Margarita, Wine or Beer?

Question:  What do you think goes best with your food –margarita, wine or beer?
I knew it had to happen some day but frankly I had almost lost hope.  But all of a sudden, more and more people are ordering wine with my food at Zarela.  It is thrilling because my  dishes come alive and the [...]

If you really want to cook like me

If you really want to cook like me…
It’s like meeting an accuser. Someone marches up to me at my restaurant or after a book signing and announces with an injured air: “You know, there’s something wrong with this recipe. I did everything it said to, and it didn’t taste anything like yours!”
I always [...]

Zarela’s Favorite Dishes featured as specials March 27 – 31

Soup
Chilpachole de Jaíba
Richly–flavored Veracruzan spicy crab soup
capped with a stuffed crab and masa dumplings.
10.00
Tamal de Masa Cocida
Pre-cooked corn masa stuffed with pork, roasted and
ancho chile adobo and steamed in a banana leaf
9.50
Tarta de Tomate
Tart of puréed tomato guajillo chile and parmesan cheese.  Topped with
Mexican cream and chipotle
11.00
Chile Relleno de Chicharrón
Anaheim chile stuffed with pork rinds, [...]

Pico de Gallo and Tomatillo Salsa from Zarela Restaurant

Table sauces and how to cook with them…

Two Fishy Questions

I was getting sa little worried, we have a lot of visitors to the site but few people ask questions. Maybe they don’t want to register but we need to do that for security reasons. But here are two good questions,

Chile Limon

Mexicans will eat anything with lime and chile –mangoes, potato chips, popcorn, jicama, apples,  oranges, even persimmons and the famous esquites (corn kernels)–you name it.  It is an addictive combination that originally consisted of squeezing a lime on whatever you were eating and sprinkling some dried red chile on it which is what I [...]

Falling in love again–looking back on why I wrote about Veracruz

When I had finished writing The Food and Life of Oaxaca, I thought I’d never want to write another cookbook. Not only was I exhausted from the work of getting a complex book into print, but my heart and mind were still full of Oaxaca.  I felt that the state somehow summed up the entire [...]

International Women’s Day – March 8th

for him
In the 21 years my restaurant has been open, I’ve been through many International Women’s Day Celebrations but never has there been so much excitement and never has the Latino press been more interested in my story that they hope will inspire and empower young Latino women to succeed which is, after all,  the [...]