"Marcela Valladolid" news and stories

What food do you eat that would give you a bad rep if other chefs knew about it?
MV: Oreo cookies. I can eat an entire package in one sitting.

Which celebrity would you love to cook for and why?
Roger Waters in exchange for an acoustic, live version of "Wish You Were Here."

What chef would you like to see naked?
Curtis Stone. Oh, and if somebody says me, please send their phone number.

What do you think of vegetarians?
Whatevs. It must stink to not ever feel full.

What's going on in the food world these days that's pissing you off?
Words like umami. I'm Mexican and unless you can explain it to me in Spanish I probably won't get it. And no one in all of Mexico knows what the heck umami is.

Food Network chef and cookbook author Marcela Valladolid prepares a fresh take on Mexican food and shares simple and authentic recipes in her series, Mexican Made Easy.

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

• Baked Alaska isn't as fancy-pants as it might seem, even though it's being served at the Governors Ball.
• Marcela Valladolid, star of the Food Network's Mexican Made Easy, wants you to give chilaquiles a screen test.
• Wolfgang, Alton and Lidia are tapped to host the culinary Oscars.
• What is your headlining cooking oil?
• Do you have a D-list herb?
• The home-cooking big wigs at "America's Test Kitchen" get set to release a video-game adaptation.
• The sidecar is a sparkling marquee cocktail.

'Fresh Mexico: 100 Simple Recipes for True Mexican Flavor'
By Marcela Valladolid
Photos by Amy Kalyn Sims
Clarkson Potter -- 2009
Buy it on Amazon

Marcela Valladolid may seem familiar to fans of the short-lived "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart." She made it through 11 weeks of the show before Martha bid her "goodbye."

A former recipe tester for Bon Appétit, Valladolid landed on her feet, hosting a Discovery Familia TV show "Relatos con Sabor," and penning her first cookbook, "Fresh Mexico."

It is here that Valladolid shares family recipes from her childhood in Tijuana and San Diego, Calif., and does her best to debunk the notion that Mexican food is heaps of yellow cheese melted on tortilla chips. There is a taco recipe in "Fresh Mexico," but overall this is Mexican fare way outside the box.