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Marcela Valladolid: Amazing Story of a Mexican Chef
 Marcela
Valladolid has been selected on the Askmen.com Top 99 Most desirable women in
the world.
Marcela Valladolid was born on 19th 1978 in San Diego, California. She is a
celebrity chef, author and the host of the Food Network show Mexican Made Easy,
which began its fifth season on May 5, 2012.
Valladolid's interest in pursuing a career as a chef was sparked when she began
working at her Aunt Marcela's cooking school in Tijuana, Mexico. Valladolid
graduated from the Los Angeles Culinary Institute as a "Certified cook"[3] and
then moved to Paris, France where she graduated as a classically trained pastry
chef at the Ritz Escoffier Cooking School.
She then returned to Tijuana and started her own catering company and taught
cooking techniques to classes of 40 students out of her home there.
Growing up around expert and traditional cooks in Tijuana, Mexico, Marcela was
raised to be passionate about food. She jumped straight into a culinary life
with her first job
working at her aunt�s cooking school in Baja, Mexico. She realized she too
wanted to pursue this growing love for food full time and enrolled in the Los
Angeles Culinary Institute.
She then went to the Ritz Escoffier Cooking School in Paris to become trained as
a classical French pastry chef.
Marcela returned home to run a catering company and teach children about the
culinary arts in Tijuana. All the while, collecting recipes and applying her
knowledge and skills of her family�s cooking traditions to map out her dreams.
Marcela eventually parlayed her classical training and skills to become a food
editor at Bon App�tit magazine.
Marcela quickly realized that the idea of authentic Mexican cooking wasn�t as
accessible as it should be.
Her family�s cuisine was masked by heavy liquid cheese, overflowing burritos and
decided that she was going to show the world that in fact there�s NO yellow
cheese in real Mexican cooking and it can be done with major flavours and little
fuss. She then landed her own cooking show - Discovery en Espa�ol�s Relatos con
Sabor and went on to audition for The Apprentice: Martha Stewart which she was
soon chosen for.
In August 2009, Marcela was given the chance to showcase her family recipes when
she released her first cookbook titled �FRESH MEXICO: 100 Simple Recipes for
True Mexican Flavour� (Clarkson Potter). She appeared on NBC�s Today, The View
was featured in Latina, People, People en Espanol, Wall Street Journal and the
New York Daily News around its release. The book was very well received reaching
the #1 cookbook spot on Amazon more than once. With the book, Marcela became the
advocate for great Mexican food that delivers in freshness and flavour without
forcing home cooks to track down hard-to-find ingredients or spend hours at the
stove.
Soon after her book release, she landed her dream job as host of her own Food
Network show, Mexican Made Easy. The show made its debut early in 2010 and films
in San Diego where Marcela currently lives. She is currently in her fourth
season. She was invited to appear on NBC�s Today Show, The Talk and Late Night
with Jimmy Fallon around the latest season.
Marcela released her second cookbook called Mexican Made Easy (Clarkson Potter)
on September 27, 2011. The book is a companion to her TV show and serves as an
entryway into authentic Mexican cuisine. On a personal note, she is the mother
to a wonderful son Fausto who doubles as her sous chef at just seven years old
and by working alongside of her in the kitchen has become a very open minded
eater.
 Valladolid joined the staff of Bon App�tit magazine as an editor and recipe
stylist. She also competed on the 2005 series The Apprentice: Martha Stewart, in
which she came in fourth place. Valladolid's first cooking show was "Relatos con
Sabor" on Discovery en Espa�ol which aired in the U.S. and Latin America. In the
series, she showed viewers how local Hispanic homes preserve and revive
traditional recipes.
Valladolid's first cookbook, Fresh Mexico: 100 Simple Recipes for True Mexican
Flavour, debuted in August 2009 and has since received positive reviews.
Valladolid's second cooking show, the Food Network series "Mexican Made Easy"
debuted in January 2010, on the Food Network. Her second cookbook, Mexican Made
Easy was released in September 2011 as a companion book to her show. Both
Valladolid's book and the program, filmed in San Diego, were designed to show
the world there is no "yellow cheese" in traditional Mexican cooking and that
her Mexican culinary style can be done with "fresh flavour that fits all."
Valladolid has also appeared in a couple of other Food Network shows. On
Throwdown! with Bobby Flay she was a judge for a fish taco themed competition.
She and Flay teamed up to defeat Masaharu Morimoto and teammate Andrew Zimmern
on a New Year's edition of Iron Chef America in 2012. Valladolid is one of 2
judges on the CBS reality tv cooking competition series The American Baking
Competition.
Celebrity baker Paul Hollywood appears to have turned up the heat on his
relationship with TV presenter Marcela Valladolid. The pair were rumoured to
have started an affair when they were teamed up to present the American Baking
Competition, the US spin-off from Mr Hollywood�s successful British show The
Great British Bake Off. After poor ratings � and an audience outcry about their
alleged romance � the US show was scrapped.
Now the 47-year-old chef has been enjoying a break with 35-year-old Mexican
divorcee Miss Valladolid in sizzling Majorca, where there has been a heatwave.
They were spotted strolling in their holiday gear on the sunshine island � the
first time they have been seen together as a couple since their appearances on
TV. Residents and other holidaymakers in the island�s capital, Palma, said the
pair � who were accompanied by Miss Valladolid�s nine-year-old son Fausto and a
boy who was apparently a friend � gave the appearance of being a �loving and
happy family�.
On Tuesday the couple joined a group of around nine adults and six children,
thought to be family and friends of Miss Valladolid, for lunch at El Bungalow, a
seafood restaurant on the beach at Ciudad Jardin, a small town east of Palma.
Waitress Carmen Garcia, who served them, said the group ordered three large
paellas at �15.50 each, and drank local beer.
She said that Mr Hollywood and Miss Valladolid �were very affectionate with each
other. They were relaxed and seemed to be having a good time. They looked like a
loving, happy family.�
 But Mr Hollywood, dubbed the George Clooney of baking, and Miss Valladolid,
described as �one sexy senorita� by an insider at their show, had gone to some
lengths to keep their holiday secret. She has been tweeting images of Majorca
since arriving on July 27 but he did not feature in any of them. Mr Hollywood,
on the other hand � usually a busy tweeter � has not been on the site since July
25. It is thoughts he stayed in Majorca for four days before returning to Britain
yesterday. Mr Hollywood met Miss Valladolid when they co-hosted The American
Baking Competition in Los Angeles in March.
They appeared to hit it off from day one, with her referring to him as a
�handsome devil�. But the scandal that erupted over their alleged romance �
though they have never admitted to a relationship � cost Mr Hollywood his
marriage to his wife of 15 years, Alexandra. Miss Valladolid has left the
marital home she shared with her ex-husband, Fausto, and moved into a
�1.5?million apartment with her son. After the American show � which Hollywood
hoped would launch his career across the Atlantic � was dropped, it was thought
that the hosts� friendship had also cooled. Miss Valladolid was seen out
celebrating her 35th birthday recently with friends. She declined to comment
when approached in Majorca last week.
Marcela Valladolid says on being included in Askmen.com Top 99 Most desirable
women in the world. "I am completely honored and hugely surprised. Oh, my goodness! I don�t even know how it happened. Women can bullsh*t all we want, but we all take the time and trouble to make sure our physical appearance is ok-looking. For me personally,
I do pay attention to that sort of thing. So that you guys consider me decent-looking is just a huge honor."
Her web site is located at http://www.chefmarcela.com
Dated 19 August 2013
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