Food for the People

Startups get the party, startups get the party started. Startups get the party, startups get the party started. You want tech and tacos, tacos and tech? You know we got tacos and tech is on smash. Fold a green guacamole, keep accountants counting beans. Contador cuentan frijoles, founders trying to raise some queso. La vida San Diego, school of rapping, rapping fire. Tortillas around jalapeños in these modern times. A craft beer and coffee, my coding yoga posse. Fold a Body origami, we be surfing Coronado, eating tacos El Gordo, the tacos staying in puesto, lucha libre and sombrero. Gotta shout out Tech Coast Angels by the ocean, watch the sunset. La Jolla shores, entrepreneurs trying to get funded when San Diego Startup Week is popping in the summer. Oceanside to Tijuana, SD be full of hustlers from couch surfing to penthouses right on the beach. Tech leaders who believe stars are within reach, we interviewing founders who be shooting for the moon. Tech SD Tacos, with your host, Neal Bloom. Come on! Startups get the party, startups get the party started. Startups get the party, startups get the party started. Startups get the party, startups get the party started. You want tech in tacos, tacos in tech, you know we got it, hey! Startups get the party, startups get the party started. Startups get the party, startups get the party started. Startups get the party, startups get the party started. You want tech in tacos, tacos in tech, you know we got it, hey!

Hey, hey, hey! And welcome back to the Tacos and Tech podcast. I'm your host, Neal Bloom. I'm thrilled to have on a taco aficionado, but even more, Mauricio Velásquez de León, publisher at Duo Press and the author of Tacos and Burritos. Hey, Mauricio, thanks for being on the pod.

Thank you for having me.

Ah, it's, it's a, it's a thrill, honestly, because we're gonna nerd out at some point. on tacos, which is fine. That will just happen. We'll just let it happen when it does. But what's really cool is to, you know, meet a fellow enthusiast, writer, publisher. So give us a quick overview. What is, you know, the history of tacos and burritos? Give us a high level of, of just that and then we'll dive into the history of it.

Sure. So An Illustrated Guide to Tacos and Burritos is, is, is a book that is, is coming, is coming up on August 11th, everywhere books are sold. It's going to be available everywhere books are sold. And it's a cookbook in a graphic novel comic book format. So hence the name of Illustrated Guide. So it's a crazy, crazy adventure in which we talk about tacos, about burritos. We talk about the history of burritos, history of tacos, how all those things came about. And then we have our a bunch of recipes divided in different sections, uh, that we could talk about, uh, uh, in as much detail as you want. And, um, and everything is, it's a comic book format. So it's, it's, it's, it's in a panel by panel. The recipes are step by step, panel by panel. Um, and yeah, that's what it is. That's the, the general idea. Okay.

Well, we're gonna, we're gonna dive back into your history, which I think will probably tell us how you how you landed on this. But where, where are you from originally? Where did this all start for you?

I was born, born and raised in Mexico City.

Ah, amazing. We love the food scene of Mexico City, that's for sure.

It is a great city for food, for sure.

It is, and many things, but the food scene is incredible. Uh, well, how'd you end up in the United States, and, and how'd you end up, you know, publishing many other authors' work?

Yeah, so Kind of like this, there's like a thread, right? So I moved to the United States because I was a writer in Mexico City. I wrote for different publications, newspapers, magazines. I wrote for children's television. I was a screenwriter for a while. And so writing has been always my beat. And I moved to, to New York as a foreign correspondent for a Mexican newspaper, which gave me the opportunity to really explore a lot of the different scenes in New York. Food, one of them, but mostly the cultural scene, like art, movies, film, even a little bit of television. Sorry that I was reporting about that. Photography. All kinds of cultural things for the cultural section of the newspaper. The newspaper is called Reforma. So I was writing in the United States, but I was writing in Spanish for Mexican publications. So at some point, the story turns— after living in New York for a few years, I wanted to start writing for American publications. for that, of course, I needed to write in English. So, I wanted to write about something that I knew. And the history of my family is a little interesting because my great-aunt, Josefina Velázquez de León, was a renowned cookbook author in Mexico City in the 1950s, '40s, '50s, '60s. She published over 100 books. She was incredibly prolific. And so food has been always around my family, and it's part of the conversation, and so— so the 2 things combined, the writing and the food, became a good subject to write about. So I started writing about Josefina Velázquez de León, and I got to publish articles in Saber Magazine, and then that opened doors to other publications in the United States. So that's how, that's how the writing and moving from Mexico to the United States happened.

