Crossing Over

Pilar Lozano is on a quest. The goal of the doe-eyed culinary teacher: to introduce nouvelle Mexican cuisine to a wider audience.

Brought up in Mexico and California (she lived in San Diego from ages 5 to 13), she continues to live in both worlds. A year ago, she decided to fulfill her dream. “I wanted to share my love of cooking and love of Mexico with others who are as passionate about them as I am,” Lozano says. “I hope it can bring our two societies closer together.”

A graduate of Les Roches School of Hotel Management in Switzerland, Lozano says “food is what we all have in common. . . . It represents comfort, memories of childhood and being with friends and those we love most.” But first she wants to change Americans’ perceptions of Mexican food: It can be healthy, classy and elegant. “We’re not about tacos,” Lozano insists, “but about organic, seasonal and gourmet cooking.”

She teaches her simple step-by-step classes the third Saturday of every month at the Baja Cooking School at La Villa del Valle inn in the Valle de Guadalupe, near Ensenada. She also conducts classes for small groups at private homes in Mexico and Southern California. “The food Pilar makes is healthy, fresh food with not a lot of complicated ingredients,” says Ashley Sokol, the inn’s events coordinator. “Her main focus is to teach healthier, seasonal cooking methods but still be flavorful and true to her Mexican roots.”

Classes are conducted in English and typically feature a hands-on, three-course meal. This might include peachy ceviche, duck with tamarindo glaze and a medley of seasonal vegetables such as cilantro-roasted potatoes and spiced butternut squash tarts. Each dish bears her imprimatur. To the classic Latin American ceviche--small pieces of fish marinated in lime juice with chiles, tomatoes and herbs--she adds a chili-peach coulis with a grilled peach garnish. “In Mexico it’s a dish without fruit,” she explains. “The peach adds the contrast of sweet to the sour lemon taste.” Tamarind, a chewy fruit from a brown pod, is extracted and then reduced to a tangy-sweet glaze for basting the duck breast.

Lozano credits her love of Mexican food to her childhood nanny, Valeria, a 4-foot-9 Nahuatl Indian with a braid that fell to her waist. As a girl, Lozano would sit transfixed in a “Like Water for Chocolate” world filled with the smells of sauteeing onions and habanero and serrano chiles, as well as the sight of small mountains of papayas in large, colorful bowls. She would watch while her diminutive caretaker made fresh tortillas and prepared complicated moles and chiles rellenos, “giving me small bites along the way.” The smell of baking bread, ripening mangoes and chopped epazote--a musky herb used in central Mexican cooking--would permeate the air.

“She never used recipes,” Lozano says. “Valeria taught me to cook by using my taste and smell to combine flavors.” She also taught Lozano patience. “Mexican food can be very complicated with many steps. If you make an egg batter for chiles rellenos, for instance, and skip something, it will fall apart on you.”

Today, Lozano continues to use fresh, flavorful ingredients. The vegetables she serves are always seasonal, selected from local organic farms or farmers markets. For fall, they might include carrots, cauliflower, zucchini with a little olive oil and thyme--”cooked al dente, of course,” she says. Instead of frying potatoes, she cubes them, drizzles them with olive oil and tosses them with finely chopped cilantro halfway through baking. The spiced butternut squash tarts are made with maple syrup rather than sugar. “It’s healthier and a milder sweet,” she says, though still “a little fattening.”

“I try to make them small--and, of course, you can always share one.” *

--

GUIDEBOOK

Travel

After you cross the border at Tijuana, it’s about a 11/2-hour drive southeast to La Villa del Valle inn in the Valle de Guadalupe.

Learn

For information on Pilar Lozano’s Baja Cooking School at La Villa del Valle, contact Ashley Sokol, the inn’s events coordinator, at (818) 207-7130 or go to www.lavilladelvalle.com. Three-course participation cooking classes are held the third Saturday of every month ($75 per person, including a family-style meal, one glass of regional wine and a commemorative recipe booklet). For information on Lozano’s private cooking classes ($90 to $110 per person), call (858) 750-0447 or e-mail bajacooking@gmail.com.

Stay

La Villa del Valle, Valle de Guadalupe, (818) 207-7130, www.lavilladelvalle.com. $175 per room, double occupancy; $195 per room, double occupancy, in 2008.

Eat

Four-course dinner featuring food from La Villa del Valle’s organic garden, $45. Regional wines, $15 to $100 per bottle.

--

Peachy Ceviche

From Pilar Lozano

Serves 4 as an appetizer

1 pound red snapper filets (about 3), deboned*

1/3 cup fresh lime juice

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1/4 large red onion, chopped

2 peaches, cut in 1/2-inch cubes

12 sprigs of cilantro, leaves only, coarsely chopped

Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Cut the fish filets into 1/2-inch cubes. Place in a nonreactive dish with the lime and lemon juices. Toss well, cover and refrigerate for two to three hours. Remove the fish from the refrigerator, stir the contents well and chill 30 more minutes. Remove the fish and, using a slotted spoon, transfer to another nonreactive dish, leaving behind most of the lemon-lime mixture. Enough liquid should remain with the fish to keep it moist but not watery. Gently incorporate the onion, peaches and cilantro, being careful not to break down the delicate flesh of the peaches. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

*Scallops or shrimp can be substituted for some of the fish.

--

Chili-Peach Coulis

2 peaches

1 tablespoon water

1 teaspoon Mexican chili powder

Pinch of salt

For garnish:

2 peaches

12 sprigs of cilantro, coarsely chopped

Blend together the peaches, water and chili powder. Strain through a colander and season with salt to taste. Refrigerate until ready to use.

To serve: Cut two peaches in half and place cut-side down on a grill (or cut-side up on a broiler) for 1 minute. Cut a small wedge on the back side of each peach half to help it stand, and spoon the ceviche so that it cascades from the peach. Pour a generous helping of coulis around the ceviche, sprinkle with cilantro and serve with tortilla chips. The ceviche also can be served in a martini glass with an avocado garnish.