Episode 1210: A Mayan League of their Own

In Yaxunah, Pati discovers Yucatán’s “league of their own.” She joins the Amazonas, a softball team of indigenous women, for their morning practice. As they built a name for themselves, they overcame the mindset that women belong in the kitchen. After teaching Pati the ins and outs of the game, Doña Enedina invites her over for Brazo de Reina, a tamal with hardboiled eggs and ground pepitas.

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Episode 1209: Pink

An ingredient Pati constantly uses is salt and Yucatán has one of the most unique salts. The Las Coloradas salt, which means blush red, gets its distinctive color from red algae. Engineer Felipe Perez takes Pati to the pink lakes where the salt is produced. Down the road in Rio Lagartos, conservationist Diego Nuñez takes her to see another pink wonder, Mexico’s highest concentration of flamingos.

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Episode 1208: Maya Today

Today no trip to Yucatán is complete without seeing a beautiful cenote, natural freshwater pools in caves. But Mayans saw them as the gateway to the underworld. To learn more about Mayan communities, Pati visits Cenote Xocempich with activist and lawyer Zoila Cen, who has dedicated her career to helping Mayan people. The next day, Zoila invites Pati to her niece’s birthday celebration.

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Episode 1207: Recados

Pati returns to Mérida to meet sisters, Delfina and Maria Elide, who love to cook and laugh and are famous for recados – pastes of spices and aromatic herbs that season Yucatecan foods. In Uxmal, she learns about ingredients only found in Yucatán that make recados unique, touring citrus, habanero, and chaya fields at an hacienda. Then traditional cook Rosa makes a Relleno Negro using a recado negro.

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Episode 1206: Yucatán Meats

Temozón is the birthplace of Yucatán’s signature smoked meat Carne Ahumada and everyone in town claims to have a relative who invented it. Pati strolls around town to try different versions of Carne Ahumada. She also returns to Hacienda Tamchén for another traditional dish prepared by chef Julio Ku Dominguez called Huidzi Bii Wai, which means “united tortilla.”

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Episode 1205: Ode to the Egg

Pati arrives in Motul, a town in the history books for Yucatán’s once thriving henequén industry and for the egg dish Huevos Motuleños. Pati meets Doña Evelia, who put Motul back on the map with her world-famous recipe. She also experiences the legacy of henequén at Hacienda Tamchén and encounters another egg dish in the kitchen, where chef Julio Ku Dominguez makes Abuela’s Buttoned Eggs.

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Episode 1204: A Family Affair

Pati visits Chef Wilson Alonzo in his hometown of Halachó to prepare a traditional Cochinita Pibil in an underground pit. They begin at the local market to source ingredients. Then Pati helps Wilson prepare the achiote marinade, along with his grandmother who taught him traditional cooking and isn’t shy to correct him. The final product is a meal that captures Yucatán’s history in every bite.

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Episode 1203: Flavors of Merida

Pati explores the vibrant streets of Yucatán’s capital, Mérida, in search of its flavors. She tries “the best tacos in Mérida” at Wayan’e. The aroma of freshly made cookies lures her to Dondé Fabric, where their globitos and bizcochitos are an important part of Mérida’s mornings. She has sorbet at a shop run by the same family for generations and tastes a unique Yucatecan liqueur at Casa D’Aristi.

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Episode 1202: Guayabera World

In Tekit, or “The Capital of the Guayabera,” Pati encounters a tale of sons going against their father’s wishes to follow their own path. Pati meets Eliodoro Xicum, a farmer’s son who went against his father to build a family business making the iconic Guayabera shirts. Then she meets his son, Elio, who chose to become a chef and created a dish that resembles a Guayabera in honor of his father.

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Episode 1201: The Nectar of the Mayan Gods

Pati is in the magic town of Maní to learn about something sacred to the Mayans – bees and honey. A cooperative of women who protect the endangered Melipona, a stingless bee native to Yucatán, invites her to join in a Mayan energy cleansing ritual involving buñuelos made with Melipona honey. Then she visits a family living by the traditional “Solar Maya,” meaning they grow everything they eat.

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Episode 1: Fronterizos of the Golden Coast

Pati travels along the California-Mexico border, one of the world’s busiest crossings, to meet the fronterizos of the golden coast and experience the melding of cultures, cross-border collaborations, and explosive creativity and growth. In San Diego, she discusses multicultural identity with journalist Jean Guerrero and continues the conversation with muralist Michelle Guerrero, a.k.a “MR. B BABY.” Then she joins in a collaboration between San Diego and Tijuana’s gay men’s choruses. She explores culinary innovation in Baja California meeting the “godfather” of Mexican wine, Hugo D’Acosta. In Tijuana, she tastes the original Caesar Salad and gets in the ring with world champion boxer Jackie Nava. In Mexicali, Pati visits Mexico’s largest Chinatown, La Chinesca, where she tours an underground world built by Chinese immigrants and tastes Mexican-infused Chinese cuisine.