Got it.

And what was it like, you know, actually starting the publishing firm? I mean, obviously you'd seen writers in your family and around that, but it's another thing to kind of back them, right? You're almost in a sense investing in writers. That was a big leap. Well, take us through a little bit of that kind of journey.

Yeah. So, as, as you probably have heard, New York is a very expensive city. So you have to do a lot of different things to, to, to, to survive. So I was writing for Mexican publications, as I said, and I needed, I needed to have a more solid job that I, that could help me stay in the city and all that.

Mm-hmm.

So, just almost, you know, like networking people that I knew, something like that. Somebody wanted to hire an editor to organize and launch a bilingual imprint for a company called Rosen Publishing in New York City. And they called me, they interviewed me, we understood each other very well. So, I I started because I've been writing for, for a long time. I knew publishing from the other side of the writer side. So I, I, I, I, I moved to the other side and, and started to be a publisher. So I worked for that publishing company for, for almost 10 years. And as I was doing that, I was developing my own publishing company, which is called Duopress. And At some point, I just took a leap of faith and became a business owner and own my own publishing company.

Amazing. I mean, you're downplaying a little bit, but taking the leap is a big deal. But you've made a bet on yourself and you invested in yourself. And now I'm guessing that work means betting on other authors and writers, right? I'm sure you get pitched many book ideas and there's only certain ones that meet the right fit. Like, how do you look at yourself almost Through the lens of that.

So, okay.

So the Duopress, well, we were independent, an independent publishing company for many years. Then in, in 2017, we became, we have a deal with Workman Publishing in New York, which is a, a great publisher, and we have a great connection with them. And we were part of the Workman Publishing apparatus for, for a few years. And then in 2021, Duopress was acquired by Sourcebooks, which is based in Chicago. It's an, I would say, large independent publishing company. And since we were acquired by Sourcebooks, I've been operating Duopress inside the Sourcebooks organization. So Answering your question. So we publish mostly nonfiction. Most of the books are nonfiction, and I would say 99% of the books that we do are illustrated. So we are very interested in illustrating, illustrated work and working with illustrators and artists. And we do a lot of children's books, but we also do nonfiction adult books in food and travel and And we have other, other things coming up in the next few years. So the way we work with authors is, is actually very interesting. We, we do work with agents sometimes, not very often, but mostly we co— we develop our own concepts in-house and, and say, well, okay, we wanna do a book about— let me think about an example. I don't know. We wanna do a book about Hanukkah, right? And, and we wanna, we wanna We wanna do this book about Hanukkah, and it's gonna be in this format, or, or, or Day of the Dead, or whatever celebration. We have a, a book of, of series of books about celebrations for kids. So we go and find the author. We go find the illustrator. We put a team together, and, and then we publish the book. So we are not— most traditional publishers are acquiring, acquiring ideas, concepts, books, manuscripts from agents and authors. In our system is the other way around. We create a concept, we look for the niche in the market, and then we go and find the right people to do that book with us.

Got it.

And at some point you said, you know, it's great to go find the people to put them together, but you're like, well, How about you? You might as well put your own book out as well too. Where did the idea come for your own book?

So yeah, the idea of our, of this book started as, I mean, I obviously I wrote for, for, for about food for, for many years. And I, I love food and I grew up, as I was saying before, in a, in a family with a very deep culinary tradition. And I think in my family, 90% of the conversations were about food. The other 10% were about soccer or football. So, it was all about that. And always wanted to write a book. But when you write your own— when you own your own publishing company or when you run an imprint inside a publishing company like I do now, it's a little bit difficult to decide to do it yourself because it feels like you are like— you know, just doing it because you can. But I work with a good editor and writer, Liz Saunders, who co-wrote this book with me. And basically, she's the one who made me realize, like, you have to be the author of this book. You are— everything's coming from you. So you have to be the author of this book. So we We, uh, I, I became an author in my own publishing house, which is a little strange.

