Hola! My name is Ale and welcome to Aldaz Table!

I’m so glad you are here!

My passion for cooking started at the age of 8 — struggling to properly extend my arms and roll out flour tortillas on the kitchen counter that was a bit too tall for a short young kid. I did not bat an eye at the gas stove flames and still remember making scrambled eggs with whatever else I could find in the fridge. That was the beginning of my love affair with cooking.

My father’s side of the family, the Gonzalez’s, cooked very differently than my mother’s side, the Aldaz’s. The Gonzalez side was very traditional in their Mexican cooking: “Abuelita Mary” always had guisados (stewed dishes) ready with a side of rice, beans and fresh corn tortillas hot off the cast iron skillet, or had chiles rellenos (stuffed poblano peppers) waiting for my dad since she knew how much he loved them. Tia Lidia, one of my dad’s sisters, was an amazing cook! Bountiful is the best way I can describe her kitchen – tamales steaming in the largest pots you could think of with various fillings, her famous cheesy white poblano rice (which she later taught my little sister and I how to make), three to four desserts ready for everyone to indulge in, all while my uncle or cousin were outside grilling the best and juiciest fajitas. Her daughter also inherited those awesome cooking skills, later taking over the Gonzalez Thanksgiving dinners. I still remember walking around my aunt’s house in Mexico with a tamal in my hand, refusing to grab a paper plate, eating straight from the pot. I might have dropped a tamal or two!

Meanwhile, the Aldáz side of the family tried to embrace their Spanish roots as best they could. Olives, raisins, nuts, or diced apples would be mixed into a picadillo (ground beef). My grandmother, “Mamacita”, always made a perfect lemon meringue pie for the holidays. Our New Year’s dinner consisted of turkey, meatloaf with a saltine cracker crust or Bacalao a la Vizcaina (Basque-style Codfish with olives and potatoes), accompanied with mashed potatoes and her creamy tomatoey penne pasta. We would all sit at the perfectly-set table with real silverware and a white napkin on our lap, ready to carefully dab off any oopsies. After taking a DNA test, it turns out I’m 33% Mexican, 46% Spaniard, 9% Portuguese – the rest are European countries. With the limited knowledge she had on Spaniard foods, “Mamacita” tried her best to share what she could with the family. I am thankful for that, especially after receiving my DNA results! There is now a longing of exploring more of that cuisine, and I will share as I learn!

That being said, 90% of my cooking is mostly traditional Mexican mainly because my father loves more “authentic” flavors, and we live together. It just makes it so much easier to cook something we both enjoy. However, I love cooking anything and everything! My cookbook collection is embarrassing and I usually read them like books to later use as inspiration. Ironically, I’m terrible at following recipes, always wanting to modify it to what I believe our taste buds will like best. For my every day Mexican home cooking, recipe books are hardly ever needed (but will do my best to measure!).

I am now in my late 30’s and the kitchen is where I spend most of my time, or the grocery store. The way I express my love is through cooking so the people around me are constantly being fed. (Hope that’s a good thing – nobody has complained yet!) If nothing else, the purpose of this blog is for me – so I can organize my recipes – and for my family – who often times asks for a beloved family recipe. My hope though is that you enjoy the recipes as well, and hopefully you can find a new family favorite!

Thank you for taking the time to visit the site! It means the world to me!

I currently reside in Houston, Texas where I live with my father. I have been in Houston since the summer of 2016, but I was born and raised in Brownsville, Texas (aka “the valley”) where we would constantly travel back and forth to Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico – a city that I also consider to be home.

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