Product Description

The most comprehensive Baja California cookbook ever! This 240-page book contains 175 easy-to-prepare recipes in 15 categories, 20 from famous Baja restaurants. Try Confetti Dip Mardi Gras, Cabo's Restaurant Pancho's Tortilla Soup, "The" Original Tijuana Caesar Salad, Bay of L.A. Lobster Tacos, Expatriate Pepper Steak and Citrus Flan Extraordinaire from Caffe Todos Santos. A cookbook, storybook and art book all in one, it showcases 22 whimsical, colorful illustrations by Laguna Beach, California artist, Bob Bonn. Author Ann Hazard, a third generation Baja Rat, guarantees that this book will inject you with a lasting dose of Baja Magic! "In fact," she says, "I promise it will tip your perspective slightly to the south, lighten your heart and transform your outlook on life!"

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #805098 in Books
• Published on: 1997-11-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Review
"Celebrate life with Ann Hazard's long-awaited Cooking With Baja Magic! This collection of 175 mouth-watering recipes contains favorites from 20 of the most famous restaurants in Baja. Read about the author's travels and savor the beautiful, colorful illustrations by Bob Bonn." -- Hugh Kramer, President of Discover Baja Travel Club

"No faux-Mexican, Americanized recipes here -- Hazard's magic is la verdad comida, inspired by her family's extensive travels in Baja since the 1930's." -- Corinne Lynch, San Diego Magazine

"Ole! Pass the salsa! Pop the cervezas! Ann Hazard's Cooking With Baja Magic is the best Baja cookbook ever!" -- Gene Kira, author of King of the Moon and co-author of The Baja Catch

Many cookbooks have been written on the cuisine indigenous to the innumerable regions of the world. For some reason, however, Baja California, the area south of San Diego that is anchored by Tijuana, Mexico, has been seriously overlooked. Thankfully, a third-generation "Baja Rat," Ann Hazard, decided to right that wrong with Cooking with Baja Magic, a delightful new cookbook of more than 170 easy to prepare recipes that represent the best of Baja's unique cuisine. So what exactly is that? As author Hazard presents, it's a take-no-prisoners mesh of salsas and sauces, soups, salads, seafood dishes, tacos, burritos, tostados, desserts and drinks that are long on heat and flavor and short on the fuss. It's food that's as colorful and festive as the region it comes from, and, Hazard says, is less of a style of cooking than an attitude. From appetizers like Drunk Shrimp and Blue Corn Quesadillas through main courses of Lobster Tacos and Sesame-Chili Chicken and desserts like Margarita Pie, the book is a joyous romp through a thoughtful collection of mouth-watering, crowd-pleasing dishes. It is also something of a travel guide, for Hazard serves up several generations of Baja adventures and travel tales from her family along with the recipes that were collected and created on those trips. Adding to the flavor are the vibrant and dazzling illustrations of Bob Bonn of grinning cats, laughing bulls, dancing cacti and other wild west Baja characters that simply explode with color and whimsy and capture the fiesta quality of the food. Be forewarned! If you haven't visited the Baja area, you'll be intrigued to do so after reading this delightful cookbook. If a trip to this region, where good friends and good food mean good times, isn't in the immediate travel itinerary, "Cooking with Baja Magic" might be the next best thing to being there. -- From Independent Publisher

About the Author
Ann Hazard and is a third generation Baja Rat. She began traveling the Magnificent Peninsula with her parents and sister, Nina Hazard Baldwin, collecting recipes, when she was nine years old. They flew into remote places in old World War II bombers and landed on dirt roads. They camped on deserted beaches and in lush palm oases where they were the only group of gringos for miles around.

In the intervening years, Ann has traveled to Los Cabos, Todos Santos, La Paz, Loreto, Mulege, San Felipe and all the other hot spots the tourists frequent. While she enjoys the resorts, she has a deep, abiding connection to the more remote, out-of-the-way spots in Baja -- left over from her youth no doubt! Of course, she still spends as much time south of the border as possible. In addition to traveling the peninsula frequently, she shares a weekend getaway in La Bufadora with her sister and brother-in-law -- just a few miles south of Ensenada in Northern Baja.

