, I mean, I want to talk about your father's murder and I just want to say like, you can go into as much or as little detail as you feel comfortable with.

• 27:05Speaker 03

  No, I understand.

• 27:05Dan Pashman?

  So it's really up to you how much we want to spend talking about it.

• 27:08Speaker 03

  Of course. So the interesting, the interesting thing about moving, my dad moving in with me is that he maintained his other house and we had planned to sell it. So he was reticent to leave because he had filled the yard with fruit trees. So he would go up there and he would pick the fruits. And he would distribute them to the neighborhood. And it was uncommon for him to go up to the house and spend the night there and then come the next day. So he went up there on a Saturday. And I didn't hear from him that he was spending the night, which was odd, but not totally unusual. And by evening time the next day, when I still hadn't heard from him, um. It felt like something was wrong.

• 27:53Speaker 03

  I asked my brother who lived 10 minutes from him, um, if he would go and, and check in on him. My brother called me and he says, I'm here and dad's not coming to the door. I'm going to use my key to come in. And I hear him open the door and just,

• 28:11Speaker 03

  and just say something like, my God, my God, this is not okay. This isn't okay. Call the police. He'd found my dad, uh, he'd found my dad dead. Shot to death right at the door.

• 28:27Speaker 03

  And I live with knowing that, um, that my brother had to see that. You know, and, um. I wish that there was a way to have avoided that happening, um, because I think he's very haunted by it.

• 28:44Dan Pashman?

  The police said that Fernando had gone to a neighbor's house, a young guy he knew, who helped him with yard work sometimes. Between police reports and evaluations after the fact, Carlos says it appears this young man was having some kind of a psychotic episode. There's not much of an explanation beyond that. Fernando just happened to show up at the wrong moment.

• 29:02Speaker 03

  You know, that, that guy had a, guy had a handgun, had like a Glock. And for some reason that we still don't know the answer to, he, he shot my dad to death.

• 29:14Dan Pashman?

  Well, I mean, I'm really sorry. First of all, I mean, it's just awful.

• 29:19Speaker 03

  I appreciate it, Dan.

• 29:21Dan Pashman?

  I mean, I, it must also though, sometimes just, I would imagine just, I would be so angry. It's like this weird thing to have a parent getting murdered at age 92. Of course, it's always going to be painful and sad to lose a parent, no matter what. You would imagine him declining slowly in health and gathering, gathering around the hospital bed or the bed at some point, the whole family. Like that's the picture you have in your head. Um, I would just be so angry if it happened like this.

• 29:54Speaker 03

  You know where I've found that I have the most anger? And maybe it's wanting to find something to, to, to sharpen that focus. That's gun laws. We should have stronger gun laws in this country. We should have gun laws so that everybody doesn't have a gun. You know, frankly, I don't think that everybody in this country should have a gun.

• 30:20Dan Pashman?

  Coming up, Carlos turns his anger and sadness into one of the most meaningful stories of his journalism career. Stick around.

• 30:33Speaker 05

  Hope you're hungry, because it's time for some ads.

• 30:39Dan Pashman?

  When you're cooking, ingredients matter, right? You use higher quality ingredients, you usually get better results. And if you're listening to this show, you're probably the kind of person who puts some thought and effort into your ingredients. But ingredients don't just matter with food, they also matter with laundry detergent. Of course, the cleaning job needs to get done. The odors and stains have to be tackled, and I want to feel good about the detergent and the ingredients in it. Because remember, whatever's in your laundry detergent is essentially in your clothes. And then you're putting those clothes on, you want good stuff in there. And All Free Clear uses only essential ingredients. It's 100% free from dyes, perfumes, parabens, and irritating residues. Check out the label and see for yourself, it lists all the ingredients and what they do. We've been using it in my house, we're very happy with it. And let me tell you, family of four, two teenagers, we do a lot of laundry.

• 31:24Dan Pashman?

  So we have put All Free Clear to the test. It's a powerful clean that you can feel good about. All Free Clear is the number one detergent brand recommended by dermatologists for sensitive skin. When it comes to laundry detergent, the choice is clear. All Free Clear. Pick up a bottle for your next laundry day. I grew up on Lando Lake's cheese. I still remember going to the supermarket deli counter with my mom and her ordering Lando Lake's American cheese. And now Lando Lake's cheese and butter are a huge part of my home. There are so many easy weeknight recipes using Lando Lake's cheese and butter that bring delicious restaurant taste right to your table. From chicken parm to weeknight shrimp pad thai, Lando Lake's has plenty of quick dishes that'll have the whole dinner table talking. Visit landolakes.com/recipes/collection for easy weeknight dinners.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  At Amica, we believe trust is earned over a lifetime. That's why generations of customers trust Amica Life Insurance to protect the life they're building and who they build it with. Visit amica.com to get a customized quote today.

