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BY MARISELA SANTANA
STAFF WRITER
LOS ANGELES — Laura Diaz
Brown, internationally known as Chef
LaLa, will be taking a break from her
usual routines of back-to-back televised
cooking demonstrations, international
cookbook signings, catering events for
internationally dignitaries and radio
appearances to be at the one event in
Los Angeles she credits to giving new
meaning to the word flavor.
This will be her sixth year in attendance
at the fused Expo Comida Latina,
the All Asia Food Expo, KosherWest
and El Mercado del Mar, taking place
Monday and Tuesday at the Los Angeles
Convention Center.
While registration is required for
attendees of the annual event, the event
boasts a pavilion of local, national and
international vendors specializing in
Latin, Asian and kosher foods.
The expos, which were held separately
for the first few years, are now
being called the Cultural Food Los
Angeles Expo and this year alone,
brings together more than 800 manufacturers,
distributors, importers and
wholesalers of authentic Latino, Asian,
kosher certified and seafood and beverages
from around the world.
The best part of it all, says Chef LaLa
is that the exhibitors also launch thousands
of tomorrow’s hottest products,
ingredients and services.
“You don’t just have to remember
anymore your [grandmother’s] recipes,”
Chef LaLa said. “This expo allows you,
allows me and anybody else who wants
to cook a certain dish, to go to the store
and buy the ingredient. The ingredients
our grandparents used can now be
found at the supermarkets. This expo
made that possible.”
When she was younger, Chef LaLa
recalls going to a special event at
the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los
Angeles. Guests of the Mexican consulate,
Chef LaLa said her father brought
with him a can of Mexican jalapeños. “My mother thought it was embarrassing
that he would carry around
with him a can of jalapeños,”
Chef
LaLa said. “She would tell him, ‘put
that can away.’ But he wouldn’t. They
served ribs that evening and would you
believe that our table was mobbed by
people who wanted some of my dad’s
jalapeños.”
People even asked her father for the
jalapeño juice, she said. It was then, at
8 years old, that Chef LaLa realized
that Latin food was “way too underrepresented.”
“I couldn’t believe, here we were in
a room full of Mexicans, at a Mexican
event, basically, and there was not one
chile or jalapeño in sight other than the
can that my father brought,” Chef LaLa
said. “At that moment, I thought something
was wrong with the picture.”
Fast forward to today and there is no
other word that can describe Latin food
other than “flavor,” she said.
From various types of Jamaica powdered
drinks to enchilada sauces galore,
the expo, she said, brings to Angelenos
the ways and means to make traditional,
authentic foods, whether they be
Latin, Asian or kosher recipes.
Chef LaLa, author of “Latin Lover
Lite: Recipe for Passion,” which sold
more than seven million copies last
year, is a huge believer in healthy
cooking.
Rather than tell a Mexican, to eat
a rice cake if he or she wants to be
healthy, Chef LaLa takes a more sensitive
approach to her methods.
It is much easier to tell a Mexican to
eat beans, but without the added lard.
Another sound piece of advice, from
one Mexican to another, would be to eat
corn tortillas, rather than flour tortillas.
Having traveled all over the world,
Chef LaLa said she knows firsthand
that it isn’t easy telling Latinos to
eat healthier without offending anyone.
She also knows that for many Latinos,
it is like Thanksgiving every weekend.
“Things have changed for the better
concerning general interest in eating
well. I no longer feel like I’m ‘nagging’
people about eating right,” she said. “They’re more aware and want to be
empowered to take care of themselves;
they want to be healthier. I encourage
people to be conscious of what they’re
consuming, even if they choose to eat
something that is high in calories or fat.
I believe that if they know, they will
make good choices most of the time.”
Then, she added with a laugh, “Let’s
face it — none of us are going to be
perfect all of the time.”
With her parents owning a chain
of restaurants throughout Los Angeles
during her childhood, Chef LaLa almost
fell into the art of cooking by default.
But something happened in medical
school and her passion suddenly kicked
in and the rest has been history.
With a new book on the way, “Best
Loved Mexican,” set for release in
March, Chef LaLa is making sure that
Latin food, as far as she is concerned,
is no longer misunderstood, misrepresented
or underrepresented.
In following in her father’s footsteps
(no she doesn’t bring a can of jalapeños
to events with her), Chef LaLa merely
wants to recreate the magic her father
did with his recipes.
“He was the type who didn’t measure
anything. He didn’t use measuring
cups, he just cooked,” she said. “People
tend to think that Mexican foods are
tacos and burritos, and I’m here to tell
them that it’s not.”
For someone who has had three out
of four grandparents die of diabetes
complications, encouraging healthy
cooking has become Chef LaLa’s calling.
Mexican food is about tradition and
about culture, and the fusion of ingredients,
she said.
It’s the reason that the Expo Comida
Latina and the All Asia Food Expo have
fused so beautifully, she said.
“It’s not just a fusion of ingredients,
it’s the fusion of cultures,” she said. “You learn about other cultures through
food, right? You wouldn’t believe how
[much] both of our cultures are similar.”
At last year’s expo, she said, she
and fellow a chef, who was cooking an
Asian dish for the expo’s culinary demonstration
session, practically used the
same ingredients, except she was making
arroz con pollo (chicken with rice)
and he was making chicken fried rice.
The result last year was a new recipe
for Mushu burritos, Chef LaLa said
with a laugh.
Chef LaLa will be conducting demonstrations
Monday from 3 to 4 p.m.
and Tuesday from 1 to 2 p.m.
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