(Frieze, Spring 2023)

For his Frieze Projects installation, the artist gives Los Angeles’ historically undervalued street vendors the focus they deserve.

(The New York Times, June 16, 2022)

As the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art and Culture debuts, its founder hopes to inspire a renaissance in a region of California lacking public arts funding.

(KCET, January 2022)

“In the spring and summer of 2021, the hardest place to find public parking in Los Angeles wasn't The Grove, Venice Beach or even Dodger Stadium. It was the Avenue 26 Night Market in Lincoln Heights, which before its abrupt shut down last summer, transformed an industrial warren of warehouses, steel gates and concrete walls into the largest and most dynamic open-air street market in California.”

(Feature, KCET.org, March 2022)

“Looking back to the early days of the California wine industry shows us that winemaking has not always been the province of historically elite groups, but that it belongs, in some way, to all Californians . . . “

(Los Angeles Times, 2019)

“Made from just wheat flour, salt, water and lard, and stretched to what seems an unreasonably thin consistency, a proper Sonoran tortilla sparks a sort of ephemeral pleasure spiral: You are consumed with the sense of eating something unequivocally buttery, light and tender; something so rich and finely honed you can almost feel your neurons inflate with pleasure.”

(Playboy, February 2021)

“We are good at using food as a lens when we like what we’re going to see. It is hard and uncomfortable but absolutely necessary to talk about the junctures where food and race in America intersect in dehumanizing and violent ways.

(The Phoenix New Times, 2016)

“The rolls often bear multisyllabic names like El Guamuchilito and El Culichi — shout-outs to beloved hometowns back in Sinaloa . . . “

(Los Angeles Times, 2019)

“In the high desert city of Hesperia, 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles, it was so cold on a recent night that the salsas outside the Tacos La Madrina food truck stiffened with frost.”

(Los Angeles Times, 2020)

“Tony Ruiz doesn’t know where he’s going to sleep tonight.”

(The Counter, 2021)

“Perhaps not since the first wave of drive-thru restaurants have we experienced such large-scale depersonalization of ordering and eating restaurant food.”

(Bon Appetit, February 2020)

“The Number 11 was hearty and flagrantly rich, a spectacle of fleshy, smoky chile and molten white cheese. The rice and beans were crucial to the experience, offering succor from the chile’s needling spice, but also fortifying and delicious on their own. Eating it filled me with a warm buzzy pleasure.”

(The Phoenix New Times, 2016)

“Over the years, the community of Maryvale has faced almost every imaginable challenge, from shifting demographics to the panic of being branded a cancer cluster, plus all the attendant problems of an aging “inner-ring” suburb.

Now, the question is whether the sprawling village in west Phoenix can survive yet one more trauma: the first serial killer in metro Phoenix in more than a decade, a serial shooter that some residents believe struck again just a few weeks ago in their community.”

(The Phoenix New Times, September 2017)

“Pajarete, in a larger context, is part of that glorious pantheon of drinks invented to make freezing winter mornings slightly more bearable. It’s a body-warming drink, one that wipes the fog out of your eyes and eases you into the day with grace. It’s a farmhand communion, an easygoing ritual among neighbors and workers. Pajarete, in other words, is not something you drink alone.”

(Roads & Kingdom, August 2018)

“I was a broke college student living in a 250-square-foot studio apartment in Tucson. I slept on a lumpy futon with my head five feet away from the toilet. My sleep was regularly interrupted by the sounds of my neighbors’ headboard knocking against the wall.”

(The Phoenix New Times, February 2018)

“On this night, the Beergaritas were flowing, the wordless thump of EDM vibrated in the air, and as promised, a couple of Hefe Girls danced on the bar. One of the women, gyrating in hot pants and a low-cut tank top, poured a waterfall of tequila, straight from the bottle, into the gaping mouth of a young bearded dude. His friends slapped him on the back in approval, and his face took on the glow of someone who had just taken communion.”

(Profile of Karla Vasquez, 2020, Los Angeles Times)

“Six years ago Karla Vasquez was a budding home cook learning to make one of her favorite Salvadoran dishes — the minced beef dish called salpicón salvadoreño — when she made a sobering discovery: There are almost no Salvadoran cookbooks currently in print in the U.S.”

(Profile of Alana Jones-Mann, 2019, Los Angeles Times)

“On a recent Friday afternoon, Alana Jones-Mann sat in her light-filled dining room overlooking the leafy hilltops of central Los Angeles. She was seated at the long, white kitchen table that doubles as her work space, with about a dozen pastry piping bags spread around her. The sound of classical music drifted in from another room. She took a deep breath.”

(Los Angeles Times, 2020)

“To think of mole as a sauce fails to capture its spirit and range. Mole is about the detailed layering of flavors; each ingredient is usually prepared or cooked separately, and then blended into a thick, complex substance that is simmered into harmony. Although it is often paired with meats and rice, mole is never the side dish: It is the centerpiece of the table.”

(Los Angeles Times, 2020)

“If you live near Broadway and Vernon Avenue in South L.A., you’ve probably heard the familiar cry of Don Faustino Martinez.”

(The Arizona Republic, feature story, 2018; Please note: I don’t like the headline my editor put on this story. But I love The Tamale Store. Highly recommended if you are in Phoenix).

“During the holidays — the high season for professional tamale makers across Mexico and the American Southwest — Castillo estimates she and her team of about 20 employees produce around 12,000 tamales a week.”

(The Arizona Republic, feature, 2019)

A few years ago, I walked into a Scottsdale tourist shop and found actor Frankie Muniz standing behind a cash register, selling olive oil.