On Zarela’s Mind
Tributes, remembrances, family stories, journeys, and more
My Mother, Aida Gabilondo
Today would have been my mother’s 100th birthday.
She was an exceptional woman and, every year, I like to share a little bit from a book I’ve been working on about the lessons I learned from different people that got me to this point in my life. I would absolutely do it differently today but the message would be the same.
Budd Schulberg: What Makes Sammy Run and On the Waterfront
Nine years ago, I lost a great friend, Budd Schulberg, the Oscar-winning author of On the Waterfront and countless books, including What Makes Sammy Run, Some Faces in the Crowd, The Disenchanted, The Harder They Fall, Sparring with Hemingway, and others. Soon...
My Mother, Aida Gabilondo
Today would have been my mother's 104th birthday . She was an exceptional woman and, every year, I like to share a little bit from a book I've been working on about the lessons I learned from different people that got me to this point in my life. There's also a...
Guanajuato – The City
I have a new love!! Or is it an old one revisited? I went to Guanajuato to see another dream fulfilled. I always wanted to be in a movie and I have a small singing role in Moronga, a black comedy that had its premiere at the Guanajuato Film Festival on July 26,...
Sobremesa
In most Latin American countries, there is a sacred tradition called the sobremesa, the after-lunch, after-dinner interlude filled with pleasant conversation, jokes, stories, singing, and dancing that sometimes goes on until dinner time I have to figure out how to...
Meeting my idol or heroine Teresa Castello de Yturbide
The first serious, scholarly yet appealing book I bought or was given was a book on Pre-Hispanic ingredients called La Presencia de la Comida Prehispanica, written by Teresa Castello Yturbide who, I think is a distant relative of the Emperor, Agustin de Yturbide,...
El Paso Thank You
Jesus and Mary Academy, first year, Front and Frowning; Though I was born and raised in Mexico, El Paso was my second home and the birthplace of my career. My mother had home-schooled my sisters and me using the Calvert School System, a teaching method used by...
The many lives of Zarela Martínez
Culinary legend Zarela Martínez introduced finely tuned, highly researched regional Mexican cuisine to a national stage, and has continued to blaze trails for more than three decades.