The Museum of Food and Drink MOFAD https://www.mofad.org/ Wed June 3, 2026: Claudette Zepeda and Francis Lam in conversation about her upcoming book Cooking the Borderlands https://mofad.ticketing.veevartapp.com/tickets/view/list/cooking-the-borderlands https://www.mofad.org/program-detail-page/borderlands MOFAD Programs https://www.mofad.org/programs Claudette Zepeda https://chefclaudettezepeda.com/ Cooking the Borderlands: Spice and Smoke Between Mexico and the States https://sites.prh.com/cookingtheborderlands/#preorder-the-book Tacos La Poblanita Corner of Jay St and York St Brooklyn, NY 11201 Mon-Sat 10-5 Jasar Castillo 929-245-3098 Michael Szczerban https://www.instagram.com/foreverbeard/ The Talisman of Happiness https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/ada-boni/the-talisman-of-happiness/9780316577991/?lens=little-brown-and-company TRANSCRIPT Ivan De Luce (ID): Welcome to RadioMOFAD, the podcast from the Museum of Food and Drink. Hey Bernadette, how's it going? Bernadette Cura (BC): Hey Ivan, it's rainy at the museum today. It's a rainy Saturday. We had quite a good crowd because people love the museum on a rainy day. ID: They do. I know I do. BC: Yeah, me too. People do a lot of photoshoots here in Dumbo. I don't know if you knew this. I mean, you know. I don't know if you all know this. People come for their weddings and their quinceañera photo shoots in all their finery and are taking beautiful pictures. There's a whole entourage of people right behind us now taking pictures. ID: Yeah, there are about four or five five-year-olds running around in dresses and tuxedos chasing each other. We do see that everyday. But yes, we've had a lot of fun at MOFAD lately. We've had some great events. BC: Yeah, you know, we talked with Michael Szczerban last episode. You were on the Zoom for that event. ID: Yes, I attended the Talisman of Happiness event with Michael Szczerban over Zoom just to get a different sense of what it's like to attend a MOFAD event. It was great. It was a wonderful talk. Michael Szczerban talked with Deb Perelman from Smitten Kitchen. BC: Sweet, sweet. ID: They talked about the 1929 cookbook by Ada Boni called The Talisman of Happiness, and it was a great talk, I mean, we had a great talk with him last episode, but Deb was asking about kind of how the book compares to other books. It's not your typical cookbook in so many ways, not just because of the 12 minestrones that you can choose from in it, out of the 1600 recipes in there, it's a huge book, but also because it's not full of fancy, glossy photos. Cookbooks in the 20s definitely weren't. Michael was comparing it to the Silver Spoon cookbook, which many of us are familiar with. BC: Yes ID: It's a beautiful book, much like the fancy Silver Spoon that sits in the kitchen, and maybe isn't touched every day, whereas Michael sort of compared it to Nonna's worn wooden spoon that's been in the sauce all day on a Sunday, chipped and worn, but full of love, and has made so many things, and is used every single day. BC: Well, I know that for me, as far as like The Joy of Cooking, which is what it was compared to a lot. I definitely use that book a lot, and there's no room for pictures. You want the words, you want the solid recipes. ID: Yes, and Michael had said that he wanted it to stick to 1000 pages and not go beyond that. Well, I think I'd rather, for a book like that, that's really useful in the kitchen, I'd rather not have pictures, and like we talked about in the podcast, that illustrations are really additional information that's helpful, and they're really cute. So I'm glad, I'm glad they stuck to that formula, and I cannot wait to get this book. I get excited about all our cookbooks that we have in the museum, but this one seems really special. BC: Definitely. So, as far as events, that one was great, and we have more coming up. ID: In June, we'll see Claudette Zepeda and her new book, Cooking the Borderlands. BC: Yes, she grew up in San Diego, and also in Tijuana. So, the foods that she grew up with, she's going to talk about it. What are the elements and the ingredients and the influences that came together to make that very special cuisine there, where she's from? And we're excited to host her here. And you know, I'm from Fort Worth, Texas, and there's Tex Mex cuisine there, and I'm wondering, like, what the similarities might be, since it's Mexican American, so I'm curious about that, and I think you told me, Ivan, that you're not that well-versed in Mexican food to begin with, so there's a whole world for you to discover ID: When it comes to Mexican food, I know Mexican food in New York really well, and I love it, but when I meet people from California, they say you gotta have California Mexican food, it's totally different, and it sounds like this border area, you know, between Tijuana, San Diego, and these other towns there have some kind of distinct thing going