Neighbors
www.SanTanSun.com
January 17 - February 6, 2015
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Neighbors Pros vs. Heroes Football Neighbors PAGE 48
VUU celebrates cultures, faiths at services
Where to Eat PAGES 68-70
Spirituality PAGE 61
Mimita’s Cuban Café a nice Nonprofit focuses intro to Cuban food on protection of wild horses
BY LYNETTE CARRINGTON
It’s easy to be impressed at Mimita’s Cuban Café, a family restaurant owned by Al and Barbara Dominguez, who have implemented traditional recipes in their eatery’s menu. Yearning for Cuban food, we strolled into Mimita’s and immediately the bar was set pretty high, thanks, simply, to a basket of freshly grilled bread. I wouldn’t normally gush about a complimentary house appetizer, but this was truly exceptional. It was lightly grilled—with just a kiss of real butter—and served slightly warm. In retrospect, the bread gave us an indication of the kitchen staff’s attention to flavors, textures and recipes. We weren’t too knowledgeable about Cuban food, but our server thoroughly explained the various entrªes on Mimita’s vast menu. She was well versed in the ingredients and made helpful suggestions. Anyone who patronizes Mimita’s will be thankful for the menu assistance, but be prepared: It may take several visits to fully appreciate everything the restaurant has to offer. Cuban food has Spanish and African influences and generously makes use of pork, cumin, bell pepper, onion, garlic, plantains and root plants. Much to our family’s delight, we enjoyed our culinary-based tour of Cuba via the Dominguez family. SEE MIMITA’S
CUBAN CAFÉ
PAGE 44
BY TRACY HOUSE
Jill Irvin and her husband, Stephen Magoon, spent a day at the Salt River campgrounds last March photographing a small band of wild horses grazing quietly across the river. The peaceful scene was interrupted by men with ropes on horseback crashing through the brush disturbing a young foal and its mother. Spurred into action, Irvin formed a nonprofit, TerraWind Ranch EcoAction Group, “to ensure the protection of environmental resources from commercial exploitation through education, advocacy and direct action.” The Chandler resident is forging ahead SEE TERRAWIND PAGE 42
Indian cookbook available on Amazon BY ALISON STANTON
A TASTE OF CUBA: Mimita’s Cuban Café uses family recipes from owners Al and Barbara Dominguez to prepare authentic dishes. STSN photo by Lynette Carrington
TERRAWIND: Heber and Salt River wild horses are the driving force behind TerraWind, a nonprofit founded by Chandler resident Jill Irvin. Photo by Jill Irvin
Sudesh Abrol began her love affair with cooking when she was just 9 years old. Her mom had fallen ill and so Abrol took over the cooking duties for the family: her father and three brothers. “That is when I really got a passion for cooking,” she says. Abrol’s interest in cooking continued to grow. After marrying, she, her husband and three daughters moved from India to California and she opened an Indian restaurant. “Everyone always loves my food, so they always insisted that I start my own business,” she says. Local Realtor Shivani Dallas, one of Abrol’s daughters, recalls watching people line up at the restaurant hours before it opened.
“Their restaurant was also regularly visited by some of the most popular food critics in the San Francisco area,” she says. The restaurant was so successful, Dallas and the rest of Abrol’s family encouraged her to start a series of cookbooks filled with some of her favorite recipes. She started to write, but was soon distracted by other responsibilities. At the encouragement of Dallas, Abrol, who now lives in Chandler, recently finished her cookbook “Scrumptious Meals from India, Volume One,” which features easy-to-follow vegetarian recipes for soups, appetizers, chutneys and beverages. Late last summer, Abrol started selling it in a Kindle version on Amazon. A second of five volumes should be out SEE COOKBOOK PAGE 45
Chandler playwright’s work to kick off festival BY LYNETTE CARRINGTON
A comedy by Chandler resident and playwright Bernadette La Mazza will kick off the eighth annual Pandora Festival of New Works presented by Arizona Women’s Theatre Company. “Vegetal Salvaje” will premiere at 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 29, during the weekend-long festival at the Phoenix Center for the Arts. “We felt that this play was so much fun and really shows off the talent of the characters,” says Joy Bingham Strimple, Pandora Festival producer and Arizona Women’s Theatre Company president. “It’s all in fun and it will get the audience all steamed up to have a good
time.” A lover of fiction and story writing, La Mazza has been penning plays since high school. “The reason I started writing plays in high school is because I used to do a lot of story writing and I did fiction,” she says. “I did middle grade young adult mystery adventures.” A former actress, La Mazza was asked to write a play for her high school English class. She says she didn’t feel it was the best play, but others thought it was entertaining. “It really did help me with writing that I did on the side.” While attending George Mason University, La Mazza was approached
by Harlequin executives who wanted to sign the budding writer after reading a 300-page romance manuscript. Shocked, La Mazza explains, “I said, ‘Oh my goodness.’ That’s the last thing I ever wanted. I wanted to be signed as a mystery or science fiction person so I said no. In hindsight, I probably should have said yes to learn the publishing business but I don’t like writing the same thing each time. I’m not a good formula person.” Ever since college, La Mazza has entered playwright contests and has been chosen to participate in the Pandora Festival five times. “Vegetal Salvaje” is a Spanish term for “wild vegetable” and the name
suits the zany characters in the play. La Mazza combined her son’s love of cooking, the experience of her time working at a television station in college and aging Telenovela TV stars to create an outrageous comedy. The play will be directed by Deborah Lee Hall. The play revolves around an idealistic girl who has been given a chance to produce a vegetarian cooking show, La Mazza says. The television station gives the ambitious woman control over her show except that the station gets to pick the hosts. The station places two aging Telenovela stars as co-hosts only SEE PLAYWRIGHT PAGE 42