Yeah, but it's empowering for sure and completing full circle with the family too. Uh, right now you've got multi, multiple different food authors in the family, which is pretty cool. So take us through the book. Like what's the, uh, how, what's the, the overview of the book and what do you want people to get out of it?

So I, I really like cookbooks. I think cookbooks are, are a fantastic thing. There's so many beautiful books, cookbooks out there. But, um, we wanted to do a book that was different and will reach out a kind of different audience than the regular cookbook does, because most cookbooks are photograph-based and food photography has become like such like a high art. Like every photograph is just perfect, right? You see a picture of a sandwich and the sandwich just looks absolutely delicious because it has the perfect lighting, the perfect everything. There's tons of tricks behind that photograph. And then next to that photograph is a recipe, right? Uh, but when you look at those photos and you look at all those books, they all start to look a little bit the same, obviously different layouts and so on, but, but they're— they all kind of like have that same, uh, feel and approachability. Um, so because we do a lot of illustrated books in, in Duopress, we, we decided to, to do it differently. And, and that's one of the things that we like to do in, in with all of our books and, and say like, well, let's do it in an illustrated format and let's do it as a comic book format because In my opinion, tacos and burritos are super accessible foods. They are not like high-end foods that, you know, now there's like a trend to have like very super expensive tacos, but tacos are like food for the people, from the people to the people. And you can eat them in taco trucks and taquerías, in little restaurants and little stands. So we wanted to do it approachable for the people who were enjoying those, these foods. And, uh, we felt that if we would do like a traditional cookbook, the, the 20-something, 30-something guys and girls and gals who wanted to cook these things will not feel as close to this project as this is. So we wanted to, to tap into the a younger demographic, like a 20-year-old, 30-year-old person who is starting their own lives after college, and they are starting to cook, and they, they love tacos, and they love burritos, but they don't know how to make them. And, and, and this book gives you a lot of the, the basis to do those tacos, and, and then just go and experiment and do your own thing. And it's based on a lot of research and there's, there's a lot of solid information behind it. It's, and, and it's, it's a serious cookbook, but in a very, very accessible format.

I love that. And you dive into the history a little bit without giving too much away, like where, how far back can we really trace this?

Well, okay, so this is funny because in the book we have a professor I'm looking at the pages here, so I just get the dates right, because I don't know. So we have Professor Jeffrey Pilcher, who is a professor at the University of Toronto, and he's an expert on Mexican food and the history of Mexican food, and so on. He's been writing about that in many of his books. And I know Jeffrey Pilcher because he has been researching my great-aunt's life for many years, Josefina Velázquez de León. So he contacted me years ago to talk about her, and I have a decent collection of her books, and I have photographs, family photographs, all that. So he contacted me, and we've been in touch since then and stuff. So I contacted him. I was like, hey, Jeffrey, do you want to write the history of tacos and burritos for the book? And he was like, of course, that will be awesome. And said, but this is a comic book format, so you're gonna appear. And I mean, you can see here, he's, he's like a professor that appears with his bow tie and everything. Yeah. And, uh, and, and he was super excited. He was, he's like, I always wanted to be a superhero, so of course I'm, I'm in. I wanna, I wanna be in that book. So anyway, the, the History of Tacos starts 7,000 Before Christ, so BCE, in southwestern Mexico, and take us all the way to the global obsession of tacos. Because now you can have fine taquerías in Norway, you have fine taquerías in many, many European cities, and in Tokyo there's apparently a couple of fantastic taquerías. So he takes us through the history of all this, and then he does the same thing with the burritos. In a, in a graphic format, which is super fun and super accessible for everybody.

