Bean Train is About Cuban Cooking and Family

Bean Train is my husband’s affectionate nickname for my mother. Mami is a typical Cuban Abuela (grandmother) who shows her love by cooking. So, yes, the Bean Train makes frequent stops at our house with flavor-packed little care packages filled with Mami’s super delicious Cuban cooking, especially her beans!

I started this blog to preserve my mother’s recipes and share my Cuban heritage with my kids, who also love to cook. In addition to my mother’s traditional Cuban food, I’ll post my recipes and my children’s recipes, and a little family wisdom along the way. Come by and visit often! I’ll show you how to cook traditional Cuban food, learn the meaning of the craziest Cuban sayings and tell you all about Miami.

We all have vivid kitchen memories that stick to us because of the emotions we felt in the moment. So every time you smell or taste the food of your youth, you’re immediately transported to your childhood and your memories of loved ones here and gone.

I’m all about preserving that connection. Food does more than feed our stomachs, it nourishes our soul! The memories we form over food, the desire to create and share and host and celebrate, connects us and that’s what I want to preserve for you and me.

I extend an invitation to anyone who has a family recipe they’d like to share to send it along. It would be my honor to make it and post it for others to enjoy. Hopefully, our recipes and stories will help others find ways to bond with their own family members at a shared table.

• “You’re welcome to hop aboard the Bean Train!”
  —Sandi Abbott

Mami and Me

As I pass the beans baton to the next generation, I hope to continue the tradition of sharing love through Cuban food. Especially as I prepare to become a future Abuela.

My relationship with my mother has been difficult through the years, but we bond by cooking together. Working on these recipes with Mami helps me connect with her and with my own heart. I grew up in Miami in the ’80s and all I wanted was to be all-American, not Cuban-American. But now that I’m older and wiser, I’ve learned to love my Cuban roots.

Living in Miami keeps me close to my Cuban traditions, but Bean Train is about so much more than Cuban dishes. At the heart of it, this food blog is about preserving family connections through food.

• “Cooking is in our DNA.”
  —Mami