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Episode 2: Ancient Seeds & Desert Ghosts

Pati travels along both sides of the Arizona-Sonora border through some of the most wild, untouched places in North America. She starts from where she left off, at the very edge of Baja California in Los Algodones, where perhaps we’ve found the most wild place of all: a town of dentists. Moving across the Sonoran Desert into Arizona and Sonora, she finds herself in a land steeped in legend and tradition. She joins the Tucson Samaritans on one of their hikes to leave water for migrants trekking through the desert. She meets Luis Sotero, a self-taught artist who took up painting while detained at the border and now teaches at a migrant shelter. She explores a ghost town and learns how members of the Tohono O’odham Nation are preserving traditional foods, including the chiltepín – “the mother of all chiles.”

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Episode 3: Back to the Middle

Pati travels from Nogales through the border region of New Mexico and Chihuahua, which offers some of the most unique and bio-diverse places in the world. She meets famed architect Ronald Rael who is rethinking spaces for migrants. She hikes with conservationists trying to protect the diversity of life in the Sky Islands. Then she travels to Hatch, NM, to understand why it calls itself “the chile capital of the world.” She also stops in the only place on the border where kids living in Mexico are bussed into the US for school every day. Finally, Pati visits a Mennonite community in Chihuahua to see how the famous Mennonite cheese is made and to understand how this highly isolated community works.

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Extra: Wine Tasting in Valle de Guadalupe

Pati tastes wines from “the pioneer of Mexican winemaking” Hugo D’Acosta and his son, Lucas D’Acosta, at Casa de Piedra winery in Valle de Guadalupe.

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Extra: Mural Art with Mr. B Baby

In San Diego’s Barrio Logan neighborhood, local artist Michelle Guerrero, a.k.a. Mr. B Baby, shows Pati Jinich how she paints her colorful murals, which are centered around a whimsical wolf-piñata character named Chucho.

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Extra: Mexican Pizza with Chef Javier Plascencia

Pati meets acclaimed chef Javier Plascencia at Giuseppis Restaurant, which was started by his parents. Not only was it one of the first pizzerias in Tijuana, they claim to be the first to make Mexican pizza and Javier is showing Pati how it’s done.

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Extra: Fry Bread at San Xavier Mission

Pati is at the San Xavier Mission on the Tohono O’odham Nation Reservation to try the fry bread made by Telma Javier and her family at a stand right outside the church.

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Extra: Beer Tasting at Borderlands Brewing

Pati meets Ayla Kapahi, the first female head brewer in Arizona, to try some of the creative craft beers she’s brewing with local ingredients, like the Tohono O’odham 60-day corn, at Borderlands Brewing Co. in Tucson.

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Extra: Foraged Foods in the Sky Islands

The Sky Islands are a series of isolated mountain ranges on the Sonora and Arizona border and are one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet. Pati meets conservationists Emily Burns and Bryon Lichtenhan, who have come with snacks foraged from the region.

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Extra: Life as a Truck Driver on the US-Mexico Border

Pati takes a ride with longtime truck driver Gilberto Pérez across the border from Nogales, Sonora to Nogales, Arizona to find out what it’s like to cross the border twice a day and how it has changed over the years.

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Episode 1101: The Fire Kings

Retired mechanic Gualberto Elizondo, “Weber,”  surprised his grown kids when suddenly his grilling hobby turned him into a local celebrity and internet sensation. He drives Pati through the mountains of La Huasteca in his old car, then to his famous back patio where he and his family treat us to cabrito en salsa and short ribs. But local chef Chuy Villareal of Cara De Vaca wants the world to know that the north of Mexico isn’t just carne asada and he’s putting a Mediterranean twist on his traditional dishes.  

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Episode 1102: Sisters, Stew, and Sass

Don’t complain, don’t ask for the bathroom, and definitely don’t ask for salt. On the river Ramos, two sisters – who didn’t ask for your opinion – have taken a shack that serves one dish, traditional cortadillo stew, and made it into a must-visit restaurant. Just watch out for their parrot, he bites. And about 10 minutes down the road in the town of Allende is another restaurant that uses traditional stews in their famous empalmes, or stacked tacos.

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