"As anyone knows who tunes him in on national TV as 'The Fight Doctor,' Ferdie Pacheco is a world-class spellbinder. But catching that verbal magic on a page is a rare gift. The proof is in the reading of this racy, vivid, evocative page-turner, as much fun to read as Ferdie had living it in this unique Cuban enclave, a world unto itself that he re-creates for us in Pachecoese, a lingua franca of the spirit."--Budd Schulberg
"Ferdie Pacheco takes us to a vanished time and place, full of affectionate laughter, the invincible optimism of immigrants, and the delicious aroma of good cigars. He makes all of us wish we'd grown up in Ybor City."--Pete Hamill
"Pure pleasure. Pacheco brings an enormous talent to this task. A renaissance man, he is perhaps best known as Muhammad Ali's physician, but he has also distinguished himself as a general practitioner serving Miami's inner city, a prominent boxing commentator, an accomplished artist, and a remarkable raconteur. It is the last quality that drives Ybor City Chronicles."--Gary R. Mormino, University of South Florida
 With his gift for storytelling, Ferdie Pacheco stirs a gust of cigar smoke into the hot steam of café con leche and creates the magic of this lighthearted memoir. His stage is Ybor City, the colorful immigrant community on the edge of Tampa, and the time is 1935-45--the decade when Pacheco grew up and the community he loves outgrew its ethnic splendor. Pacheco's respect for words began the day his story starts, when ten-year-old Ferdie climbs into a truck with Sweet Sam to deliver pharmaceuticals for La Economica, the family chemist shop. Along with prescription drugs, homeopathic "nerve" remedies, and laxatives, Sam totes a book of poetry and a dictionary, and before the day is out he prevails upon Ferdie to look up "procrastinate." "Succulent" and "delectable" follow. Pacheco writes with the sentimentality of a Latin lover and the instincts of a stand-up comic. At the heart of his story is the fabled Columbia Restaurant, where he worked as a teen-age waiter for two summers--a job with status in Ybor City equal to that of being a New York Yankee ballplayer, he says. Its glamorous doors opened fifteen hours a day to the community's characters, and they become folk heroes under Pacheco's affectionate scrutiny: Pepe Lu Babo, the idiot savant of newspaper circulation; Chef Pijuan, who asked to have a menu buried with him when he died; Pan con Chinches ("Bread and Bedbugs"), who had once been a lector in a cigar factory; Don Victoriano Manteiga, the resident intellectual who founded La Gaceta, the trilingual newspaper published today by his son Roland; and Dr. José Avellanal, who experimented with cryogenics on stray cats and practiced law, plastic surgery, gynecology, the ministry, and higher education, all from his "office" in the hotel El Pasaje. Though Pacheco describes years spanning the Great Depression and World War II, his days then were blissfully contained by his Spanish/Cuban/Italian enclave. After school he visited his abuelita, the grandmother who fixed him cups of thick hot chocolate and reminded him that science was more important than art if he wanted to become a doctor. He went to western movies in splendid air-conditioned theaters on Saturday and, in his teen years, to tea dances at ethnic social clubs on Sunday. On fine days, the yellow trolley--known as the "jewel of Tampa Electric" for its wicker seats and lacquered wood interior--took him to picnics at nearby Sulphur Springs. With no excuses for the past, he recalls that his father, J.B., woke each morning to the sight of his wife standing by his bedside with his cup of Cuban coffee in her hand, ready to help him on with his shoes, and that J.B. ended every evening in the cool cellar of the Centro Asturiano club, smoking cigarettes, playing cards, drinking a last cup of espresso. Ybor City Chronicles includes vintage photographs and Pacheco's own cartoons, sketches, and paintings, many never before published, and an epilogue by Ybor City historian Tony Pizzo, who describes the features that today make Ybor City a National Historic Monument.
 Ferdie Pacheco, M.D., is the author of the novel Renegade Lightning and of two books of nonfiction, Muhammad Ali: A View from the Corner and Fight Doctor, an account of his life as a physician in the fight world. He practiced medicine from 1958 to 1980 and served as Muhammad Ali's personal physician from 1963 to 1977. In recent years, he has served as boxing color commentator for NBC-TV, Showtime, and Univision. In 1990 he received an Emmy for writing, producing, and narrating the NBC special "Ali Wins the Title." He is also a painter and has exhibited one-person shows in London, Paris, New York, Miami (where he now lives), and other cities throughout the United States.