• 32:28Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back. Two weeks after Carlos and his family buried Fernando in March 2020, the entire country went into lockdown. Carlos couldn't process this tragedy and the shock of COVID all at the same time. For months, he says, he was in a fog. He was in the center of Miami's Cuban community, but for the first time, his dad wasn't there. Carlos began going through old photos of his father and came across one from around 1957. Fernando's at one of the cafes he owned in Havana, standing behind the counter, drinking a coffee. There are waitresses on either side of him and a few customers in front of the counter, well-dressed young men hanging out, smoking cigarettes. It seems clear this was a gathering place. The photo reminded Carlos of Miami's ventanitas. Ventanita means little window in Spanish.

• 33:13Dan Pashman?

  They're takeout windows attached to cafes and restaurants where you can order coffee to go from the sidewalk.

• 33:18Speaker 03

  So you'd have these little stands, these little counters where you're handing out coffee and people gather at the counter and they buy a cigar. They buy a little snack, a pastelito, a croqueta, and that little shot of Cuban coffee. And that little counter is the place where people gathered and caught up with each other. It's where they talk politics. It became this little town square. The fact that my dad had been a cafe owner, it, I connected those things somehow subconsciously. You know, it became a way to like learn more about my dad and learn more about this thing that was central to our culture.

• 33:58Dan Pashman?

  Carlos decided to research the history of these ventanitas and write a story about it for the Herald. Looking back, he says it was a way for him to connect with his father. These ventanitas are a hallmark of Cuban culture in Miami, a culture Carlos always associated with his father. But Carlos didn't know much about their origins.

• 34:15Speaker 03

  These ventanitas, you don't find them in New Jersey, where there's a large Cuban population. You don't find them in Chicago, you don't find them in Los Angeles, and you didn't find them in Cuba. So I started wondering, why did the ventanita happen in Miami?

• 34:30Dan Pashman?

  In the early 1960s, Miami was changing in two big ways. One was that hundreds of thousands of Cubans were arriving, and the other was air conditioning. The window unit AC had just been invented, and in Miami, it quickly went from a luxury to a necessity.

• 34:45Speaker 03

  Now, if you've ever been to Miami in summer, it's unlivable. Like unless you're indoors with air conditioning blowing your face, it can be unlivable.

• 34:53Dan Pashman?

  Before AC, Miami's Cuban restaurants were mostly open to the street. No windows, no doors. At the end of the night, they just pulled down a shade. That meant tables spilled out onto the sidewalk. People walking by would stop to see friends. It was the heart of the community. When AC came along, the restaurants installed windows. Suddenly, all the customers were inside. People weren't seeing each other and gathering outside. A piece of Miami Cuban culture was in danger of disappearing.

• 35:19Speaker 03

  The question was, how do we keep our guests cool and comfortable, but still be able to keep Cuban coffee culture, the little meeting around the counter?

• 35:28Dan Pashman?

  As Carlos learned, many of these restaurant owners brought this question to Felipe Valls. He owned a couple of manufacturing businesses in Santiago, Cuba, then sold restaurant appliances in Miami. And one of his best-selling items was espresso machines, because every Cuban cafe and restaurant had to have an espresso machine. Felipe had an idea.

• 35:54Dan Pashman?

  This is Felipe Valls in a video for the Miami Herald from last year, explaining how he would cut out a window in the restaurant facing outward, install a counter, just like that, create a coffee takeout section for a restaurant.

• 36:06Speaker 03

  Now, today, it doesn't seem like anything special, but during a time when whole stores didn't even have a front, you know, they were open. It was like, it was mind blowing. So the guy starts installing these windows all over Miami.

• 36:19Dan Pashman?

  One of his first customers was the grocery store El Oso Blanco, a hangout for Cuban immigrants in what would soon be Little Havana. Another customer was Bodia's, a popular sandwich shop on 8th Street. Felipe was installing that ventanita just as 8th Street was being renamed Calle Ocho. Pretty soon Felipe says to himself, why am I just working for all these restaurants? Why don't I own some restaurants myself?

