31-year-old Zapotec woman Nabila Nichdali Aguilar Bla, who studied at the Culinary School of the Southeast in Mérida, Yucatán, uses locally-grown fruits and a wide range of Isthmus cheeses in her popular desserts and cakes.

After she returned to her hometown in Unión Hidalgo in the Juchitán district six months ago, she started experimenting with a few of the local ingredients as she put her years of experience and precise traditional baking techniques to use. She uses three different types of cheese in her caramel custard flans and orange cakes to strike a perfect balance of flavors between savory and sweet. One of the cheeses is known as quesu bidxi by the Zapotec locals. It’s characterized by its intense flavor and saltiness.

The others are queso oreado. It also has a strong flavor; however, it’s less salty, and queso fresco de leche, which is made with cow’s milk.

Zapotec Fruits and Cheeses

Local fruits also caught the eye of the experienced chef, who ventured to start her own culinary business despite all the difficulties that the current situation with the world brought us. In some of her desserts and cakes, she decided to use coyol. It’s a fruit from a palm tree that is cultivated in Unión Hidalgo. She also flavors cold beverages with a whitish liquid, locally known as taberna. The latter is extracted from the same tree.

Nabila shares in an interview that the palm tree from which the coyol and taberna come is only cultivated in Unión Hidalgo. They are two gastronomic elements that are only consumed and produced in the area, and they belong to the locals. She buys them directly from the producers so she can contribute to the economy.

Nabila Is Also Helping Kids

Despite being busy with her new business, she has found the time to teach, along with a local artist, an art and cooking workshop for children who have been stuck at home attending virtual classes for the last year.

Last year, the restaurant industry, in particular, was hit pretty hard as thousands of establishments had to shut their doors and leave their staff unemployed. The new Guy Fieri documentary follows chefs and restaurant owners as they struggle through the challenges that 2020 presented to them. The movie is called Restaurant Hustle 2020: All on the Line, which premiered at the end of December.

Guy Fieri Worked With Colleague Chefs and the Food Network to Create the New Documentary

Many people have done what they could to help workers and establishments with their struggles and keep various businesses afloat. To do their part, Guy Fieri worked with some of his culinary colleagues and the Food Network to create a documentary that shines a light on the challenges that the restaurant industry faced.

The documentary shows how four chefs describe the impact that recent events had on their businesses. Chef Antonia Lofaso, for example, said that her decade-long career disappeared in no time. While it took her ten years to build her restaurants, it took just a week for everything to be torn down to nothing. Guy Fieri even compared the situation with a “sinking ship” and pointed out that producing the documentary was extremely hard.

Chef Samuelsson Said Restaurants Still Face a Long Recovery Road

Chef Samuelsson works with the World Central Kitchen to help struggling restaurants. He and his team saw the documentary as an opportunity to tell a raw, authentic, and honest story while supporting the community. He also added that this is a good time for chefs and people to come together and help heal each other.

Chef Maneet Chauhan said that the situation was frightening, but she hoped for a better future. She added that she hoped that everyone would become stronger after it is all over. Chef Fieri, who has already raised millions of dollars for restaurant workers, hopes the industry will come together to create that future. In his opinion, people and the industry will prevail through a difficult situation and end up more unified.