Ybor City Chronicles: A Memoir

Biographies & Memoirs

PACHECO, Ferdie

Historical

University Press of Florida

*"Five Forks"--Spanish government ranking *"Recommended"--AAA Travel Guide and Mobil Travel Guide *Golden Spoon Award--Florida Trend *"A Spanish happening not to be found elsewhere."--Holiday Magazine *Epicurean Rendezvous Award for "The best restaurant in Tampa, Florida"--Fortune Magazine *Fine Dining Hall of Fame Award--Nation's Restaurant News
Out of secrets and dreams and romance, Adela Hernandez Gonzmart and Ferdie Pacheco memorialize their passion for the Columbia in this narrated cookbook inspired by the nation's largest Spanish restaurant and Florida's oldest restaurant. Adela's affair with food is a family legacy that began more than 90 years ago, when her beloved grandfather Casimiro emigrated from Cuba to Tampa, then a little town on Florida's west coast. There, amid scrub palmettos and rattlesnakes, an enclave of Cubans, Spaniards, and Italians worked in the growing cigar industry in a neighborhood known as Ybor City. Casimiro Hernandez found work, saved his money, and in 1905 purchased a bar, where he started selling soup, sandwiches, and coffee. Out of gratitude to his new country, he named his small café the Columbia, after the personification of America in the popular song "Columbia, Gem of the Ocean." Prophetically, he added this motto to his sign: "The Gem of All Spanish Restaurants." This book is both a history of the elegant family restaurant, which now boasts six locations in Florida, and a cookbook of 178 recipes that make them famous. It is also the biography of Adela, the heart of the Columbia, with commentary by Ferdie Pacheco, television's "fight doctor," Ybor City's famous raconteur, and Adela's neighbor as they grew up together in Ybor City. Casimiro became known for dishes that the Columbia still serves--Spanish bean soup, his lusty creation that combines sausage, garbanzo beans, and potatoes in a beef stock; arroz con pollo, a classic chicken and rice dish; an authentic Cuban sandwich; and the 1905 salad, dressed with the family's special blend of fresh garlic, oregano, wine vinegar, lemon juice, and Spanish olive oil. Pijuan, Casimiro's fabled chef from the kitchen of King Alfonso XIII of Spain, contributed numerous works of art, such as pompano papillot and steak capuchina. Adela and Ferdie now reveal the best of these recipes and offer many others, giving lovers of good food the opportunity to bring home the aroma, the seasonings, and the glamour of the Columbia, the gem of all Spanish restaurants. 
 Adela Hernandez Gonzmart was born two blocks from the Columbia Restaurant. After graduating from the Juilliard School of Music, she toured the United States and Cuba as a concert pianist. After her marriage to violinist Cesar Gonzmart, she performed with such entertainers as Liberace, Ernesto Lecuona, and Amparo Hurb. She was instrumental in forming the Tampa Symphony Orchestra and has received countless honors from organizations in the Tampa community: Outstanding Citizen of the Year awards from the Tampa Museum Society and the Optimist Club, Hispanic Woman of the Year from the Hispanic Heritage League, Paulo Longo Award from the Italian Club, and the Centro Asturiano Award for contributions to the Latin community, as well as awards from the community Red Cross, Salvation Army, Girl Scouts, and Arts Council and other awards for civic service.
 Ferdie Pacheco, who as a teenager worked in the Columbia Restaurant as a waiter, is the author of Ybor City Chronicles (UPF, 1994), Muhammad Ali: A View from the Corner, Fight Doctor, and Renegade Lightning. He served as Muhammad Ali's personal physician from 1963 to 1977. He is also a painter, exhibiting one-man shows in London, Paris, New York, and Miami (where he now lives), and a boxing color commentator on television. He is married to Luisita Sevilla, who danced flamenco with Los Chavales de España until Ferdie booked her into his house "for a lifetime run."

The Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Gonzmart, Adela Hernandez