Ann is a graduate of U.S. International University in San Diego, CA who spent the first two decades of her career doing corporate communications. She now writes and promotes her work full-time. She and lives in Solana Beach, CA with her children, Gayle and Derek and an assortment of pets.

Look for her second book, Good News for the Newly Single -- Devotions for the Recently Separated and Divorced, which will be released by Vine Books in September, 1998. Current writing projects include a novel about four gringas (female Americans) traveling without gringos (men) for a month in Baja and a children's book called The Tres Amigos in collaboration with Bob Bonn, illustrator of Cooking With Baja Magic.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
JUST WHAT IS BAJA MAGIC?

Travel as far south and west as you can in this country without leaving the mainland and you end up in San Diego. Head further south, cross the world's busiest border and you're in Tijuana -- Baja California -- Mexico.

My sister, Nina and I grew up on this bi-cultural piece of real estate. So did my dad, and his father before him. My grandpappy raised cattle on ranches spanning both sides of the dotted line, back in the early part of this century when there was no line, when immigration wasn't legal or illegal and the only thing that divided our two countries was a lonely outpost on a dirt road going -- as Jimmy Buffett would say -- south.

When I was a child, Baja was Never-never Land, a place where I felt more at home than in my own hometown. It was a place of endless empty hills, sunny skies and see-through aquamarine water teeming with fish. A smiling, brightly colored place of leather-skinned cowboys who tossed us high into the air, sang Mariachi ballads and danced to songs like La Bamba. Nina and I ate tacos before we ate hot dogs. We ate them every day for breakfast on our first trip to La Paz, back in 1960. We learned to speak Spanish before kindergarten. And we loved it all. Still do.

Why? Well, let me tell you a couple of secrets about Mexicans. They believe life is to be enjoyed, that integrity is paramount and that God and family are more important than money. They may live in a third world country, but guess what? They don't think they're deprived. They think we're ridiculous with our obsession to hoard and discard possessions. Raise the hood of any ancient (but roadworthy) Baja troque (truck) and you will instantly appreciate Mexican ingenuity. These folks are more resourceful than you could ever imagine. They've raised recycling to an art form. And -- they will use even the lamest of excuses to throw a fiesta. From gray-haired grannies to Pampers-clad toddlers, everyone gets into the spirit of revelry. Food abounds, cerveza (beer) and tequila flow and music blares. Do they count fat grams? Hardly. They consider it just another example of our gringo (that's us, we're the gringos) lunacy.

Back in the mid-fifties when my parents first took me and my sister to Baja, most of their friends thought they were nuts. We were sure to be robbed by banditos, they said. If not, we'd ingest toxic amoebas and come down with Montezuma's Revenge. But my dad has some serious cowboy blood in him, and even though my mom swears she never stepped off Wilshire Boulevard (90210) until she graduated from high school, she's part renegade too. (She just doesn't like to admit it.) We spent our vacations traveling in Baja and mainland Mexico every year when I was growing up -- and nothing bad ever happened to us. We visited cities and seaside resorts; we took our camper to remote beach and mountain villages where we were the only gringos for miles.

My mother let me loose in the kitchen early on. We became partners in culinary crime, plagiarizing together as we recreated our favorite meals from trips south of the border. Over the years we collected recipes and kept them in a file box I made myself. Later on I spent time in Spain, the Imperial Valley of California, Colorado and New Mexico. Each time it was back to the kitchen. More trial and error. My file box eventually outgrew itself and I typed up my first cookbook in 1981. This was a good move on my part, because I was tired of being the designated chef whenever a fiesta was called for. Soon my friends were inviting me over for dinner. (Yes!)

