Zarela Martinez

Zarela Martinez’s Personal life

Zarela Martinez is a New York City resident. Zarela’s Husband’s name is Jamie Gillis. Martnez was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease in 2004 after being injured by a taxi cab in an accident. Jamie Gillis was her partner from 2003 till his death in 2010.

Zarela’s son Aarón Sánchez is a co-star on the television series Chopped and Heat Seekers and a guest chef on MasterChef season 7, and the chef/owner of the New Orleans restaurant Johnny Sanchez. Rodrigo, her son, is a lawyer.

Zarela Martinez’s Two Sons

Aarón Sanchez and his twin brother Rodrigo, a New York City attorney, were born in Chihuahua, Mexico, in 1976 to Zarela Martnez, a restaurateur and author of many recipes, and Adolfo Sanchez. They eventually relocated to El Paso, Texas. He started cooking at a young age, assisting his mother in preparing traditional Mexican cuisine for her catering company.

After moving to New York in 1984, his mother opened the famed Café Marimba, and Sánchez started working in a professional kitchen. Sánchez’s mother sent her sons to New Orleans at 16 to work with Chef Paul Prudhomme for the summer. Sánchez graduated from Dwight School in 1994 and went to work for Prudhomme in New Orleans full-time.

From 2009 until 2012, Sánchez was married to singer Ifé Mora. Yuma, his kid, is also his name. Jonathan Waxman was his mentor, he disclosed on episode 21 of MasterChef season 9.

Zarela Martinez’s Net Worth

Zarela Martinez is a cookbook and restaurateur author living in New York City. Her mother, Aida Gabilondo, a cookbook author, taught her how to cook. Martinez is a member of the Mexican Cultural Institute of New York’s Board of Directors. Her net worth is believed to be $1 million. American cookbook author Bobby Parrish also holds the same amount of wealth.

Aaron Sanchez has a net worth of $4 million as an American chef, media personality, and entrepreneur. Aaron Sanchez was born in February 1976 in El Paso, Texas. Sanchez is a co-owner of Mestizo, a Mexican restaurant in Kansas City. In season 2, he participated in Iron Chef America and had one of his matches result in a tie.

Zarela Martinez’s Career

Zarela Martnez has played a key role in promoting traditional Mexican cuisine to Americans through her restaurants and publications. In New York City, she has organized culinary festivals and taught cooking classes, demonstrations, and talks on Mexican cuisine and culture.

After meeting Martnez in a New Orleans cooking class, Chef Paul Prudhomme became her mentor, and Martnez established her catering company in El Paso in 1979. Martinez created Zarela, a Mexican restaurant in New York City that is acknowledged as a pioneer of regional Mexican food. The restaurant closed in 2011, claiming increased costs and financial difficulties brought on by the ongoing economic downturn.

Martnez has been on various television shows, and her cookbook Zarela’s Veracruz, published in 2001, was created as a companion book to the PBS series Zarela! La Cocina Veracruzana, which aired in 2001.

Zarela Martinez Beyond Cooking

Between 2004 and 2007, Walmart shops throughout the nation sold the Zarela Casa brand of soft goods (tablecloths, placemats, napkins, shower curtains, towels and other bath products, cushions) inspired by traditional Mexican textile patterns.

Zarela appeared in the 2016 film Moronga, in which she sang and acted. Martnez released her debut album, Sad Songs from a Happy Heart, in 2017. In 2020, she debuted a podcast on Heritage Radio Network called Cooking in Mexican from A to Z.

The program, which she co-hosts with her son, Chef Aarón Sánchez, explores Mexico’s cuisine, tastes, and history via spirited dialogues with their guests and examines Mexico’s food, flavors, and history. In 2021, she provided her inspiring building blocks for living well with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and healthy and tasty food in A Taste for Life with Zarela.

Zarela Martinez launched a podcast, Cooking in Mexican from A to Z

In 2020, Zarela Martinez debuted a podcast on Heritage Radio Network called Cooking in Mexican from A to Z. The program, which she co-hosts with her son, Chef Aarón Sánchez, explores Mexico’s cuisine, tastes, and history via spirited dialogues with their guests, examines Mexico’s food, flavors, and history.

Heritage Radio Network is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to food, drink, and agriculture. Over one million monthly listeners in over 200 countries tune in to the member-supported radio station.

Food from My Heart: Cuisines of Mexico Remembered and Reimagined

Food from My Heart: Cuisines of Mexico was named Zarela’s Best International Book of the Year. The James Beard Foundation, Remembered and Reimagined (1993, nominated).

The James Beard Foundation is a national non-profit culinary arts organization established in New York City and named after James Beard, a prominent food writer, instructor, and cookbook author who is also regarded as the Dean of American Cookery.

Who Is Zarela Martinez’s Son Aarón Sánchez?

Aarón Sánchez is a Mexican celebrity chef, restaurateur, television personality, cookbook author, and philanthropist born on February 12, 1976. He is the executive chef and co-owner of the New Orleans Mexican restaurant Johnny Sánchez. Similarly, Faith Jenkins is a Lawyer and a TV personality.

Aaron co-hosted Cooking Channel’s Emmy-nominated Taco Trip and co-starred on Food Network’s blockbuster shows Chopped and Chopped Jr. He’s participated in Iron Chef America and is one of the few chefs to have a tie in a fight, tying with Masaharu Morimoto in Season 2’s Battle Black Bass.

Aarón Sánchez’s Career

After working under Prudhomme, Aarón went to Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island, to study culinary arts in 1996. He returned to New York in 1996 to work in the kitchen at Patria, where nuevo-Latino chef Douglas Rodriguez mentored him. While working there, Sánchez met his future business partner, Alex Garcia.

In 1996, Garcia left Patria to create Erizo Latino with the aid of Sánchez. The restaurant was described as casual and earthy in reviews, and “the meal is enticingly healthy, and the kitchen’s finest dishes give a wonderful introduction to Central and South American cooking.”

Sánchez became executive chef at L-Ray, where he specialized in Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico cuisine. Following another executive chef role at Isla, he opened a restaurant inspired by pre-Revolutionary Cuba. Sanchez subsequently relocated to San Francisco, where he worked at Rose Pistola under Chef Reed Hearon.

Aarón Sánchez As Chef

Aaron Sánchez was the chef of Centrico, a Mexican restaurant in New York City that closed in 2012. In August 2014, he and colleague chef John Besh founded the restaurant Johnny Sánchez in Baltimore. In September 2017, the Baltimore location closed.

In October 2014, the two established a second Johnny Sánchez store in New Orleans. Besh is no longer a part of Johnny Sánchez; Aarón Sánchez and partners Miles Landrem and Drew Mire acquired the restaurant in February 2019 and currently control it.

In 2017, he replaced Graham Elliot as a judge on MasterChef US Season 8, with Gordon Ramsay and Christina Tosi to taste and assist critique candidates’ cooking and baking and crown the next MasterChef. He is a master in various culinary methods and cuisines, but his specialty is traditional Mexican food, which he often prepares throughout the season.

In 2019, he appeared as an extra expeditor on the first episode of Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours to Hell and Back Season 2 and stated that he lived close to The Trolley Café in New Orleans. On October 1, 2019, Sánchez published his book, Where I Come From Life Lessons from a Latino Chef. In season 19 of Hell’s Kitchen in 2020, the visitor judged a Mexican food challenge.

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