Main Courses & Side Dishes

From reviews of Ybor City Chronicles:
"[Ybor City Chronicles] reads like oral history, behind which one senses a practiced storyteller--a big, hearty, entertaining fellow who can talk about himself for hours, and does. . . . He can make you laugh out loud in a room alone."-- Washington Post
"Dr. Pacheco is enthralled by the memory of a neighborhood of family and friends inextricably tied together by custom, values, and concerns. It is these traits that make his anecdotes worth relating."-- New York Times Book Review
"Ferdie Pacheco is an artist. His oils are lush and rich, full of the color and life of his times. They are vibrant and alive--almost as if Grandma Moses were to eat a plate of boliche and swallow three cups of café solo before sitting down to paint. . . . [And] he is a storyteller. . . . Ybor City Chronicles is a moment lifted out of the past. . . . It is told with style and gusto and more than a little love, [and] we owe a debt of thanks to Ferdie Pacheco."-- Tampa Tribune
Ferdie Pacheco has done it again. In Ybor City Chronicles (UPF, 1994) he brought to life the immigrant utopia that was Tampa’s Ybor City in his childhood. In The Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook (UPF, 1995), he and coauthor Adela Hernandez Gonzmart created something more than a cookbook, highlighting the recipes, history, and personalities behind of one of America’s most famous Spanish restaurants. Now, in Pacheco’s Art of Ybor City, the Renaissance man and bon vivant best known as Muhammad Ali’s "Fight Doctor"--a man who has also worn the hats of family physician, Emmy award-winning boxing commentator, historian, playwright, screenplay writer, and author of five books--here offers 33 of the paintings that have established his reputation as an artist. In these full-color reproductions we see the Ybor City of the 1930s and ’40s that inspired Pacheco from the beginning. With the same flare and storyteller’s gift evident in Ybor City Chronicles and The Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook, he narrates the unpredictable course of his development as an artist and tells the story behind each painting in this collection. In the bright muralist-style colors that have become his stock-in-trade, Pacheco renders a storehouse of memories too vivid ever to grow dull. So long as he has hold of us, there is no Ybor City more real than this one--with its cigar factories, palm trees, bolita gangsters, trolley cars, clubs and diners and cafés, and the Spaniards, Cubans, Sicilians, and oddball personalities who walk its red-bricked streets. Picture book, memoir, history lesson, and portrait of the artist, Pacheco’s Art of Ybor City is four books in one. Together they do what only art can: they turn memory, love, and nostalgia into a city you can visit.
Ferdie Pacheco is the author of Ybor City Chronicles (UPF, 1994), The Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook (with Adela Hernandez Gonzmart, UPF, 1995), Muhammad Ali: A View from the Corner, Fight Doctor, and Renegade Lightning. His art has been featured in Harper’s Magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, London Times, Miami Herald, USA Today, People Magazine, Sports Illustrated, TV Guide, and many others. Exhibits of his award-winning paintings have appeared in New York, London, Paris, Marseilles, Scottsdale, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Tampa, and Miami, where he now lives with his wife, Luisita Sevilla.

Pacheco's Art of Ybor City

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

About The Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook: "A double bargain since it includes both the history of an elegant and popular family restaurant and 178 recipes. . . . A must-read for all food and history lovers."--Florida Living
About Ybor City Chronicles: "Sometimes the most valuable memories are best labeled 'stretchers,' to use Huckleberry Finn's term. Ferdie Pacheco's nostalgic account of his childhood can confidently be called a stretcher . . . the memory of a neighborhood of family and friends inextricably tied together by custom, values, and concerns. The reader can actually see the place as he saw it."--New York Times Book Review
"Reads like oral history, behind which one senses a practiced storyteller--a big, hearty, entertaining fellow who can talk about himself for hours, and does. . . . He can make you laugh out loud in a room alone."--Washington Post
About Pacheco's Art of Ybor City: "This jewel of a book proves once again that the author is indeed a man of all seasons. . . . Recommended for inclusion in any Florida history collection and any collection of art books."--Florida Times-Union
In this beautifully illustrated collection of nearly 200 recipes and 19 holiday stories, Ferdie Pacheco and Luisita Sevilla Pacheco create a holiday melting pot of immigrant lore and cuisine in America. The book begins in Ybor City, where Ferdie Pacheco grew up in the 1930s and '40s, an immigrant utopia of Cubans, Spaniards, Jews, and Italians in Tampa, Florida. Pacheco's own Latin heritage sets the stage for the book's focus on Christmas Eve, or Nochebuena--for Latin families often the biggest feast day of the season, when friends and family sit around a table laden with traditional dishes, telling stories that grow more colorful each year. As the Pachecos know, however, the beauty of American holiday celebrations is their rich diversity, and so they range well beyond Ybor City, collecting recipes and stories--old and new--from Cuban, Spanish, Italian, Sicilian, Mexican, and Jewish friends around the country. A master story-teller, Pacheco recounts tales that are by turns hilarious, moving, and inspiring. Known to many as "The Fight Doctor," Pacheco includes a delightful Nochebuena story about his daughter Tina and Muhammad Ali. Recipes are organized by nationality and type of food, including appetizers, salads, gravies and sauces, soups and stews, meats, game, seafood, pasta and dumpling dishes, rice and bean dishes, tamales and chili, vegetables, jellies, desserts, and drinks. Together these recipes, stories, and Ferdie Pacheco's own wonderful illustrations remind us that while no two Christmas Eve or Chanukah celebrations in America are ever quite the same, they all have in common the love of good food and a good story. The Christmas Eve Cookbook offers enough of both to make the holidays last all year round.
Nochebuena storyteller Ferdie Pacheco, M.D., has worn the hats of family doctor (including a stint as Muhammad Ali’s personal physician), Emmy-winning TV boxing commentator, historian, artist, playwright, screenplay writer, and author of six books, three published with University Press of Florida--Ybor City Chronicles, Pacheco's Art of Ybor City, and, with Adela Gonzmart, The Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook--and Fight Doctor, Muhammad Ali: A View From the Corner, and Renegade Lightning. Nochebuena chef Luisita Sevilla Pacheco, formerly a professional dancer, choreographer, and teacher of flamenco, is also a photographer (her work appears in Fight Doctor and View From the Corner) and a wonderful cook. She and her husband, Ferdie, live in Miami.