on, like a lot of regions do, and I would imagine that the Texas Tex-Mex thing is super different as well. BC: Definitely, definitely. And that's what's so great about regionalism in cuisine, is that we do have things in common, but they're also unique. So I'm excited to discover all that when she's here and during our talk with her on the podcast, ID: Yes, let's take a listen to that interview with Claudette. ID: Welcome to Radio Mofad, the podcast from the Museum of Food and Drink. Chef and author Claudette Zepeda grew up on both sides of the California-Mexico border, a first-generation. Mexican American, where the mixing of vibrant culinary traditions informed her food. Claudette has served as executive chef at El Jardin, appeared on Top Chef as well as Iron Chef Mexico, and now has a new cookbook, Cooking the Borderlands: Spice and Smoke Between Mexico and the States. Claudette will appear at MOFAD on June 3 in conversation with editor Francis Lam to discuss borderlands culture, migration, and the stories behind the recipes that shaped Claudette's life growing up between Mexico and the US ID: So your new book, Cooking the Borderlands, centers around the mixing of these cultures that you grew up with, you know, between California and Mexico. It's a unique blend of cultures in this particular area, and I guess I was wondering what you love most about this kind of food. Claudette Zepeda (CZ): I love that there's, you know, on the border, I should say, as a chef, especially cooking Mexican food in the United States, people always want to put us in a box of, like, well, where's this from, and where's that from, and you know, is this tradition to use words like traditional or authentic Mexican food? It's hard to receive when you're a creative and you just want to create, and as a border kid, and that sensibility that I learned because of being on the border and living with one foot in both countries, I learned that the sensibility of the food in the borderlands has no borders. It does not answer to whoever set the barrier of does it go this way or that way. Food is so fluid, as a border kid, because I mean, the book trespasses the entire border, from San Diego, Tijuana to Tamaulipas in Texas. The dichotomy doesn't change between any of those regions, it changes geographically, and the food changes, but the sensibility is the same. I was like, we don't care what barriers you put up, food doesn't answer to those. BC: Yeah, that's a tricky question to answer, and kind of annoying, like, what is traditional? Because I'm from the Philippines, I know what my parents cooked, and it has a lot of elements of traditional, but it also has a lot of elements of, like, what you can get in Fort Worth, Texas, as a Filipina, CZ: Yeah BC: you know, like, and it wasn't a lot, so it creates its own authenticity, and I think, as Americans, we have to go through that a lot in different parts of the country. People want that authenticity, and I, a lot of it, I'm not sure, has to do with being PC. Is that true? I mean, I don’t know. CZ: I think a lot of it has to do with their most people are uncomfortable in the, in the uncomfortable, so they think to they need something safe, and I hate the word approachable, but they need you to be palatable, Right, and I feel like sometimes I'm just like, just let me be weird, authenticity is very personal, and tradition, you could have one neighborhood block in Mexico, everyone's making albondigas, and every single one will taste different, because every single family has their own traditions, and they're not static. BC: Yeah, I love that. Let me be weird. You want me to be weird! I promise it's gonna taste better. CZ: Exactly, and I'm also not an 80-year-old grandmother cooking over wood fire, and like, with you know, I would love that one day. I want that, but currently that's not where I'm at. BC: Oh man, yeah. ID: And Bernadette, you said Fort Worth, Texas. I mean, that's Tex-Mex food that you were kind of growing up having as well, right? BC: Well, yeah, and I really, I'm not really sure about, like, what the roots specifically of Tex-Mex are, but I know there's a lot of that ranch cuisine in Texas food because of the beef industry, and you mentioned that earlier. I wonder if they have, if there's anything similar there, but no, it really is much different from the stuff in San Diego and Tijuana. CZ: Yeah, and you mean Texas all the way to El Paso, you have the Chihuahua border, you have the Nogales, you have Juarez, you have all these...I mean,Texas is a huge state, so within that one state, and you have the Native Americans that live, you know, the Tarahumara people, the Rarámuri that are on the other side in Mexico, on the Sierra Nevadas, and the Sierra Madre is like that, is very different climate, very different adaptability that those first people have had to really familiarize themselves with the land. But also do without a lot, you know, li
