We were lucky to catch up with Chef Miguel Cavanna recently and have shared our conversation below.

Chef Miguel, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So, let’s start with a hypothetical – what would you change about the educational system?

Having had experience in the subject I would start by totally revamping the food/cafeteria system in our school system, we feed our kids CRAP and that has to change immediately. I would go a step further and reduce the salaries of the PARASITES aka politicians and feed “all” kids for free as well as take better care of the teachers

We need to TEACH/EDUCATE not INDOCTRINATE

we should teach kids about life so that they can tackle their lives with all the necessary tools to succeed , home economics, shop, finances, marital and parenting guidance, Real Estate principals, investing, taxes, home maintenance the importance of local governments and how it all begins with local governments, not just learn about it but get involved if they want to have an idea of where their lives are headed, don’t forget it all starts with local governments, vote with common sense not just for political double talk and appearances, being a responsible citizen is hard work, don’t allow politicians to fool you, question everything learn to read between the lines if you are informed they can’t fool you but you’ve got to know the difference GET INVOLVED and hold their feet to the fire!!!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I started my cooking career in my native Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1967, I credit my mother’s influence for me entering the cooking arena I noticed she made people happy with her creations and I guess that sort of inspired me, in 1970 I moved to Washington DC where I got to work in some fine restaurants in the nation’s capital, after gaining some additional experience I was hired by The Washington Hilton Hotel where for the next two years I went through an intense culinary training program provided by the Hilton corporation in Chicago’s Conrad Hilton, in 1973 I moved to Marco Island Fla and became the chef for one of the outlet restaurant within the hotel. I spent six months of hard training and learned so much in every food & beverage dept such as Gardmanger, fish mongering, butcher shop and so on then I traveled back to DC where I went to work for an organization that was trying to bring a particular concept from Rome Italy to the US, and because of my cooking abilities and my fluency in the Italian language I was hired and sent to Rome where I spent a year and a half in this 70 year old iconic establishment learning and specializing in the Abruzzi region culinary practices when I came back to the States, the new concept was a total success and Ambasciata Abruzzo was the restaurant to be seen in the Nation’s Capital, we had great success, in the late 80’s I moved to San Antonio Texas where I immediately started working on my hot sauce as well as getting involved with some high caliber restaurants. in 2000 I moved to Miami with a contract from TELEMUNDO television where I was invited to become part of the ensemble morning show “De Mañanitas” for the next 5 years also traveled around the Caribbean for a series of cooking seminars then I headed back home to San Antonio Texas where I operated 2 restaurants, I started in 2007

nowadays I dedicate and divide my time to my cooking seminars, my SALSA DE MACHO www.chefcavanna.com traveling and promoting it doing some consulting work around the country, as well as occasionally when my agent, a producer or director take pity on me and offers me an acting job, commercial or voice over then I’ll take it! , seriously considering Homesteading in the near future far away from the noise but not too far from the limelight entirely and off course always paying attention to what the corrupt politicians are doing with our resources

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I think is because of the fact that yes, I do manufacture my SALSA DE MACHO from day one (November 1990) myself and it will always remain this way because I do not relinquish the control of my product, in order to maintain quality and quantity of this Artisanal well-crafted limited production gourmet hot sauce that was never designed, and it will not be mass produced, I craft only between 10-12 k bottles a year making sure quality control it’s indeed controlled, the day I croak it’ll go with me. my idea about a gourmet hot sauce started back in the 80’s while living in Washington DC, the problem there in those days was availability, so I tinkered with mostly jalapeños and whatever I could find in the market but I always in my mind knew what I wanted, it wasn’t until I moved to San Antonio Texas that I discovered a whole array of exotic hot chiles I felt like I was in Chile heaven, so I started ramping up my research and development.
by October 1990 I had my Eureka moment and said, this is it, the next month I bottled my first 10 cases that’s 120 bottles and it was a feat, but finely I came up with what I had in mind all along and have been sharing it for now 32 years, one of the greatest satisfactions is to still hold on to some of the original customer base, and all the positive feedback, very proud of that!

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

I market my product via, website www.chefcavanna.com and other platforms such as Amazon, eBay, Instagram, Facebook, Square.com but my favorite way is one-on- one, word of mouth, personal appearances where sometimes large groups gather, I’m old school I like to spread the message personally because nobody feels the message like I do, I’m very passionate about what I created and very fortunate to be able to only do what really appeals to me in life in general, in that sense I’m a very fortunate human being free to choose my next move I consider myself a very rich man, not necessarily in financial terms but in many, many other aspects of my life, I thank and celebrate the universe for all my experiences and blessings.

As far as the pros and cons I’d have to say that the world changes and we have to change with it to keep up, e-commerce is a wonderful tool but let’s not forget that as humans we still need that one-on-one contact and this rapidly advancing technology sometimes keeps us apart, in my view, we should try as much as we can to avoid that, that’s why I will always be in front of the customer because as wonderful as e-commerce is it robs you of the personal feedback and the smile on your customers face when they try your product, I consider their smiles and enthusiasm as part of the profits, there’s always a price to pay in life let’s just hope that the one-on-one contact is not one

Contact Info:

• Website: salsademacho29@yahoo.com / www.chefcavanna.com
• Instagram: Instagram: salsademacho
• Facebook: miguel cavanna
• Linkedin: miguel cavanna
• Twitter: miguel cavanna @Mac999999
• Youtube: miguelcavanna
• Yelp: Chef Cavanna’s Int’l Foods
• Other: www.chefcavanna.com

Image Credits
A walk on the Wildside credit San Antonio Express News S.A. Life credit San Antonio Express News Cascades on The River credit, San Antonio Menu Book Preist pic credit to Montemayor ad agency