The Christmas Eve Cookbook: With Tales of Nochebuena and Chanukah

Regional & International

For nearly twenty years Coral Gables's Caffé Abbracci has boasted a chic clientele and excellent cuisine. This illustrated cookbook features recipes for over 100 of its best and most popular dishes, from appetizers to desserts, along with tales of the gracious host and owner's life. There are simple recipes like Crostini with Pear and Prosciutto, the sea and land flavors of Oysters with Gorgonzola Sauce, soups, salads, and of course excellent pasta dishes, desserts--including a superb tiramisu--and much more to round out any home cook's repertoire. A native of Lake Garda in Northern Italy, Nino Pernetti is a brilliant restaurateur and a talented businessman. Two things stood central even to his earliest memories: good food and good people. His love of both kept him traveling to and working in France, Afghanistan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Mexico, to fall in love at long last with Miami--a city he could call home.

Nino Pernetti's Caffè Abbracci Cookbook: His Life Story and Travels around the World

Pernetti, Nino

Pacheco, Luisita Sevilla

Professionals & Academics

Be a part of the legendary boxing gym in its prime
"It was the gym where the Muhammad Ali legend was born. The 5th Street Gym in Miami and those that inhabited it are gone now, but inside these pages their spirit lives."--Thomas K. Stewart, Boxing Writers of America
"Ferdie Pacheco takes you back to a time and place that no longer exist in boxing. On these pages, you are standing alongside the great characters of the sport, inside the wonderfully eclectic 5th Street Gym. You can feel the rhythm of the gym, smell the sweat, and hear the pounding of the heavy bags. What a ride."--Robert Cassidy, Newsday
In its forty-year existence, the 5th Street Gym housed the training grounds for three of the greatest fighters the sport has ever known--Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, and Sugar Ray Leonard--and became the locus for a grand total of fourteen world champions. The site was also a magnet for a wide range of international celebrities including Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Jackie Gleason, Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, and Sylvester Stallone, who were all absorbed into the gym's legend. The 5th Street Gym's beginnings trace back to 1950, when Chris Dundee, along with his brother Angelo, began promoting big-time boxing at Miami Beach.
Tales from the 5th Street Gym includes a wealth of never-before-seen photographs and is the first to chronicle the fascinating history of the 5th Street Gym from one of its insiders--Dr. Ferdie Pacheco--with crucial contributions from Tom Archdeacon, Angelo Dundee, Suzanne Dundee Bonner, Enrique Encinosa, Howard Kleinberg, Ramiro Ortiz, Edwin Pope, Bob Sheridan, and Budd Schulberg. Discover the secret history of one of boxing's most hallowed grounds, as Pacheco recalls the rise, heyday, and fall of the "sweet science" at Miami Beach.

Tales from the 5th Street Gym: Ali, the Dundees, and Miami's Golden Age of Boxing

History

Americas

In this narrated cookbook, Adela Hernandez Gonzmart and Ferdie Pacheco memorialize their passion for the Columbia, the nation's largest Spanish restaurant and Florida's oldest restaurant. This special 115th anniversary edition of The Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook features a touching foreword by Andrea Gonzmart Williams, granddaughter of Adela. Adela's affair with food is a family legacy that began in the early twentieth century, when her grandfather Casimiro Hernandez emigrated from Cuba to Tampa. In 1905, Casimiro purchased a small corner café, where he started selling soup, sandwiches, and coffee. Out of gratitude to his new country, he named his small café Columbia, after the personification of America in the popular song "Columbia, Gem of the Ocean." Prophetically, he added this motto to his sign: "The Gem of All Spanish Restaurants." Casimiro became known for dishes that the Columbia still serves today--Spanish bean soup, his hearty creation that combines sausage, garbanzo beans, and potatoes in a beef stock; arroz con pollo, a classic chicken and rice dish; an authentic Cuban sandwich; and the "1905" Salad®, dressed with the family's special blend of fresh garlic, oregano, wine vinegar, lemon juice, and Spanish olive oil. This anniversary edition of The Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook is a history of the elegant family restaurant, which now boasts multiple locations across Florida, and a delicious cookbook of 178 recipes that make them famous. It is also the biography of Adela, the heart of the Columbia, with commentary by Ferdie Pacheco--Muhammad Ali's "Fight Doctor," Ybor City's famous raconteur, and Adela's childhood friend. Adela and Ferdie have since passed, but this book remains a testament to their love of good food and their joy in sharing the aroma, the seasonings, and the glamour of the Columbia.

