Join the Esperanza Peace & Justice Center for a plática and cooking demo with Chef & food writer Adán Medrano. “Don’t Count the Tortillas: The Art of Texas Mexican Cooking” is his latest cookbook that offers over 100 kitchen-tested recipes, including newly created dishes!

The event will include a brief reading from part of the book, a cooking demo of recipes from the book that will include a plática about the context and history of each recipe and how it connects to the Mexican American community. The demo will be interactive, with audience questions and comments! After the cooking demo, there will be a formal Q&A.

After the Q&A, there will be a reception during which guests will be served food from the recipes shown. Books will be available for purchase.

A study in memory, connection, and the sumptuous possibilities of traditional cuisine. From an early age, Chef Adán Medrano understood the power of cooking to enthrall, to grant artistic agency, and to solidify identity as well as succor and hospitality. In this second cookbook, he documents and explains native ingredients, traditional techniques, and innovations in casero (home-style) Mexican American cooking in Texas. “Don’t Count the Tortillas” offers over 100 kitchen-tested recipes, including newly created dishes that illustrate what is trending in homes and restaurants across Texas. Each recipe is followed by clear, step-by-step instructions, explanation of cooking techniques, and description of the dishes’ cultural context. Dozens of color photographs round out Chef Medrano’s encompassing of a rich indigenous history that turns on family and, more widely, on community—one bound by shared memories of the art that this book honors.

Chef and food writer Adán Medrano holds the Certificate in Culinary Arts from the Culinary Institute of America. Now living in Houston, he grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and northern Mexico, where he developed his expertise in the flavor profile and techniques of indigenous Texas Mexican foods. Medrano is also author of Truly Texas Mexican: A Native Culinary Heritage in Recipes.