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Cheering up at Cheripan

I missed out on an incredibly low airfare to Buenos Aires, because I didn't move fast enough.

Never mind, I had a very good Argentine meal anyway, not at home in Los Angeles, and not in Buenos Aires, but in a place where I never expected to find such food--Tijuana.

The restaurant was Cheripan in Tijuana's gastronomic zone. And it's as sleek and smart as any I've seen in Buenos Aires.

The chef/owner, Juan Carlos Equiluz, is from Cordoba, Argentina. The chimichurri sauce on the table is Cordoba style, he says, not that I can define what that means. Every chimichurri is different, even in the same city.

Grilled meat is what Argentinian cooking is about. Cheripan's lead steak, entrana de res, is Mexican beef, tender and a little mild for my taste. But the grilled sweetbreads were wonderful, even though not as crispy as those at my favorite parrillada restaurant in Buenos Aires, El Yugo. 

The menu has all the Argentine big guns: A variety of steaks; mild, Argentine style chorizo; pasta; provoleta (grilled cheese); typical sandwiches such as choripan (chorizo), and six kinds of empanadas (beef, chorizo, mushroom, corn and cheese, spinach and caprese).

The chorizo, which is made at the restaurant, is quite good. I would like to have tried the provoleta to see what cheese was used. Argentinians in Los Angeles say cheese that holds its shape when grilled isn't available here, so I have never used the little clay provoleta dish that I brought home from Buenos Aires.

Aimed at the local crowd are empanadas filled with Mexican chorizo, cheese and jalapenos and provoleta Mexicana, with Mexican chorizo and jalapenos.

Entrana Gauchesca (gaucho style steak) also has a dose of jalapenos, as well as garlic, parsley and tomato. Argentinians couldn't stomach the chiles. They abhor seriously spicy food.  

The wines set out for my group were Luigi Bosca's La Linda Malbec 2004 from Mendoza and Santa Silvia Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 from the Tulum Valley, San Juan.

Waiters walked around the table shaking icy tamarind martinis composed of vodka, Grand Marnier, lemon and lime juices, tamarind and, according to Equiluz, secret components. The same drink with tequila is a tequilino.

You wouldn't get either of these in Argentina, so I feel sorry for folks there. A nice touch is having your own shaker for a refill.

Equiluz also has a gelato shop, and a tamarind martini gelato is on the menu there. We did try his coconut gelato, and a deeply flavored chocolate gelato that turned out to be sugar-free. I would never have guessed.

But what could be more Argentinian than mil hojas, or puff pastry, layered with dulce de leche and Italian meringue and topped with almonds and more dulce de leche?

Super sweet, caramel-like dulce de leche is the Argentinian sweet staff of life. Cheripan puts it in crepes too, and it's frozen stiff at the gelato shop.

Cheripan, Escuadron 201, No. 3151, Distrito Gastronomico, Colonia Aviacion, Tijuana. Tel: (664) 622-9730.

Another branch is at the Plaza Americana Otay, Avenida Tecnologico 2100,  Mesa de Otay, Tijuana. Tel: (664) 623-1278.

Argelato Caffe, Plaza Pavilion, Local 114 (by Gandhi and Liverpool), Tijuana. Tel (664) 971-0099.

Top Chefs Cook to Help Kids

It was "Chef's Night Out," only it was late afternoon, not night, and the chef's weren't on vacation but cooking serious food.

They were definitely "out," though, meaning outside in the cool, tree-shaded front court of the Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica.

The drive leading up to the hotel entrance had been blocked off for Angeleno magazine's 7th annual restaurant awards.

The chefs cooked not just to honor their own and entertain guests, but to raise funds for the Children's Institute, which aids children affected by violence.

Guests paid $150 to attend the benefit, or $250 if they came early for a VIP reception where hors d'oeuvres such as vodka-soaked yellow watermelon cubes and shot glasses of cherry gazpacho were passed.

