The James Beard Foundation this morning announced the nominees for the 2024 Media Awards and Good Food earned a nod for our episode, "The life and times of Lalo García: Immigration, deportation, reconciliation." It traces the life of chef Eduardo "Lalo" García Guzmán and features him along with journalist Laura Tillman, who wrote The Migrant Chef: The Life and Times of Lalo García. Tillman's book was also nominated for a Beard Award, in the Literary Writing category.
Born in San José de las Pilas, a small village in Guanajuato, Lalo came to the U.S. when he was nine years old. With his family, he moved around, working the fields from Florida to Michigan. When he was 14 or 15, the family settled in Chamblee, outside of Atlanta. Lalo started working in kitchens, first as a dishwasher, then as a cook. He was fast, he was good, and he was a hard worker. He was so exceptional, he earned the nickname "Escoffier Reincarnate." But he also fell in with a bad crowd.
Lalo García (center) idolized his father Lupe (to his left in the white shirt), enjoying his time working in the fields and the road trips they took to get from farm to farm. Photo courtesy of the García family.
At age 17, Lalo was convicted of a felony and went to prison for four years. After his release, he was deported. He returned to the U.S. almost immediately. He rebuilt his life and became the head chef of a successful restaurant in the Atlanta area. Then, in 2017, he was deported once again. In Mexico City, he began working at Pujol for chef Enrique Olvera, who remains one of Mexico's most important contemporary chefs.
While working for Olvera, Lalo met Gabrielle Lopez Cruz. They fell in love and married. Together, they opened Máximo Bistrot, a small corner restaurant in the Roma neighborhood. Now, it's a happening part of Mexico City but when they opened, it was still recovering from the 1985 earthquake. In the years since, Lalo and Gabby have brought in some of their former employees as partners and expanded the business into a restaurant group.
You can hear all four parts of Good Food's hour-long episode here: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV.
During the year, Good Food also had the privilege of interviewing several people who were also nominated for the 2024 James Beard Media Awards. You can see the full list of nominees here.
Freeze-dried fruit from Trader Joe's adds flavor to polvoron, a traditional shortbread cookie. Photo by Nico Schinco.
Baking & Desserts
Mayumu: Filipino American Desserts Remixed
Abi Balingit
When Abi Balingit was 17, her parents got her a KitchenAid stand mixer for Christmas. When she wasn't volunteering at Key Club events or running her school's Harry Potter fan club, she baked, combining her Filipino family's pantry into the desserts. "Instead of just being a dork, I was a dork who baked," says Abi. Her blog, The Dusky Kitchen, evolved into a cookbook, Mayumu: Filipino American Desserts Remixed, which blends the familiar with something sweet and special.
More Than Cake: 100 Baking Recipes Built for Pleasure and Community
Natasha Pickowicz
"Surprising" is a word often used to describe Natasha Pickowicz's desserts. The California born pastry chef is known for her fresh take on flavor. She pairs nectarines with miso, tops her olive oil cake with fried capers, and cooks down fennel bulbs into jam. Her debut book is More Than Cake: 100 Baking Recipes Built for Pleasure and Community.
Many African American libations are rooted in innovation and creativity. Photo by Brittany Conerly.
Beverages with Recipes
Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs, and Juice: Cocktails from Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks
Toni Tipton-Martin
"Throughout history, African American alcohol consumption has been portrayed as derelict," writes award-winning food journalist and historian Toni Tipton-Martin. She spent two decades buying and studying recipe collections for her award-winning book, The Jemima Code: Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks, and its follow-up, Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking. In her latest work, Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs, and Juice: A Cocktail Recipe Book, Tipton-Martin trains her focus on African American mixology, ensuring that those behind tradition and innovation are not forgotten.
Even when they are brought to us from other countries, vegetables and fruits have a relatively low carbon footprint. Meat has a more significant impact on the environment, Louise Gray explains. Photo by Irene Kredenets/Unsplash
Food Issues and Advocacy
British writer Louise Gray is back with a new book, Avocado Anxiety: And Other Stories About Where Your Food Comes From, which explores the food chain, from start to finish, for a cornucopia of vegetables and fruits. How is it possible to have strawberries year-round? How far did your green beans travel to get to your plate? What does that "fair trade" sticker on your banana even mean?
"You can take that same technique and do it with carrots or coconut and cabbage or green curry paste and bok choy," Sohla El-Waylly says of her recipe for braised chicken thighs. Photo by Laura Murray.
General
The Everlasting Meal Cookbook: Leftovers A-Z
Tamar Adler
With nearly 40 percent of the food bought in the U.S. getting tossed, Tamar Adler finds delicious destinies for leftovers in her book The Everlasting Meal Cookbook.
Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook
Sohla El-Waylly
Sometimes you just need to know where to start. You want to make a pavlova but you're nervous about meringue. You want a chicken with crispy skin but don't want to overcook the meat. Sohla El-Waylly has a plan for you. Her debut cookbook shares countless lessons she has learned along the way. It's called Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook: A Cookbook. If you're a cook who likes to know the why behind the what, this book is for you.
Cooked yams can be repurposed as fritters and made refreshing by the addition of ata dín dín. Photo by Kelly Marshall.
International
Made in Taiwan: Recipes and Stories from the Island Nation
Clarissa Wei with Ivy Chen
Everywhere in the world, stories of food and cuisine are also stories of culture and politics. For Taiwan, a verdant island at the far western edge of the Pacific Ocean, politics are threatening to drown out everything else. For years, Taiwanese American freelance journalist Clarissa Wei has been telling Taiwanese stories and introducing the people and the food of the island nation to everyone else. Her book, Made in Taiwan: Recipes and Stories from the Island Nation, is finally here and has been receiving plenty of attention.
My Everyday Lagos: Nigerian Cooking at Home and in the Diaspora
Yewande Komolafe
Reconnection can be a process. It was for Yewande Komolafe. After leaving Nigeria as a teenager, she returned 20 years later. Yewande evoked memories through cooking and was quickly reminded that sourcing ingredients meant enlisting mentors and a web of social relations. Using these ingredients came with a sacred knowledge passed down through oral histories. She shares them with us in her cookbook My Everyday Lagos: Nigerian Cooking at Home and in the Diaspora.
"In mainstream media, you don't get a lot of stories told about Black women in food," says chef and writer Klancy Miller. Photo by Katie Mccurdy.
Literary Writing
For The Culture: Phenomenal Black Women and Femmes in Food: Interviews, Inspiration, and Recipes
Klancy Miller
Coming up in the hospitality industry, Klancy Miller didn't see enough faces that looked like her own. With a desire to give the younger generation of Black women access to more options and mentors, Miller launched For the Culture magazine. Miller says if we pay attention to Julia Child, we should give equal recognition to these five women — Edna Lewis, Barbara Elaine Smith (B. Smith), Leah Chase, Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, and Lena Richard. While her book, For the Culture: Phenomenal Black Women and Femmes in Food: Interviews, Inspiration, and Recipes, is composed of personal stories and experiences, Miller pays tribute to these five culinary matriarchs with essays detailing their accomplishments.
The Migrant Chef: The Life and Times of Lalo García
Laura Tillman
In 2016, journalist Laura Tillman phoned Máximo Bistrot, a restaurant riding the wave of Mexico City's popularity as a fine dining destination, in hopes of interviewing its chef, Eduardo "Lalo" García Guzmán. She spent the next five years speaking with García, his family, and those who worked with him, following his journey from the fields as a young migrant farm worker to the kitchens of the American South then back to Mexico. Tillman tells his story in the book The Migrant Chef: The Life and Times of Lalo García — but ultimately, this is Lalo's journey. It's a singular epic, complete with a cruel twist that reveals so much about the relationship between Mexico and the United States, the two countries that shaped García.
"Yogurt forces you to slow down," says Homa Dashtaki, who started White Moustache, named after a prominent feature of her father. Photo courtesy of Homa Dashtaki.
Single Subject
The Hog Island Book of Fish and Seafood: Culinary Treasures from Our Waters
John Ash
"Strong backs and weak minds" was the motto of John Finger when he planted his first oyster seed in Tomales Bay in 1983. Hog Island Oyster Company has grown into a legendary Northern California oyster farm that began with a five-acre shellfish lease. Many of those involved in the early days had marine science backgrounds. Finger is the founding CEO. Along with two-time James Beard-award winning cookbook author and noted Northern California chef John Ash, they discuss the culture and cuisine of the place and Ash's new book, The Hog Island Book of Fish & Seafood.
Yogurt & Whey: Recipes of an Iranian Immigrant Life
Homa Dashtaki
Homa Dashtaki was born on January 31, 1979, the very day that the Ayatollah returned to Tehran, and which marks the beginning of the Iranian Revolution. When her family immigrated to Calif., she worked hard to assimilate, eventually living the American dream with a Cornell Law School education and a six-figure salary. During the recession of 2008, she reconsidered her path and re-embraced the community achieved in the Iranian village where her father was from. The two of them began to make yogurt together, which finally provided a sense of belonging in America. The irony is not lost on Homa. Her book is Yogurt & Whey: Recipes of an Iranian Immigrant Life.
Ed Mitchell was victorious with these ribs on the Food Network's "Throwdown with Bobby Flay." Photo by John "Edge" Koladish.
