Women Owned Businesses: Zarela Martinez

I was really sad to learn a few months ago that Zarela, the restaurant that really introduced Mexican cuisine to New York, was closing.  I was lucky enough to have attended a lecture presented by Zarela's proprietress Zarela Martinz last year, and began studying her work intensely immediately. Shortly thereafter, I attended a cooking class of hers at the restaurant and immediately felt a kinship with her. The genuine love and passion she was able to communicate for her family, her culture and her food was truly infectious. I left the class feeling like I was walking on a cloud and thinking to myself that I need to endeavor to communicate about my passions in the same way.

Zarela has been a pioneer along with other chef/owners like Lidia Bastianich in New York City. There are now many more women chefs and owners, but she was among the first. That Zarela the restaurant is now closed is truly heartbreaking but she has said that she intends to reopen in a new location (possibly downtown) and meanwhile is maintaining her catering business as well as teaching cooking classes and consulting. Please please go to her website and follow her blog http://www.zarela.com/  for all sorts of excellent information about food, Mexico and her passions and inspirations. Follow her on twitter so you know if there's a class she's offering: you can take it! If you have an event you think she would be good to cater: get in touch! If you want to learn more about Mexican cuisine: buy her books or watch her videos! 

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Blogging Vs. Living

It's the modern dilemma right? We should DO more and not just do it to write about it later right? But it's fun to write about things that interest me. Right now I'm working a lot, trying to stay healthy with the weather changing and everyone getting colds around me. I'm thinking about the election in the U.S., poverty and power abusive governments around the word, and the struggles me and my friends face everyday in life and love. Nothing is easy.

But, if I were to write about the details of my life one cool thing i did this week was go on a field trip with some other students at NGI to Sunset Park Brooklyn. Sue Baldassano, the director of education is naturally passionate about food and has created her won business doing culinary tours to Mexico and Sicily called To Grandmother's House We Go. On our trip today we went to all the Mexican markets to look at ingredients like spices and produce and finished the trip with a lovely lunch at Maria's Mexican Bistro. It was great to meet other students from the other classes and eat delicious food. I bought a bunch of spices and cheese and a tortilla press.

And always on the quest to find Salvadoran food in NY, I stumbled across this gem. Woo hoo!