They sipped wines, tequila, akvavit and other liquors that had won double gold medals in the 2009 International Wine and World Spirits Competitions in San Francisco. And they applauded as the awards were handed out. 

Here are the winners, featured in Angeleno's July restaurant issue:

Chef of the Year: A tie between John Rivera Sedlar of Rivera Restaurant in downtown Los Angeles and Suzanne Tracht of Jar in Los Angeles

Restaurant of the Year: Melisse in Santa Monica.

Best New Restaurant: Church & State in downtown Los Angeles.

Best New Chef: Steven Fretz of XIV in Los Angeles.

Pastry Chef of the Year: Adrian Vasquez of Providence in Los Angeles.

Best Restaurant Design: Cecconi's in West Hollywood.

Best Wine Service: Osteria Mozza in Los Angeles.

Vanguard Award: Capo in Santa Monica

And then, on to the food. Spago served silky fresh corn agnolotti with grated Parmesan, followed by a childlike treat, chocolate cookies with glasses of milk.

Susan Feniger of Street, which specializes in street food from around the world, had put together an Indian snack, paani puri. These were little pastry puffs filled with potatoes, sprouted beans and chutney.

Sona offered tiny clear cups of Chino farm corn surinagashi, a cold soup, and chanterelle ice cream that looked like a mushroom, only it was made from caramelized liquid white chocolate.    

FIG, the restaurant in the host hotel, went Mexican with spicy lamb tortas (sandwiches), and Westside Tavern put out lamb French dips. 

Katana Robata and Sushi Bar seasoned tuna carpaccio with wasabi soy truffle oil and topped it with shaved sheets of Parmesan.

Italian food lovers went for Pizzeria Ortica's panzanella, a bread salad made with smoked cod, Tuscan bread and tomatoes.

Nine Thirty combined summer peaches and red onion relish with slices of roasted duck breast topped with a streak of honey-Tabasco glaze.

And BLT Steak had, of course, steak--grilled hanger steak with shallot marmalade and baby tomato salad.

There was more, from Comme Ca, Craft, CUT and Rustic Canyon Wine Bar & Seasonal Kitchen--top flight food, interesting tastes, prizing-winning wines and the city's most talked about chefs on parade, all for a cause that made eating more pleasurable than usual. 

The Great Tastes of Tijuana

I ate more food in a single day last Friday than I might eat in a month--no exaggeration.

How could I resist? It was the most delicious Mexican food imaginable, ranging from smoked marlin tacos to octopus carpaccio and blackberry tamales, washed down with Mexican wines, beer and frosty cocktails laced with tamarind.   

The Place: Tijuana

The Guide: Bill Esparza, a Baja food aficionado (check his blog,  http://streetgourmetla.blogspot.com).

The Tour Group: A busload of writers, food bloggers, chefs and restaurant people, who accompanied Esparza to his favorite haunts. 

The Purpose (aside from eating well): To show that Tijuana is an OK place, a big, busy, international city with lots more to offer than cartel shootouts.

Concerned about declining tourism and a bad rap in the media, the Tijuana Convention and Visitors Bureau got involved in the tour, and the Cross Border Business Group helped too. 

The only evidence of the drug war that I saw was two trucks of federal police, the unit formed to combat the cartels throughout Mexico.

The only swine flu masks were on buffet servers at my hotel, the Grand Hotel Tijuana. 

The only hangup was on the U.S. side of the border--a sporadic vehicle inspection that produced a horrendous line and delayed our crossing by a good hour. 

Despite arriving very, very late, we were out until early morning eating tacos, drinking beer and listening to mariachis.

With almost no time to sleep, we were up, eager as marathon runners, to eat all over the place, from the hills that overlook the city to the tourist strip in the center of town and the trendy gastronomic zone.

To get the juices going, we dropped into La Villa del Tabaco on Avenida Revolucion for shots of Havana Club rum from Cuba and life-saving strong espressos. 

