The mother-of-two "grew up around a family that loved cooking," including her dad who was a chef. So when her boys had grown enough to no longer need a playroom, she converted their garage into a teaching kitchen. Karla set up a cooking school kitchen in the garage of her Hampstead Garden Suburb home (Image: Karla Zazueta) Karla came to the UK on a teaching exchange and worked as a Spanish teacher, so combining teaching with her passion for food was a good fit when she wanted a career change.
"My dad was a keen cook. He used to work in a restaurant as a chef and loved cooking for us," she says. "We are from a beautiful sea port city in Baja, California, about an hour south of San Diego, and grew up eating a lot of seafood like mussels, as well as barbecued meat, and of course iconic Mexican dishes like mole and guacamole.
" Karla Zazueta's book features family dishes handed down through the generations (Image: Pavilion Books) She says corn is very important in the Mexican diet and her recipes, handed down through generations, include Baja fish tacos, ‘piggy’ pinto beans, crab tostadas, sopes (corn patties) piled with fresh vegetables, and empanadas californianas with shredded beef, accompanied by spicy salsas and zingy salads. "I always explain in my classes that the Mexican food we have here is not the food we eat at home. Our day to day food is not spicy in the slightest, what is spicy is the salsa, but of course you make your food as spicy as you want.
" Karla was deligh.
