“CAFECITO COMPARTIDO” – PANEL

CARLOS FRÍAS is a bilingual journalist of nearly 30 years. He has been a radio host, a James Beard Award-winning food journalist, an on-screen talent, and a sportswriter. Frías is also the author of the award-winning memoir Take Me With You: A Secret Search for Family in a Forbidden Cuba (Atria Books). Miami is his hometown and his muse.

EILEEN ANDRADE is the chef-owner of Amelia’s 1931. Andrade started in the fashion business, but couldn’t resist the pull of her Cuban family’s restaurant legacy, especially that of her abuela Amelia, for whom the restaurant is named. She worked her way up in her family’s restaurants (she started as a dishwasher), ran a food truck and two casual spots – Finka and Barbako – and designed Amelia’s 1931, which features an eclectic Asian-Latin menu.

GESI SCHILLING is a Miami-born photographer. Her work regularly appears in print including in The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Complex, Vogue, and the Miami Herald, where she began her career in photojournalism in 2010. She has documented more than 200 weddings and a decade of the O, Miami Poetry Festival. She is also the creator of The Sunny Project, a photography-based fundraising platform that provided funds to organizations supporting vulnerable populations during the pandemic. Schilling holds a degree in visual anthropology from the University of Florida. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

MELODY SANTIAGO CUMMINGS is the executive director of O, Miami. A Miami native, she is an alumnus of the National YoungArts Foundation, studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University, Boston, and holds a BFA from Massachusetts College of Fine Art. Recognized as a 2019-20 “Miami Leader” by The Miami Foundation, she received a certificate from Indiana University – The Fundraising School in 2019. In addition to contributing to more than 700 projects and events at O, Miami, Santiago Cummings has been a creative strategist specializing in cultural programming for Apple and Pérez Art Museum Miami.

MIKE ROMEU is the founder and CEO of Sweet Melody Crafter Ice Cream. The company prides itself in presenting familiar (and not so familiar) flavors whimsically and creatively, telling its story one pint at a time by using only the finest ingredients.

TERE ESTORINO is a writer and poet who was born and lives in Miami with her husband and two sons. Her experiences growing up in the 1980s and '90s in a flourishing but insular Cuban exile community against the larger reality of life in the United States are a fundamental part of her identity, and inescapably influence her work. Estorino has chronicled her life online for more than two decades through various blogs. Her work has been featured online and in print, including Hungry? Thirsty? Miami (Glove Box Guides) and Ventanitas: A Window Into Miami's Coffee Culture. She's currently working on a collection of poems about what it means to be an aging woman in Miami.