U.S. Foodways
Ed Mitchell's Barbeque
Ed Mitchell, Ryan Mitchell, and Zella Palmer
"Our family learned to cook barbeque from some of the best of our ancestors," says Ryan Mitchell. Ryan's father, Ed, left college for Vietnam. After his father passed, Ed returned home and his mother asked him to make some barbecue to ease her grief. A line formed for Ed's barbecue. At age 45, he found his calling. Ryan discusses the unique flavors of each part of the animal, the apple cider vinegar that sets eastern North Carolina apart, the origin of the word "pitmaster," and the collaborative book he wrote with his father, Ed Mitchell's Barbeque.
Fennel frond pesto is a way to use the entire plant and has more texture and "grassiness" than its traditional basil counterpart. Photo by Hetty Lui McKinnon.
Vegetable-Focused Cooking
Ever-Green Vietnamese: Super-Fresh Recipes, Starring Plants from Land and Sea
Andrea Nguyen
You can count Good Food among the legions of Andrea Nguyen fans. A prolific cookbook writer and teacher, she's known for her no-nonsense approach and enticing recipes that work. Her sense of humor and deep knowledge of her subject are what centers her website, Viet World Kitchen. Nguyen's latest cookbook is Ever-Green Vietnamese: Super Fresh Recipes, which takes a plant-focused look at the food of her home country.
Japan: The Vegetarian Cookbook
Nancy Singleton Hachisu
Japan has a century-long tradition of vegetarianism. "It's the underpinning of all the cooking that exists today," says Nancy Singleton Hachisu, an expat and cookbook author living in Japan, who has become an expert on the cuisine. In her latest collection of recipes, Japan: The Vegetarian Cookbook, Hachisu recommends you start with salt-massaged or blanched vegetable dishes, which are dressed with sesame. She suggests a dashi that should always be on hand and explains how to use hoshigaki persimmons.
Tenderheart: A Cookbook About Vegetables and Unbreakable Family Bonds
Hetty Lui McKinnon
Walking through grief is a daunting task. To do it publicly adds an entirely different level of complexity and emotion. In her new book Tenderheart: A Cookbook About Vegetables and Unbreakable Family Bonds, Hetty Lui McKinnon confronts the loss of her father and explores how his work shaped her future in food.
At a dinner given by Senegalese chef Serigne Mbaye, Stephen Sattefield (right) discusses how the French often receive too much credit for shaping New Orleans cuisine. Photo courtesy of Netflix.
Docuseries Visual Media
High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America
Airs on: Netflix
The first season of High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America found host Stephen Satterfield and food historian Dr. Jessica B. Harris, who penned the book on which the series is based, in Benin. In season two, producers Fabienne Toback and Karis Jagger pick up where they left off, visiting Charleston, Charlottesville, and Houston, among other cities. The four-episode second season of High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America is now streaming on Netflix.
Historian and content creator KJ Kearney grew up in the Gullah-Geechee corridor of Charletson but says he didn't realize how special his heritage was until he learned its history in college. Photo by Sirena White-Singleton.
Social Media Account
KJ Kearney
Black Food Fridays
"You can use food in a political way, because food is political," says KJ Kearney. His concept for Black Food Fridays percolated for years. "I hope through my work to radicalize people in a way that's fun, in a way that they don't even realize it's happening." His social media platform seeks to educate the public in bite-sized clips about Black food culture. His most popular video explains the connection between Black Americans and cognac in under 60 seconds, but Kearney says he was more interested in discovering that Princess Tiana from Disney's "The Princess and the Frog'' was based on Leah Chase. In addition to his social media presence, Kearney also writes a newsletter — "Who Made the Potato Salad?"
Noah Galuten shares his brother's recipe for kitchari, a rice and lentil dish with ghee and turmeric. Photo by Kristin Teig.
Home Cooking
"Lost in the Stock"
Noah Galuten
Eater
Noah Galuten remembers his childhood pantry, filled with canned tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, and dried pasta. With exposure to more cuisines, his larder expanded to include soy sauce, tahini, lentils, beans, and gochugaru. But what does a person do with all of it? "I always hate when you buy a cookbook and you buy some crazy, exotic ingredient and it just sits in your pantry forever until it goes bad or next time you move and you finally throw it away," he says. In The Don't Panic Pantry Cookbook, Galuten offers recipes that include staple ingredients that home cooks will revisit.
"I was a server with a backpack," says Maggie Harrison, who got her start in winemaking with Manfred and Elaine Krankl of Ventura County's Sine Qua Non. Photo courtesy of Antica Terra.
Profile
"Maggie Harrison's War on Wine"
Alex Halberstadt
The New York Times Magazine
Winemaking relies on a set of tenets. When it comes to blending grapes, Maggie Harrison tosses aside many of them. Based in Oregon's Willamette Valley, she has declared a "war on wine," eschewing certain common practices as she seeks out "the ignition of beauty." At Antica Terra, the once suffering winery that she has spent nearly 20 years making her own, terroir is only half the story.