A novel that commemorates the heroism of the American fighter and bomber pilots of World War II is set in Italy in 1943, when an Italian pilot captures an American P-38 Lightning and uses it to shoot down unsuspecting American bombers.

Renegade Lightning: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

Skimin, Robert

Genre Fiction

Presidio Press

Patton and the Mountain Man is fiction, make no mistake about it, but it is fiction based on fact. My curiosity had for years been peaked by the unusual circumstances surrounding the General's strange demise, the undecently rapid burial, the absence of investigative reports, accident reports. No autopsy, and the undue haste to bury the body in Europe and cover up all details. When Senator (Balaban) who was the MP Lieutenant first to arrive on the scene, reopened Patton's file, he found to his dismay, that his accident report on the scene had been disappeared. Later, I came across the fact that the gold the SS had stolen from the Jews, and stockpiled in banks in Switzerland, had been re-stolen a bit at a time and moved to Lisbon. Then came the flood of 'inside' information when the USSR fell apart, and then books were open to western eyes. There, clear as a bell, were the facts that had made Patton so antsy to rearm the German Army, and to stonewall the Russians in 1946. They were indeed on the move, as Patton claimed. Clear plans for the invasion of all of Europe, and the United States, via Alaska with Chinese human wave, to begin in 1950, was signed by Joseph Stalin. Patton had no place to go. He couldn't come home, retire, and live on his reputation. His wife had caught him in a 3 year laison with his own niece. He was forbidden to come home. McArthur certainly did not want him in the Paciffic. One Prima Donna per theater of operations was enough. He was stuck in Europe. My book is based on conclusions I reached when all of the information became available. It is NOT FACT. It is my personal conjecture fit into a combat story. One day, the true story of General Patton's assassination will become known. By then, no one will care. Ferdie Pachecho MD

Who Killed Patton

AuthorHouse

"Patton and the Mountain Man" is fiction, make no mistake about it, but it is fiction based on fact. My curiosity had for years been peaked by the unusual circumstances surrounding the General's strange demise, the undecently rapid burial, the absence of investigative reports, accident reports. No autopsy, and the undue haste to bury the body in Europe and cover up all details.When Senator (Balaban) who was the MP Lieutenant first to arrive on the scene, reopened Patton's file, he found to his dismay, that his accident report on the scene had been "disappeared".Later, I came across the fact that the gold the SS had stolen from the Jews, and stockpiled in banks in Switzerland, had been re-stolen a bit at a time and moved to Lisbon.Then came the flood of 'inside' information when the USSR fell apart, and then books were open to western eyes.There, clear as a bell, were the facts that had made Patton so antsy to rearm the German Army, and to stonewall the Russians in 1946. They were indeed on the move, as Patton claimed. Clear plans for the invasion of all of Europe, and the United States, via Alaska with Chinese human wave, to begin in 1950, was signed by Joseph Stalin.Patton was right! The United States need to shut him up. They couldn't . Patton had no place to go. He couldn't come home, retire, and live on his reputation. His wife had caught him in a 3 year laison with his own niece. He was forbidden to come home. McArthur certainly did not want him in the Pacific. One Prima Donna per theater of operations was enough. He was stuck in Europe.My book is based on conclusions I reached when all of the information became available.It is NOT FACT. It is my personal conjecture fit into a combat story. One day, the true story of General Patton's assassination will become known. By then, no one will care. Ferdie Pachecho MD

WHO KILLED PATTON

Contemporary

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by PACHECO, Ferdie. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by PACHECO, Ferdie

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by PACHECO, Ferdie. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Ybor City Chronicles: A Memoir

The Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook

Pacheco's Art of Ybor City

The Christmas Eve Cookbook: With Tales of Nochebuena and Chanukah

Nino Pernetti's Caffè Abbracci Cookbook: His Life Story and Travels around the World

Tales from the 5th Street Gym: Ali, the Dundees, and Miami's Golden Age of Boxing

The Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook

Renegade Lightning: A Novel

Who Killed Patton

WHO KILLED PATTON