But first, a city tour in an open-air Mexicoach bus that plies the tourist route.  Tijuana celebrates its 120th anniversary this month. From a sleepy town with unpaved streets, it has grown to almost 3 million inhabitants, with 22 consulates, 19 universities, seven five-star hotels, and more good food than it was possible to sample, try as we did.

The striped donkeys (known as zonkeys for their zebra diguise), colorful sombreros, serapes and tourist souvenirs are still there, but only along Avenida Revolucion.  

By now we were ravenous (the only time to experience that sensation on this trip). And so we headed to breakfast at Mariscos El Mazateno, high on a hill in Colonia Tomas Aquino.

Lining up at tables covered with red oilcloth advertising Coca Cola, we started with spicy seafood consomme, a much needed restorative.

Chips were plunked down in a plastic grocery bag, and we dipped them into a molcajete of fresh salsa, then passed around squeeze bottles of house salsas for the tacos that were arriving. 

We ate  El Mazateno's two most popular tacos, one filled with smoked marlin, the other with camaron enchilado--sweet, fresh shrimp from Mazatlan seasoned with chile and other condiments that are kept secret. 

This was Sinaloa style food, just one of the regional cuisines that turn up in Tijuana.

Then off to immerse ourselves in Mexico's Spanish heritage.  Our destination, Lorca Restaurante Espanol, named for the Spanish playwright and poet Federico Garcia Lorca, whose portrait overlooks the tables.

Margarita Prieto, Lorca's executive chef, had prepared paella with seafood and chicken, a whole lechon (suckling pig) and papa a la pobre, sliced potatoes cooked with olive oil, garlic and sweet peppers.  Our wine: a fresh, fruity Capa Tempranillo 2007 from La Rioja. 

Prieto, who is from Granada,  cooks the dishes of Andalucia, focusing on fresh herbs, olive oil, seafood and lighter meats rather than the heavy, fattier dishes of northern Spain. We were grateful for that.

Next, a full Argentinian lunch at Cheripan (more on this in a separate post) in Tijuana's gastronomic zone.

This zone is so crowded with restaurants that we could walk to our next two stops. At La Querencia, we drank lovely, light tepache, a drink fermented from pineapple rinds, and marveled at exquisite dishes prepared by chef/owner Miguel Angel Guerrero.

A lawyer turned chef, Guerrero specializes in  Baja Med cuisine, and his cooking is thoughtful and superb.  

We started with a trio of carpaccios. After grilled marinated beets topped with vinaigrette and blue cheese, we moved on to a delicate carpaccio of tongue, splashed with oil in which smoked abalone and herbs had soaked for two days as well as cream, chipotle chile and sea urchin. 

Guerrero grows as many ingredients as possible in his own garden. The fresh-picked zucchini for a third carpaccio had been seasoned with olive oil infused with nine types of chile. Still more components were lime juice, Parmesan, dried fish and algae.

A thick slice of white cucumber from that same garden held grilled scallops dressed with mayo, dried chile, mustard, salsa, pine nuts and almonds. Underneath, a pale layer of hummus.

Guerrero had also harvested corn. And that appeared in little slices of cornbread flavored with sage and dried chiles. 

After this, we needed a long hike, but it was only a few steps to La Diferencia, where we sipped tamarind margaritas and ate molotes (corn cakes)  stuffed with cheese and jalapenos.

A platter arrived with skewers of tomato, onion, green pepper and Mexican cheese, drizzled with green salsa. Another held peppery chicken brochettes, and a third was laden with brilliant yellow crepes filled with huitlacoche.

Dark, cool and intimate, Cien Anos, our next stop, was the perfect place to relax after so much eating.

But this was not to be. Greeted with shot classes of tequila combined with Damiana, a liqueur made from an herb that grows in Baja, we munched on tostadas topped with nopales salad, followed by salmon ceviche and mango in tortilla cups.