I love it. Awesome. Well, I mean, we often on our podcast talk a lot about like current favorites, but sometimes people end up loving like the history of physical spaces of tacos, right? Like, I know I have a favorite one that the place doesn't exist anymore, but it's still that place that was Bull Taco in Cardiff Campground was super special, or the pop-ups that happened that people There's no address. It's just, oh, in the parking lot of a— of that Target, you know, right? That's how people know that name of that place. That's the— there's a very uniqueness of that, you know. There's not even in the food truck world, not a lot of that. Like, tacos have this really mobile, accessible feel of how you get them, but also how you make them, which is pretty cool. Did you discover anything you didn't know or kind of surprising to you while making the book?

A lot of things, uh, were surprising, but I think mostly, uh, I think they, the, the, as you were describing how accessible tacos are, right? I mean, you can, you can have wagyu tacos right now and in a fancy restaurant and they charge you a lot of money for a beautiful piece of meat for sure and a nice tortilla and salsas, all the things. But you can have that same experience in, in a You know, parking lot that you were saying. I think one of my favorite things about tacos is what we call in Mexico tacos de canasta, which is basket tacos, which those baskets are attached to a bicycle. And basically a guy makes these tacos and they layer tacos and tacos and tacos and tacos in those baskets and cover them with foil or different papers to keep them warm. And these people ride their bikes to construction sites or outside schools or outside hospitals or outside wherever people are gathering and, and sell these tacos de canasta. And, and they are, because they, they steam on that canasta, that basket.

Mm-hmm.

They are super soft and super, like, tender, and they have very little filling, but it's very Very simple. It could be just like black beans or potatoes or a little bit of shredded chicken with like a tomatillo sauce. And, and they're small, so you can have 8 or 10 of those for, for a nice lunch standing up. And there's like a little jar with salsa and they just pour it and everybody's just standing around that bicycle. I think that's one of my favorite things in the entire world because it's It's just so cool that a guy cooks, wakes up very early and cooks all these hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of tacos. Like, these baskets are huge. And just goes and bikes around until he sells all the tacos. That's just like something that I absolutely, I think it exemplifies how easy and accessible tacos are, right?

100%. What about burritos? Burritos are, you know, there's some people who are team taco, team burrito. Burritos are a different kind of beast that you're committing to. What, what's the story on burritos?

It's a completely different beast. It's, it's actually something I didn't grow up, uh, eating burritos. I started eating burritos in the United States. I, I think my first burrito, like real burrito that I had was in San Francisco. And I was like, oh, this is, this is interesting. It's very different from what we have, right? And in the book, we tell the story, and we kind of tell a little bit of the regional differences. So, the way the map works is tacos that are made with corn tortillas are from Central Mexico to Southern Mexico, because that's where corn grows and where corn was king, right? I mean, the Aztecs, Domesticate corn, and they made tortillas with it, and they find a way to make those all those things. But in the north of the country, which borders the United States, obviously flour or wheat is is king. So because because the the flour tortilla dominates those areas, the food is very different from Central Mexico, South Mexico, or So growing up in Mexico City, you couldn't find a burrito. I mean, there was not a restaurant that would serve burritos. Now a lot of taquerías serve them because obviously they have become very, very popular. But the burrito, the way we know it, it's a California invention. It's a Mission Street thing. It was made for the firefighters as a way to have a handheld meal in a, in a little package because it's, it's everything, right? It's a salad, it's, it's a— it has rice, it has beans, it has protein, it has salsa, it has cream, whatever. It's a huge thing.

Yeah.

But the burritos that we had in most of the north of Mexico City were smaller. They were, uh, the tortillas were big, but the, the fillings were super thin and just like, just like a little Like a longer taco that you fold easily. But it is, yeah, the, the, the, the burrito as we know it today is, is definitely a California invention.

Interesting.

Yeah.

My first, well, growing up in California, we saw them everywhere from, you know, chains to one-offs. But the biggest stepwise function in my life was having a California burrito, which had French fries in the burrito. French fries.

We have a recipe of the California a burrito in the, in the, in the book because I think it's genius to put the fridge inside a burrito. I do. I'm just because of the, how the way I grew up and where I grew up and all those things. I'm a much bigger fan of tacos than burritos.

Yeah.

But, but when a burrito is, it's a good burrito, it's a fantastic experience.

It is.