• 36:41Speaker 03

  I would say he's probably the most important restaurant figure in Miami. The guy that went on to open Versailles Cuban Restaurant, quite possibly the most famous Cuban restaurant outside of Cuba.

• 36:52Dan Pashman?

  Felipe eventually opened more than 40 restaurants. And by the 1970s, his restaurants and Miami's ventanitas were at the heart of Cuban culture there. For Carlos, talking with the city's restaurant and cafe owners for his story made him feel closer to his father, who owned his own coffee shop for two decades in Cuba.

• 37:09Speaker 03

  Learning more about the ventanita culture and that kind of, let me kind of explore a little bit what his life must have been like those 20 years, you know? And I kind of needed that. I, I don't think I realized until I was done, how much it helped me get through that period. When I was writing that story and I had to refer back to what Cuban counters looked like in Cuba, I was able to kind of look at this iconic photo of my dad. And it was those little tidbits, you know, little pieces that he had taught me over the years, that I had learned from him and from his experiences over the years,

• 37:47Speaker 03

  that I was able to weave in and I think gave that story its heart and its purpose. And when I got to the other side of it and saw those things and talked to all the people who were connected to it, it made me feel like it was kind of this tribute to the people that had helped make Miami into what it is. And the knowledge that my dad was one of those folks.

• 38:16Dan Pashman?

  That conversation with Carlos was in 2022. This past May, his father's killer was sentenced to 30 years in prison. At the sentencing hearing in front of the judge and the killer, Carlos read a statement. We asked him to read it for us in its entirety.

• 38:30Speaker 03

  All our lives are ruined in a way we can never make whole.

• 38:35Speaker 03

  The bright shining light that was our dad, our abuelo Fernando Frias, was extinguished in a muzzle flash.

• 38:42Speaker 03

  That same hot burst of violence will cost this man the majority of his life and his mother, her son.

• 38:50Speaker 03

  What can you call justice for something like this? Justice, real justice, is perhaps something we as a country are not ready for. It would mean taking a meat cleaver to the Second Amendment and brave leaders writing new laws to limit gun ownership. It would mean making a real investment in social services for the mentally ill. It would mean making it so someone could not, in a moment, destroy a swath of lives. But that America is somewhere far off in the future. Maybe in a moment, I'll never live to see. But maybe America will look different when you get out.

• 39:29Speaker 03

  Maybe we'll have grown so tired of having our babies and our grandparents shot to death that we'll have lost our appetite for unfettered access to guns. Maybe we'll have a more humane system of medicine and access to medical care that these kinds of atrocities will be rare, something our descendants will only read about in history books. Right now, today, in this courtroom, it's hard to fathom.

• 39:54Speaker 03

  But I have hope. And sometimes all we have is hope. Hope that our children and grandchildren will see further and together will bend the moral arc of the universe toward a real kind of justice. Maybe it can start here, today, with us.

• 40:29Dan Pashman?

  That's Carlos Frias, investigative editor at USA Today. In 2008, he wrote a memoir about his travels to Cuba and his father called Take Me With You. Next week on the show, I talk with cookbook author Carla Lali about how her divorce became a catalyst for her new cookbook. While you wait for that one, check out last week's episode about a new tomato variety and why new fruit and veggie varieties are taking over the whole produce aisle. That's up now. If you want to hear new episodes of The Sporkful ad-free, subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit siriusxm.com/podcastsplus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. This episode was produced by me along with managing producer

• 41:10Speaker 05

  Emma Morgenstern.

• 41:11Dan Pashman?

  And senior producer Andres O'Hara. It was edited by

• 41:14Speaker 05

  Tracy Samuelson.

• 41:15Dan Pashman?

  Additional editing by Kimmy Gregory. Our technical director is

• 41:18Speaker 06

  Jared O'Connell.

• 41:19Dan Pashman?

  Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of SiriusXM Podcasts. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 41:27Speaker 02

  And I'm Harris Corlele in Miami, Florida, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  At Amica Insurance, we know trust isn't built in a day. It's earned over time by showing up in the moments that matter. And it's why customers stay with us three times longer. Visit amica.com to get a quote today.

• 41:58Dan Pashman?

  Start the day strong with Quaker Protein Products. Quaker makes it easy and delicious to get a good source of protein. No matter what the day has in store, Quaker Protein Products give you a variety of ways to reach your protein goals. Oatmeal, granola, bars, and rice snacks in flavors you already love, like maple and brown sugar and blueberries and cream. Quaker Protein helps fuel you to start whatever's next. Get your protein with Quaker, available at a store near you.