Then came shooters of spicy almeja de chocolate (chocolate clam), shredded marlin salpicon, tiny octopus tostadas and shrimp in chile sauce on crackers.

Cien Anos specializes in fusion and traditional dishes, so don't go there looking for ordinary  tacos and enchiladas. It was hard to believe that the chef who cooked for us, Talia Nunes, was only 21 years old.

Now we took a break from Mexican food--but not from eating. Our next stop was the charming L'abricot, run by Maribel Villareal, who trained in France. 

Here we ate classic French onion soup, delicate, soft quail eggs and a creme brulee that was pure heaven. Our wine was Emeve Grenache from the Valle de Guadalupe (more on Emeve in a later post). 

L'abricot started as a patisserie, then expanded into a restaurant. Under less daunting circumstances, the pastries displayed  in the counter would have been irresistible. Still, I saw guys from our tour picking out a selection. I have no idea when, or how,  they managed to eat them.  

Now we had a real time out from food--we were off to the 5th International Craft Beer Festival at Caliente race track.

Walking under an arch composed of Tijuana brand beer cartons, we came to stalls with such interesting  cervezas as a honey-flavored brew from Cucapa in Mexicali, sprightly, acidic Bucanero Max from Cuba and Tijuana's namesake beer. There was food too, but that was easy to pass by. 

Time was so tight that we had to go unshowered and unchanged to elegant Villa Saverios for dinner. There, we walked through a large room crowded with Tijuana's elite.  Fortunately, we had a long banquet room to ourselves.

What looked like a brown margarita--the drink we started with--wasn't a margarita at all, but a blend of mezcal, Damiana and tamarind, garnished with a tamarind pod.

We had wine too, a 2006-2007 Petite Syrah and Grenache blend from Ulloa. When that ran out,  we moved on to an L.A. Cetto Cabernet Sauvignon.

Sea asparagus (salicornia) from Ensenada decorated our bread plates, and the extra virgin olive oil on the table was made from Baja-grown mission olives.

Dinner showed off the cuisine of iconic Baja chef Javier Plasencia (at right). Lacy looking carpaccio de pulpo (octopus) was stunning. The extra virgin olive oil that dressed it had been pressed with grapefruit peel. 

A trio of tastes on a single plate included a tiny cup of black mussel cappuccino, char-grilled octopus on  hummus and a tortilla stuffed with fine pasta. 

That may sound like carbo overkill, but it was a play on a typical homestyle dish--leftover fideo wrapped in a tortilla and given to kids. Plasencia had updated what his grandmother used to make.

Next came costilla de res con mole de higo--short ribs in black Oaxacan mole flavored with Port wine and figs, set on mashed potato mixed with mascarpone and garnished with a grilled fresh fig.

We ended with  a new take on an indigenous dish--sweet tamales turned purple by the mashed blackberries and blueberries that had been blended into the masa. 

We were still not finished, though. After almost 15 hours of eating, we were allowed a few hours of rest, then set out the next day on another marathon, this time to Ensenada and the wine country, starting with an early breakfast in Tijuana and finishing with a Saturday night taco feast.

Finally, we were done. The next stop was Los Angeles. And we arrived at 4 a.m. Sunday, just in time for early breakfast.

The Restaurants:

La Villa del Tabaco: Avenida Revolucion 868, Zona Centro, Tijuana. Tel: (664) 688-3920.

Mariscos El Mazateno: Calzada Tecnologico, No. 473-E, Colonia Tomas Aquino, Tijuana.

Restaurante Espanol Lorca: Calle Brasil 8630, Colonia Cacho, Tijuana. Tel: (664) 634-0366.

Cheripan: Escuadron 201, No. 3151, Colonia Aviacion, Zona Gastronimca, Tijuana. Tel (from the U.S.): (619) 308-7656. 

La Querencia: Escuadron 201, No. 3110, Local 1 and 2, Colonia Aviacion, Zona Gastronomica, Tijuana. Tel: (664) 972-9935.

