You take away cheese and chicken and beef and things that just didn't exist, but you still have nixtamal and tamales and masa and tortillas and nopales and chilies and tomatoes and all these things that are like that still is overwhelmingly Mexican. So pozole, because corn culture went so far north, even all the way up the Missouri River valleys, the process of nixtamalizing corn followed it also.
Welcome, everyone. We are so excited to host Gonzalo Guzman, chef and partner of Nopalito restaurant, and his co-author of the beautiful Nopalito book, Stacy Adimondo. Thank you, So first question I have is I want to know what was your first exposure to cooking.
Not myself, but Chef Laurence goes, because I don't have enough time. I think this is just what Nopalito is right now, and part of my life.
Not myself, but Chef Laurence goes, because I don't have enough time. Are there are going to be more Nopalitos?
Not myself, but Chef Laurence goes, because I don't have enough time. I think there's one Nopalito, or now, is kind of two.
And that was the way they liked to cook, and it was a way that made sense to cook. So I think he's maintained that in Nopalito, but at such a large scale. They have two restaurants.
That's a serious undertaking to even find that much product, and do that by hand just to start the day. That's with every single element of the Nopalito cooking, is something that's grown in-season, locally, and the best possible product that they could've found. Yeah, and there's a-- your appetizer, the garbanzo beans.
Not myself, but Chef Laurence goes, because I don't have enough time. But at the same time it's what Nopalito is about.
Not myself, but Chef Laurence goes, because I don't have enough time. No, no more Nopalitos.
But it's just by working hard in a smart way, and just-- so far, so good, so we'll see. Well, you also said that the cookbook and Nopalito, the restaurant itself, is an attempt to remember and honor the way things were from-- I'm guessing you meant your childhood in all that.
Not myself, but Chef Laurence goes, because I don't have enough time. I think there's a really neat component to when you go to Nopalito about trying the dishes, and the way the menu is laid out.
Not myself, but Chef Laurence goes, because I don't have enough time. So you should probably just go on a number of times to Nopalito and see what works for you.
Not myself, but Chef Laurence goes, because I don't have enough time. But just using that as-- So I've always wanted to go to Nopalito, but I have these little rugrats that hang out with me all the time.
Not myself, but Chef Laurence goes, because I don't have enough time. I think it's a real community that is loyal to and loves Nopalito.
And so let's say you're having someone over, like your special friend, and you're cooking for them. these things at a certain farmer's market, and then maybe you go find nopales at the Hispanic market.
And then I started working all the stations in that restaurant, and that's kind of how I learned what I now know. One thing that's pretty neat that Laurence, the co-owner of Nopalito, says in his introduction to the book is that a lot of Mexican immigrants had come through his kitchens.
So pretty much everything from scratch, and that's kind of what I wanted to do if I ever will do Mexican food or a Mexican-based kind of restaurant. I also think one of the baffling things about making Nopalito work from the beginning was that he had such a high standard of that. It wasn't just, we're going to grab tomatoes and make a fresh tomato salsa, because everybody expects it to be at a Mexican restaurant.
So again, I just went between restaurants and I just couldn't really find anything that I felt like it was Mexican food to me. Yeah. So you had a long process of actually becoming Head Chef of Nopalito and all that stuff. I do want to read something, because I do love your book.
Not myself, but Chef Laurence goes, because I don't have enough time. So first of all, my wife and I love Nopalito.
Not myself, but Chef Laurence goes, because I don't have enough time. Definitely, I don't think there will be another Nopalito restaurant.
Welcome, everyone. We are so excited to host Gonzalo Guzman, chef and partner of Nopalito restaurant, and his co-author of the beautiful Nopalito book, Stacy Adimondo.
And then you got more trained when you came here and started working in restaurants? Yeah. After like 10 years, I guess, before we opened Nopalito, I worked in so many different restaurants here in San Francisco. But in the back of my head, I always had that idea of doing something with Mexican food, which
I think masa-- is that one of the first things in there? Yeah, I think it's pretty much one-- Well, after we kind of introduce who Gonzalo is and what Nopalito is all about, we go right into the wonderful world of masa, essentially.
Yeah, being masa is still the base of everything. Yeah So besides on of my favorite quotes, "Don't panic," what should people know going into the book Nopalito? Well, they should know that they're getting into something that is probably-- I mean, for some people it may be easier, because they're more used to, again--
I did when I was little. Again, it kind of reflects my life, but at the same times, Nopalito's life, because that's what we've been doing all the time. So, again, it's just to educate people and kind of know more of what we do at the restaurant.
Not myself, but Chef Laurence goes, because I don't have enough time. Thank you. We got engaged about a year ago in San Francisco, and the first place we walked to was Nopalito, so we love it.