And we wanted to include it in the book because it's, that's what Uh, young people are easy, right? You know, like, we want them to, to know that they are different from the burritos that we have in Mexico, but they, they are also part— they're based in a Mexican culinary tradition. They have ingredients, almost the same ingredients as a taco. They just put everything in a tortilla and wrap it rather than have it in a separate plate, you know, the rice, the beans, the things.

So, right.

It is kind of like the same thing, different presentation.

It's true. Yeah. I would say even when I started this podcast, I was way more of a burrito guy. And the more people mentioned taco spots, I was like, okay, I gotta try that place. Oh, I gotta try that place. Oh, I have to try their tacos because that's what I've been told to have. And I'm a convert now, you know, tacos is so, it's a great way to compare restaurants, I think, to each other. A lot of people compare cities their, you know, taco scene to another, you know, even in the United States. San Diego loves to say we're the best in California for tacos. Austin, Texas loves to say we are the only place that does breakfast tacos. Is that the same thing, you think, worldwide around tacos, or is that a United States phenomenon, the comparison of our taco scene?

So Mexico City has tacos from all over the country because it's this You know, it's the capital, and that's where everybody congregates in one way or another. But yeah, we have very different tacos based on different regions. I mean, you cannot— like, if you are in the Yucatan Peninsula, where, you know, for most Americans, that's where Cancun is and the City of Mayans and stuff, the tacos that they use there are absolutely different from the tacos that they will use in Monterrey or in Zacatecas or that. So, They are less meat-based. There is not about carne asada. It's more about stews, about long and cooked. They use a lot of pork, a lot of different spices. So they are very different. So I think, I think in Mexico, it's impossible to say like that place has that, that city or that state has better tacos than the other because they are very different. But if you're in Mexico City, you can have them all and And Mexico City is where the taco al pastor was developed after being— and we have the story in the book, uh, it started in the, in the state of Puebla, and it was made a little different. And the idea of using pork and, and the achiote base and all the things was a Mexican invention, a Mexico City adaptation of that. And I have to say there's no better taco in the world than a good taco al pastor in Mexico City.

All right, all right, challenge accepted. We have an amazing al pastor spot in Chula Vista called Tacos El Gordo that there is, there's the main line to order everything and then there's the al pastor line. The al pastor line is out the door because that's all everyone is coming for. So yeah, appreciate it.

It's, I, you know, I think you guys are incredibly lucky in California and Texas because there is really an incredible amount of good taco spots. For me, who I'm in the Northeast, one of the reasons why I started cooking all these things is because when I moved to New York, I was like, there's no good tacos here. Now they have a lot of good tacos. And I think just like the rest of the country have opened a lot of these little shacks and places where you can have real, real tacos. And I think a lot of Mexicans for a long time were like, we're not gonna cook the tacos that people want, we're gonna cook the tacos that we are used to. And at some point, they just decided to do it. And it's great. But, but when I first moved to New York, there was not a lot of taco places that were like, yeah, they were good. Because, you know, like, if you put something inside a tortilla and put a good salsa, it's gonna be good. But they weren't—

Sure.

Great or authentic or so. So that's why I started to start cooking all these things, like, okay, I need to make my own tacos at home. And how do I— because really, in Mexico, nobody cooks tacos at home. Like, nobody does, like, make tacos at home. What, what they do, like, in my house growing up, like, the classic situation would be we'll sit for lunch and my mom will put a slice avocado in the plate, in the table, and there was tortillas. So we will grab the avocado, we'll put it inside a tortilla. That's a taco, right? But there was not— put salsa and that's it. But there was not like a taco thing. If you want to eat a good taco in Mexico, you just cross the street and you have a fantastic taquería or this guy with the bicycle or another kind of thing. So cooking tacos in at home in Mexico is, as I say, is not a big thing. But obviously, if you don't live in a city where there's tacos across the street, you need to cook your own. And that's where the idea of this book—

I love it. Bring it into the home for sure. What about— I mean, you mentioned al pastor. I feel like there's been waves of innovation of new, you know, new Expressions of tacos, even like the birria right now feels new to— as a new way to try something. Like, do you see that? Is there an innovation wave within the taco expressions besides just the high end? You know, like—

Yeah, well, there's that high-end thing going to, to like ribeye and wagyu and more expensive cuts of meat and even fish and all those things. But in general, I think the biggest thing is that Tacos are becoming bigger, which is kind of not a, not a great development in my opinion.