You know, I still go south every chance I get. My family now has a second home in La Bufadora, a few miles south of Ensenada, at the tail end of what the L.A. Times has labeled, "Baja's Romantic Gold Coast." Our electricity is solar there. Our refrigerators run on propane. Our phones (if we have them) are cellular. There's no mail. Our water is hauled in by truck and stored in pilas, which are concrete water tanks. (No, we don't drink pila water.) If we want to visit neighbors, we spy on them first with our binoculars. (Yes, you could say we are a community of voyeurs.) If we get a positive sighting, we strap on our hiking sandals and cruise on over.

La Buf (pronounced Boof), as we call it, is a gringo colony on a private ranch owned by Se-or Jos Le-n Toscano, our patr-n. Like every other gringo colony in Baja, it is, to its expatriate residents, an antidote to late twentieth century civilization -- a place where everyone knows our names and an outback where kids can run free. And like most other accessible places in Baja, it's changing -- it's growing and it's becoming more Americanized. To me, La Buf epitomizes Baja Magic. Why? Because Baja is raw and remote, set apart and somehow untouched by the chaos and despair of our world. It draws people unto itself like a magnet and it is against the backdrop of its mountains, deserts and endless beaches that we Baja Rats reconnect with the essence of who we are. I, like everyone else whose soul has been captured and forever held prisoner by Baja's unique magic, am humbled by the vastness of its emptiness, the wildness of its waves in winter, the profusion of its stars at night and the magnificence of the ever-present pods of grey whales that cruise up and down its coastline from early winter through spring.

Cooking With Baja Magic is the story of my life and travels. If you're still wondering what Baja Magic is, let me clarify something. Baja Magic isn't a style of cooking or a new type of cuisine --. it's an attitude. To cultivate it is to focus on the beauty in God's creations -- not our own. To cultivate it is to kick off your shoes, put on some festive Latin music and heave a huge sigh that casts off the cares of our crazy, mixed-up world. To cultivate it is to imagine yourself in a simpler, gentler place, celebrating life and beauty with people you love. Baja magic is about savoring life. It's about sharing. Caring. Laughing. It's about accepting that life is full of question marks and richly infused with mystery and paradox -- and it's about not minding that we don't have all the answers. Jack Smith mirrors my feelings about Baja in his book, God and Mr. Gomez:

" ... I felt a pleasant weightlessness, as if the Baja Peninsula had been detached from the continent at the border and was drifting away in this blue sky and silver sea, just as the Spaniards had imagined. My burdens had been left behind on the mainland, and were receding out of sight, out of mind."

This cookbook has one purpose -- to tip your perspective slightly to the south by injecting you with some Baja Magic. So, hey -- come on! Dare to throw a fiesta! It can be a dinner for two, a party, a backyard barbecue or a meal for your family. Just kick off those shoes, crank up the mariachi tunes and start dancing while you cook!

Customer Reviews

You'll Be Glad You Have It
The student and traveler to Mexico often returns home craving the tastes they experienced in Baja California. Ann's cookbook will compliment anyone's kitchen. From the appetizers to the salsas to the carnitas to the margaritas, with a little musica norteña, una fría and this cookbook, you can have a 'virtual' visit to Baja California. Recommended.

Great Baja-style cuisine
The food in this book is excellent. As an almost-native San Diegan who has moved away, I depend on this book to help me make the Baja-style food that I love. I particularly like the Carnitas and the Chicken Enchiladas Verdes. Whenever I make carnitas, my guests just rave! The portions are somewhat large, so have a party or do what I often do - eat carnitas scrambled into eggs, made into quesadillas, etc. My only issue with this book is that there are a few technical mistakes(i.e. wrong page numbers, etc.). However, this is easy to overlook. Enjoy!

This cookbook reads like a Louis L'Amour novel!
My husband stole it from me and read it from cover to cover! Then, on our next Baja trip, he went to the Calimax and bought food. Every night we were there he cooked for me from the book! Now that's my kinda cookbook!