Ever since I was a very little girl, I've always loved Mexican food. My father was an avid home cook, always going to markets and discovering new things and asking to talk to the Chefs in restaurants to see if he could find out the secrets of their recipes. If there was a spice he didn't know about, he'd ask where he could get it and how to use it, and if he had a meal he especially liked, he'd try to recreate it until he'd perfected it the way he wanted it to be. He and I used to cook Mexican dinners together and he'd teach me his secrets, and because I was learning Spanish he'd write the menus for our dinners in Spanish too. I've never had better Chile Rellenos than the ones he made, though I've tried them everywhere I can because they're a favorite of mine. He was always talking about Mole sauce, but for some reason I'd never had the opportunity to try his. I think perhaps it might have been because he hadn't found exactly the right way to make it yet.
One day about a year or so ago I started to see an occasional traditional Mexican dish on the menu at Antique Bar & Bakery. It started I think with coal fire roasted duck served with a squash flower tamale, both things that I love and that I rarely find made the way I like them. There were some excellent barbacoas that appeared on occasion, some memorable Mexican street corn and some delicious meats roasted in banana leaves, and then in November a duck in Mole sauce with a fragrant and flavorful herbed rice and roasted acorn squash was a special one night. It was outstanding, the duck cooked to perfection in a way that I love it and don't often find it, and the rice not just a side but along with the squash bringing another dimension. When I told Chef Paul Gerard how wonderful it was, he pointed to his Sous Chef Jiovani Vazquez, and I learned that they were all family recipes that Chef Jio learned from his parents and grandparents and that he had perfected and brought to the coal fired oven at Antique Bar & Bakery.
As we began planning for the third Love & Plenty wine pairing lunch, Sommeliers Doris Pradieu and Joel Liscio suggested pairing California wines along with Sicilian wines for a combination of varieties of grapes that could have a conversation across continents. When Chef Paul Gerard heard the idea he started to think about how Mexican food could add another layer of complexity to the dialogue, and he planned a menu with Chef Jiovani Vazquez that was as beautiful as a painting. Each course was part of the experiences and memories from Chef Jio's life, and the recipes they chose were so special because of the history of his family's traditions and the way each one reflected the gifts shared from Grandparents and Parents to Chef Jio who shared them with us. Using ingredients that were especially flavorful and had an authenticity that can only be found with the most truly knowledgeable Chefs, each dish when it arrived was satisfying in the way that only the best of meals can be. I learned about some new dishes that day as well as new fruits and herbs and ingredients that I'd never heard of. If my father had been there he would have introduced himself to Chef Jio and wouldn't have left the kitchen until he had a promise to return and learn about every recipe.
When I asked Chef Jio about some of his experiences and inspirations, he told me about his family and how they would cook for large events when he was growing up in Mexico, making food as a family for weddings, birthdays and parties for friends and friends of friends who discovered through experience that they knew how to make the kind of delicious food that brings joy and makes a party a memorable success. He grew up in Cualac, and moved to the United States on his own when he was 14. His first jobs in restaurants were as a dish washer, but the Chefs saw that he knew how to cook and had the skills to do more. By the time he met Chef Paul Gerard at the restaurant Belle Reve in Tribeca he had the ability through years of experience and hard work to become his Sous Chef, and during the time that they've worked together he's taken his role very seriously, taking care to listen and understand the ideas they discuss and adding his own knowledge and expertise to the flavors, traditions and styles that are combined in the creations in Chef Paul Gerard's kitchen. Although he had experience through his family of cooking in fire pits and in-ground in ovens dug into the earth, the 100 year old porcelain brick oven at Antique Bar & Bakery is unlike any being used anywhere in the world. He has learned the skills needed for that challenge, and can be relied on to create food in that kitchen that is not only delicious but that meets the expectations of an Executive Chef who is in my opinion the finest in the world.
I asked him what his favorite thing to do is, and he answered with a smile in his eyes that he loves to play with his daughters. Though his hours are long, he makes time to be with them at home whenever possible, and they have started to cook with him, even the smallest one who at four years old has started discovering the fun of playing with flour. It reminded me of my own childhood, sitting in the kitchen and watching my mother, asking her if I could try to do the things she did so carefully that made all sorts of delicious and fragrant foods appear at our table, and then later as a teenager with my father, making parts of our internationally themed dinners together. Chef Jio also told me he enjoys making pasta, something that I have noticed he does with such excellence that I always remark on how delicious and beautifully textured the different pastas at Antique Bar & Bakery are. He is inspired by seeing people enjoying the food he makes, and it makes him happy to hear that his food makes people happy. When I told him how much people loved the lunch of traditional family foods he created and said that he was a very special Chef who had shared something very special with us, he was very humble in his response, saying only that he was grateful that we had enjoyed it so much, and adding that he cooks from his heart.
When we share our gifts and the experiences that are special and unique from our own history, we begin to create new memories for ourselves and the people we share them with. Now that I am getting to know more about Chef Jiovani Vazquez and his family's traditional recipes, I have a new way of thinking about Mexican food and the traditions that shape holidays and special meals we share with each other. I also have a new way of seeing and understanding how the gifts of tradition can be shared through Chefs in a kitchen who work together to discuss and discover new ideas and create masterpieces that inspire and nurture us all.
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