Yeah.

Like, like, one of the things that when you go to a taquería, what you want to do is to, to, to eat 4 or 5 different things. And if a taco is too big, you can only have one, perhaps two.

Yep.

And in a, in a regular taquería in Mexico, they have probably 7 different salsas. In the on the table, so you want to try those seven salsas. You you so the tacs are small, so you have like one with the chipotle salsa and one with the habanero salsa and one and stuff like that. So you cannot compare. So I think in general, both in Mexico and around the world, they're becoming a little a little too big, in my opinion. They're getting big. The the quesabirria phenomenon is is. It's just unbelievable because the way the idea of the birria— birria was in, I mean, it still is in the state of Jalisco where it really started, the birria thing. I've been in one restaurant that has like these huge ovens that they cook the animals for 24 hours and then it's like they're so tender. So And it's basically, it's almost like a meat soup. So it's like, uh, you know, the, in the birria tacos, you kind of dip your taco in the, in that, uh, consommé. Well, normally what it is is that they, they bring like a bowl with the meat, with the consommé, and you have tortillas and you make your own tacos. That's what birria really is.

Yeah.

The quesabirria, for everything that I know about it, is in Tijuana, close to San Diego. They decided to put cheese on it and grill them and make them flat on the grill, kind of like a combination of a taco and a quesadilla, and have the consommé on the side so people can dip it so that And it just took off, man. Now they are absolutely everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. There's like birria ramen. Birria, have you heard of that?

Oh yeah.

And it's actually very good, you know, because it's noodles with the, with the, with the broth of the birria, which is basically meat that has been cooked low and slow with tons of spices and chilies. Has to be good, right?

Has to be good. You can't go wrong. I, yeah, I mean, what's cool to see both in Tijuana and San Diego, we, we cross the border often, by the way, is just the dedicated birria-only taco spots, right? It's not a try them all. No, this is birria. This is what they do. This is their focus. Even if it's a pop-up tent on the, on that corner, that's all they do is birria, which is pretty fun to see. That's for sure.

Yeah, I think that's, that happens a lot in Mexico. They just sell one kind of taco, 2 kinds of tacos, and that's, and they don't have to have a whole menu full of different options.

The other part that's cool is to see the, obviously the cross-pollination with other countries, right? You know, I love, there's a few where you see Filipino meats, but in Mexican foods, right? So like an adobada Filipino meat in tacos and burritos, right? That's always like, love the fusion aspect as well. What do you think that—

I love it. I'm a big, big fan of Roy Choi, who started the Korean taco craze in Los Angeles, if I understand correctly. I think Korean food and Mexican food are Perfect for each other, and they just go very well. So yeah, I I am not a purist at all. I think tacos have to evolve, and they have to get better, and it's gonna be more and more more options. And I think innovation in food, as as as in in any other area, is is good for everybody. There's a lot of gimmicky things around, which is natural, and there's no nothing we can do about it. But but in general. When good things start spreading like this is because they're good. I mean, the quesabirria taco, quesabirria thing is an example of how something that is good is gonna just expand and it's gonna, it's gonna reach everybody.

100%. So you, what I love about this book is the ability to like learn depth, but also try, right? The accessibility part. What What's your favorite thing to cook? We got to know, like, what is your favorite kind of taco to cook at home? And then you mentioned your favorite— the place to have a taco is Mexico City. We got to, we got to go know where so we can put it on our map.

Okay, so my favorite taco to make at home, I think, is probably the taco de rajas con crema, which is a poblano strips with Mexican crema tacos with onion and It's, it's a stew. We have a whole section in the book about those, because I think those are less known tacos in, in general outside Mexico, which are made with, with stew meats and stew fish and stew vegetables, and, and, and, and they're just like absolutely fantastic. And it's, it's something that poblano peppers are, are not very spicy, are very easy to find in the United States these days. And they're super fun to cook because basically you have to char them and then take the skin off and make strips of it and make the tacos with the crema and the onion. I think that's one of my favorite things to cook at home.