La Diferencia: Blvd. Sanchez Taboada 10611-A, Zona Rio, Tijuana. Tel: (664) 634-3346.

Cien Anos: Jose Maria Velazco 1407, Zona Rio, Tijuana. Tel: (664) 634-3039.

L'abricot: Avenida Antonio Caso 1910, Zona Rio, Tijuana. Tel: (664) 634-0643. 

Villa Saverios:  Blvd. Sanchez Taboada, corner Escuadron 201, No. 3151, Zona Rio, Tijuana. Tel:  (664) 686-6442. 

Tijuana City Tours: Mexicoach city tours operate four times a day, Tuesday through Sunday, every two hours starting at 10 a.m.. Book the bus on Avenida Revolucion at 3rd or 7th streets. Or flag it down. The tour is $10, $5 for seniors. 

Touring Information: Go to the Tijuana Convention and Visitor's Bureau site,  http://www.tijuanaonline.org.

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The Icing on Rivera's Cake

Strawberries and cream never looked so good as on top of Rivera Restaurant's olive oil cake.

Fresh fruit and pour cream? Not on your life. This old classic has gone upscale as strawberry sorbet and creme fraiche ice cream.

As the two scoops melt, they form a beautiful blend of bright, acidic strawberry flavor and velvety, rich cream, the perfect sauce for the cake.

But that's not all. Candy-like dried strawberry slices perch on the summit.  A heap of diced fresh berries stands in front. And ribbons of golden caramel glaze made with Pedro Ximenez vinegar decorate the plate.

New on the menu this summer, olive oil cake with sorbet and ice cream is $8 at Rivera Restaurant, 1050 S. Flower St., #102, Los Angeles, CA 90015. Tel: (213) 749-1460.

San Antonio Goes Down Under

"Gidday, Mates!"  said the sign overhead as people trooped into the big dining room at San Antonio Winery in downtown Los Angeles.

They were there to drink wines from Australia and New Zealand and to taste the sort of food that one gets Down Under.

The lunch was part of a series of summer festivals that will continue at the winery well past summer into October.

The seven wines poured ranged from Maori-produced Kono Sauvignon Blanc 2008 from Marlborough on New Zealand's South Island to a sweet sparkling Australian Shiraz. 

My favorite was a white blend that gave off the luscious tropical scent of mangoes. It was D'Arenberg "Hermit Crab" Viognier Marsanne 2008 from McLaren Vale, near South Australia's capital, Adelaide.  A blend of 72% Viognier with 28% Marsanne, it had a pleasing touch of sweetness, perfect for summer. 

The mangoes on the menu didn't accompany this wine. An appetizer of shrimp off the barbie with spicy mango pickle came with the lively. dry, crisp Kono wine. 

The D'Arenberg blend and "Symbols" Semillon-Sauvignon Blanc 2006/07 from Ferngrove in Western Australia accompanied pan-seared barramundi. The fish was smothered with tomatoes and surrounded by green onion basmati rice.

D'Arenberg's the "Laughing Magpie" Shiraz Viognier 2007 was up to pairing with stronger stuff, a hearty New Zealand lamb chop served with stewed eggplant and roasted sweet potatoes.

"Laughing Magpie" had an odd dusty aroma, but it was lean and elegant, an excellent complement to the lamb. The other choice was Penley "Phoenix" Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, an earthy, woody, deep purple wine from the Coonawara region of South Australia.

Ferngrove's "Dragon" Shiraz 2005, fruity and not too dry, was poured with the cheese course, notable because the Australian Cheddar looked as if it had been mottled with red wine.

The finale was all Australian--Hardy Sparkling Shiraz from South Australia and Australia's signature lamington cake, a square of plain cake coated with chocolate, topped with shredded coconut, bitter chocolate sauce and raspberry coulis.

