Mario Rodriguez, a lifelong food maker and self-taught “food anthropologist,” credits family members as his first and most influential entry into cooking. A graduate of the Pro Cooking program at the New School of Cooking, he is a fearless home cook, working with equal confidence alongside friend and French-trained chef David Féau, his mother, his tias, and his abuelitas. As a supervising social worker for Los Angeles County, Mario's work-related travels allow him to indulge in a childhood habit of food explorations begun with his father, an experience that introduced him to the brilliant diversity of Los Angeles’ food culture.