Hmm.

Because although we can cook tacos al pastor at home and tacos de carnitas at home and stuff like this, many ways in the book. We suggest many ways to do it. There's no substitution for a taco al pastor, like a taco al pastor in a taquería that has the trompo, you know, the big pit that they slice it in front of you. There's no substitution for that. And I don't know anybody who can have one of those at home, but it will be a little bit of a stretch. So there's that kind of taco, which is very accessible, easy to make, And and it's just absolutely delicious.

Yeah, 100%. All right. So where's your? Let's say you could pick anywhere in the world to go eat the taco. Do you have the spot that you would go and do it?

I have the. Can I have more than one?

Okay, okay. You can have more than one, of course.

For tacos, tacos de carnitas, carnitas tacos. I will have to go back to my family. There is a place in the Coyoacán region of Mexico City. called El Benedito, who was owned by, by my uncle Sergio Arturo and his wife. Uh, he then— he has passed away, but he continues to be part of his family, and he was my dad's cousin. Uh, and it's a very big restaurant. They have all these things for us, but they have a store, like a storefront that they just sell Tacos de carnitas, and those are the most amazing tacos de carnitas you can have. They're made in traditional copper place things. Sorry, and they're just absolutely delicious. The salsas are fantastic because that's our thing. Every the best part of a taco is the salsa. So that's one for for tacos de carnitas, and there's many places in Mexico where you can have it. Hotel Venadito in Coyoacán, Mexico. uh, in the storefront of Carnitas, that's the best one. And for tacos de guisado, which we were talking about before, there is a place called El Jarocho in Colonia Roma Norte. Uh, it has been there since 1920-something. I think it's open 24 hours a day. Uh, so you can have tacos for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and after partying or whatever. It's, it's just Fun place like four stories high, and they sell tacos of guisado, which are these two tacos, and they have these big containers with a lot of different options. And anything you have there is tacos de lengua, which is tongue tacos, which I think is one of my favorite things to eat. El Jarocho for sure is is is a is a good recommendation.

Love it. Oh, I love a good tongue taco as well too. Lengua. Uh, amazing recommendations. Um, can't wait to put them on the map because I know they have not been mentioned before. But even more excited for the book, which comes out in mid-August, correct? I think there's a preorder on Amazon.

Yeah, it comes out on August 11th. It's, it's, it's up for preorder in bookshop.com, in amazon.com. I don't know why I said the .com anymore, but Amazon Bookshop, Barnes Noble, all the retailers in the United States. You can order it through Walmart, Target, everywhere. Everywhere it's available for sure. Amazing.

My preorder is already in. Can't wait to have it here in our office where we break bread or tacos with many people and would welcome the chance to have some tacos with you. So let's keep in touch and see if we can ever meet up for some tacos too, Mauricio. Appreciate you being on, and congrats on this, the new book.

Thank you so much for having me, and I hope I hope you when you get the book that you will enjoy it, and more important that you cook from it.

Absolutely. I'll send some photos in.

Yeah.

And thanks again. Mucho gusto.

All right. Igualmente.

Bye. Fold a green guacamole. Keep accountants counting beans. Contador cuentan frijoles. Founders trying to raise some queso. La vida San Diego. Schooler happy rapping fire. Tortillas around jalapeños. In these modern times, a craft beer and coffee. My coding yoga posse fold the body origami. We be surfing Coronado eating tacos El Gordo. The tacos standing Puesto lucha libre en sombrero. Gotta shout out Tech Coast Angels by the ocean, watch the sunset. La Jolla shows entrepreneurs trying to get funded when San Diego Startup Week is popping in the summer. Oceanside to Tijuana, SD be full of hustlers from couch surfing to penthouses right on the beach. Tech leaders who believe stars are within reach, we interview Founders who be shooting for the moon. #SDTechos with your host Neal Bloom. Come on! Startups get the party, startups get the party started. Startups get the party, startups get the party started. Startups get the party, startups get the party started. You want tech and tacos, tacos and tech, you know we got it, hey! Startups get the party, startups get the party started.