Rather than merely spending the afternoon eating and drinking, attendees participated in a class on Down Under wines, their geography and taste characteristics presented during the lunch by Master Sommelier Elizabeth Schweitzer.

Then they went to the winery tasting room. where they could try out more wines and purchase those they had been introduced to at the lunch.   

The next summer festival will be a "Boutique Beer Tasting and Food Pairing" Aug. 9 at 2  p.m., followed by Taste of the Americas" September 20 at noon and "Taste of Italy" October 25 at 2 p.m. The price of each is $50.

For more information, contact San Antonio Winery, 737 Lamar Street, Los Angeles, CA 90031. Tel: (323) 223-1401. SANO WINERY and MADDALENA RESTAURANTSAN ANTONIO WINERY and MADDALENA RESTAURANT
737 Lamar Street, Los Angeles, CA 90031
323.223.1401 • 323.221.7261 fax
Special Events/Catering 323.223.1401 ext 8715 323-223-3728 fax
OPEN

East LA- Napa Draws a Crowd

Union Station in downtown Los Angeles  was jammed the other night, but no one was going anywhere. Why leave, when you could feast on more delicious food and wine than it was possible to get to in three hours?

When the time was up, the crowd didn't care. This party was too good to end. Its theme was unique--East LA Meets Napa. 

Booths that served tempting Mexican dishes and Latino-made wines filled the station patio. The music was loud and lively. The evening was warm. And the whole thing went toward a good cause--non-profit AltaMed Health Services, which provides health care to people who otherwise might go without. The event sponsor was East Los Angeles Doctors Hospital.

The Mexican food ranged from classic and traditional to innovative and modern.

Tila's Kitchen dished up spicy chile verde with strips of nopales. Birrieria Chalio brought its famous lamb birria. La Casita Mexicana served Jalisco-style mole, and Teresitas Restaurant set out costillas de puerco en chile negro, or pork short ribs in spicy black chile sauce. A Wednesday special at the restaurant, the ribs disappeared so quickly that few got to taste them.

La Parrilla, which will celebrate its 31st anniversary in August, went all out with quesadillas made from tortillas pressed on the spot and finely chopped ceviche of octopus, fish and shrimp. Rice and beans too.

Guelaguetza offered banana leaf-wrapped tamales filled with chicken in Oaxacan black mole and generous samples of cheeses that had come straight from Oaxaca.

Tamal in hand, one could move to an adjacent table to taste Metle 2012 mezcal from Tlacolula, Oaxaca, and tequila from Arenal, Jalisco.

On the innovative side, Casa de Moles "La Tia" presented its new fruity nut mole with a choice of chicken or pork. Rivera restaurant served shrimp in green sauce on freshly made tortillas embedded with flowers. And D's Delights offered chocolates with such non-traditional fillings as horchata.

Women from the Homegirl Cafe worked as fast as they could to replenish disappearing rows of tofu-topped tostadas and a spring mix salad with strips of mango, jicama and apple sprinkled with sweet jamaica-tequila dressing.

Nearby, La Monarca Bakery put out huge containers of empanadas, some filled with ground beef, others with chorizo.

The wines were as Mexican as the food.  You could sip a Mi Sueno Chardonnay, a Sotelo Zinfandel, a Renteria Pinot Noir, a Salva Tierra Cabernet Sauvignon,  a cab from Marita's Vineyard, owned by the Montes family, or one from Sequoia Grove Winery, whose winemaker is Mike Trujillo.

Winery reps spoke proudly about onetime grape pickers who rose to become vineyard managers, winemakers and winery owners.

When it was all over. there was still more--goodie bags stuffed with food samples to guarantee that no one went hungry on the way home. 

A Prize-Winning Pinot Gris

It may seem odd to walk into a tasting of French wines searching for something to drink with spicy food.

But that is what I cook most of the time, so I was looking for a wine that would not just go with the food but stand out on its own.   

And I found it, a glorious Alsatian Pinot Gris, the 2006 Grand Cru Zinnkoepfle from Albert Hertz. (That's Hertz holding the bottle in the photo).

