Zarela Martinez holds position 47 on the Gourmet Live list of 50 Women Game-Changers in Food. She is a restaurateur and cookbook author who was born in the Mexican border town of Agua Prieta. While cooking seems to be an inherited talent, she did not begin her career as a chef until marriage to a widower with financial problems forced her to leave her job as a social worker and begin working in a restaurant kitchen. Her mother, the cookbook author, Aida Gabilondo, taught her to cook as a child and she was able to transfer those skills to a professional kitchen. She met Paul Prudhomme in a cooking class and he became her mentor. He introduced her to Craig Claiborne who featured several of her recipes in the New York Times, calling his feature, "Memorable Dishes from a Mexican Master Chef." That gained attention and her rise through the food circles began. She became the executive chef at Cafe Marimba in 1983, and in 1987 she moved on to open her own successful restaurant, Zarela. Her first cookbook, Food from My Heart was published in 1992. It was followed by The Food and Life of Oaxaca and Zarela's Veracruz. She also had a 13-part series, Zarela! La Cocina Veracruzana, that was featured on PBS. Although her restaurant closed last year, she continues to write and make appearances in keeping with the mission she set for herself many years ago. She has said, "I have a mission, which is to make my culture known and understood." She has helped and inspired a generation of young Hispanic chefs and restaurateurs, including her own son, Aaron Sanchez, to build a vibrant Latino food scene in this country. She has earned the accolades she has received.
I chose a fairly simple braised chicken entree to highlight the type of cooking that Zarela featured in her restaurant and cookbooks. The recipe comes from Zarela's Veracruz and it is an adaptation of a stew that was recommended to her by Do?a Angeles Ju
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