Luis J

Hi Kim... So much interesting information in this site... really mind blowing! Thanks for the warm welcome and kind words! Best regards! Luis

I'm working on that hopefully in a few months JeanneCake. Thanks a lot for the kind words!

Thanks a lot for the kind words gfweb!

Thanks a lot for all your kind words Tropicalsenior...I'm very sorry about your husband, I'm sure that he was a great person. And please, if you come to Guadalajara in the future, let me know, I'll be more than happy to say hi and share a bottle of wine and some traditional Mexican dishes with you. Best regards from México and mucho gusto de conocerte! Luis

ScoopKW. I'm enjoying big time every post you write, and let me tell you something...keep doing it for six more months and you'll have enough material to write a book... and a good one. You can self publish it with almost no investment and you'll do fine, and yes, even as a published author, you can keep your actual job selling online. How do I know? Because I'm an author and I wrote a book basically doing what you are doing now, I mean writing and essay here and there, most of the time fueled by the anger that culinary students provocated in me with their bad performance, lazy attitude and their lack of common sense (not all of them, but yes...many of them) , some other times by the absurd request of many customers, and well, this industry never ceased to give me material to write a 300+ pages book that is now on it's 6th edition in only 15 months, and as an independent author. (The book is in Spanish only, as you can see I'm not very articulate in English and my grammar s*cks). By now I can retire from cooking and live on the royalties from the book...but I don't, I can't imagine a life where I'm not on my feet several hours a day in a hot kitchen surrounded by my fellow cooks, and also, if I retire...where am I going to get the inspiration for the second book? Best regards and keep on with the good writing, I'm looking forward to read your next post. Luis.

Hi Kay...My kitchen and it's menu? ...that's a long story! Talento restaurant is 15 years old and it started as a 60 seat THAI restaurant. I spent six months in Thailand and when I came back I opened the restaurant with my partners, the restaurant did very well and we moved to a bigger place... in this new location we started getting more families as customers, not only people looking for fine dining, so, I got a charcoal grill (Argentinian style) and I added to the menu beef cuts and burgers... and it was a success for a while, then we moved to an even bigger location and now I cook traditional Mexican too... but the problem is that a lot of people still craves many menu items from the very opening, so now I just call the place "an international cuisine restaurant" because: how can you call a place where there are phad thais, wok sauted food, Argentinian beef cuts, burgers...and Mexican food in the menu? Thanks a lot for the question Kay and best regards from México! Luis

Thanks a lot for the warm welcome Smithy, and for sure I'll be participating! Best regards!

Hi... My name is Luis Jiménez, I'm 43 years old and I'm very happy to join this community, I've been here before, but only as a lurker and I just decided to take the plunge and become a member. I like to cook and I like to learn, so, this seems to be the right place to be. I've been cooking professionally for the past 25 years and I'm the author of a book called "Pero querías ser chef..." (only in Spanish but hopefully soon in English too), I'm a blogger too but my main thing is to run the kitchen of a 200 seat restaurant in my home town, and as you know that is overwhelming sometimes but very rewarding too when things run smooth...wich is not easy, and I have to confess, as we say in the cooking world: "I'm in the weeds" more often than not. I'm a chef but I prefer to be considered a cook because that is what got me in the kitchen, my love for cooking and the love for the food that my mother cooked for me and our family. I like to sharpen my knives, to cook on the charcoal grill, the wok and the griddle, but also to cook with technology like rational ovens, thermocirculators and thermomix too. I'm an avid reader, a curious, and friendly guy that loves photography and motorcycling too. I'll be reading and learning as much as I can from you all, and if there is a question that I can answer correctly, I'll do so very gladly. Best regards from México amigos!

Hi suzilightning. You had a ton of great replies, seems like I have several books to buy after reading your post, but I can't stop adding my two cents suggesting 3 books that I like a lot: "The apprentice" by Jaques Pepin "32 yolks" by Eric Ripert And "Como agua para chocolate" by Laura Esquivel (you can find it in English and the movie is great too) Here is a bit of info on that book: Laura Esquivel's debut novel Como agua para chocolate took the literary World by storm with its unique yet familiar story of love and longing on the Mexican border during the perilous times of the Mexican Revolution. This author's narrative, seeped in magic and peppered with Mexico's culinary customs, was quickly taken to the silver screen where Tita and Pedro's forbidden relationship would captivate audiences not only in its native country, but around the globe - cementing Equivel's name within the ever-growing canon of Latin American women writers. Nathanial Gardner introduces the reader to both the novel and the film version of Como agua para chocolate and examines not only key themes, such as rebellion and tradition, but also its style and main characters. This narrative's acclaimed use of food and other gastronomic elements are taken into consideration as well as the significance of magic realism to this text. Best regards and happy reading. Luis