The wine is slightly sweet, with an intriguing honeyed herbal edge. It can age for years, said Hertz, explaining that Zinnkoepfle  is a vineyard area with soil that imparts a special flavor to wines produced from grapes that grow there.

After hand-harvesting, the Pinot Gris was fermented and aged in oak foudres. These are large oval barrels typical of Alsace. The shape reduces air contact, Hertz said, and makes it possible to squeeze more barrels into a cellar.

Hertz was in the United States to look for an importer. It shouldn't be too hard to find one for this wine, because in May it won a gold medal in the 2009 Pinot Gris du Monde competition in Strasbourg.

The price would range from $20 to $25, not bad for a wine this interesting. 

What Happened to Maracas?

Maracas has disappeared. This family-owned Mexican restaurant on 5th Street in downtown Los Angeles had a long history but couldn't prevail against developers.

The building in which it was housed is being renovated, and the ground floor has been gutted. A sandwich shop is gone. A dental office has posted a new address, but Maracas left no clues. Will it return, reoopen in a new location? Or is it gone forever?

The street seems empty without the cheery little fellow in a sombrero who stood just outside the door holding the day's menu.

Even worse is the loss of good, old fashioned, home style Mexican food.

Here, in memoriam, is my recreation of the last dish I had there, chicken in tomato sauce with chipotle chiles.  It's easy to make. It's delicious. But how I would love to taste it again at Maracas.

POLLO EN SALSA CHIPOTLE
Chicken in Chipotle-Tomato Sauce

2 pounds chicken breasts on the bone
4 cups water
Salt
1 ½ pounds tomatoes
1 small onion, quartered
2 cloves garlic, peeled
2 canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
1 teaspoon oregano
Few grinds black pepper

Place the skinned chicken breasts in a deep saucepan. Add the water and salt to taste. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer, loosely covered, 30 minutes.

Let the chicken cool in the broth.  When cool, drain the chicken  and tear the meat off the bone in thick strips. Strain and reserve the broth.

Meanwhile, roast the whole tomatoes, onion and garlic on a lightly oiled griddle until spotted with brown. Remove any loose peel from the tomatoes. Cut the tomatoes in quarters and place in a blender with the onion, garlic and chipotle chiles. Blend until pureed. Strain through a sieve.

Rinse out the blender with 1 cup of the reserved chicken broth and add to the sauce. Reserve the remaining broth for another use, such as cooking rice to accompany the chicken. 

Place the sauce in a large saucepan and add the oregano, 1 teaspoon salt and black pepper. Bring to a boil.  Add the chicken and heat in the sauce to serving temperature.

Accompany with rice.

Makes 4 servings.

You Won't Want to Miss This

An evening with Johnny Depp?  Dinner at Spago?

Not if the date is Friday, July 10. I'm heading to Union Station in downtown Los Angeles that night for the 4th annual East LA Meets Napa benefit.

It's a tasting of great Mexican food prepared by restaurants such as La Casita Mexicana, Casa de Moles "La Tia," Rivera Restaurant, El Tepeyac, Guelaguetza and many more.

Take a look at samples of what you'll get to taste: an oyster with green cucumber caviar from Rivera and a vegetable roll topped with nut mole and pomegranate seeds from La Tia.

Wines will be provided by Napa wineries with Latino owners and/or winemakers. Among them are Cobblestone Vineyards, Sequoia Grove, Karl Lawrence and Robledo Vineyards. So far, 23 restaurants and 20 wineries have committed.

The event benefits AltaMed  Health Services, a non-profit that provides medical care and other assistance to those who can't afford it. It's been operating in Southern California for about 40 years.

East LA Meets Napa takes place from 6 to 9 p.m. July 10 at Union Station, 800 N. Alameda St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. Tickets are $125. To order, go to www.altamed.org. For more information, call (323) 889-7886.