RICK BAYLESS

Great food, like all art, enhances and reflects a community’s vitality, growth and solidarity. Yet history bears witness that great cuisines spring only from healthy local agriculture.

In the Mexican repertoire there's a lot of super delicious things you can do with vegetables and beans and grains and all that sort of stuff. So I can do this thing.

I know Los Angeles has it better than Chicago when it comes to produce year round!

You always want to walk a tight-rope of flavor

The greatest contribution to the Mexican table imaginable

I love that we are bringing the flavors of Frontera to Los Angeles. I think we can only add to the booming food community in Los Angeles. Our food is gutsy and soulful.

I usually get up around 6 A.M. It takes me a while to get going. In our household, I am the first one up. I usually make coffee for myself, draw a bath and have a big soak. I read in the bath.

Chicago is a city of neighborhoods, and I love that. It's cool to have different foods from all over the world within a stone's throw of my house.

I love collecting market stuff in Mexico. I have an etagere built onto the wall of my living room, which has cubicles that are lit and filled with super inexpensive pottery. You see them in a new way; they become museum pieces.

One of my favorites is chilaquiles. It's corn tortilla chips in a simple, brothy tomato sauce with a little chile for heat. It's wonderfully homey. It has irresistible crispy bits and I love to eat it. And you can play around with it - add chicken, sliced red onions, or all these different things that can easily dress it up.

I did a show a long, long time ago called 'Cooking Mexican'. It was a studio show as opposed to on-location like the one I do now. Before my first show, I was a cooking instructor, and I did a whole lot of classes for home cooks about Mexican food.

I'm meticulous about tasting everything at the restaurant, so I taste all the preparations before lunch and dinner. That means tasting around 50 dishes twice. There are times when I think I can't taste another thing.

I love that we are bringing the flavors of Frontera to Los Angeles. I think we can only add to the booming food community in Los Angeles. Our food is gutsy and soulful.

Chicago is a city of neighborhoods, and I love that. It's cool to have different foods from all over the world within a stone's throw of my house.

My earliest memory is making peach cobbler with my grandmother. A wonderful memory. I grew up in a restaurant family - B.B.Q. restaurant.

I love collecting market stuff in Mexico. I have an etagere built onto the wall of my living room, which has cubicles that are lit and filled with super inexpensive pottery. You see them in a new way; they become museum pieces.

I usually get up around 6 A.M. It takes me a while to get going. In our household, I am the first one up. I usually make coffee for myself, draw a bath and have a big soak. I read in the bath.

A lot of people don't like to eat on camera, but I eat on camera all the time. I'm standing in for the viewer.

I cook all the time, and I cook all different kinds of things, but never Mexican at home. That's my work.

One of my favorites is chilaquiles. It's corn tortilla chips in a simple, brothy tomato sauce with a little chile for heat. It's wonderfully homey. It has irresistible crispy bits and I love to eat it. And you can play around with it - add chicken, sliced red onions, or all these different things that can easily dress it up.

I know Los Angeles has it better than Chicago when it comes to produce year round!

In the Mexican repertoire there's a lot of super delicious things you can do with vegetables and beans and grains and all that sort of stuff. So I can do this thing.

You always want to walk a tight-rope of flavor

The greatest contribution to the Mexican table imaginable

Great food, like all art, enhances and reflects a community’s vitality, growth and solidarity. Yet history bears witness that great cuisines spring only from healthy local agriculture.