Amid ICE raids and uncertainty, chef Wes Avila cooks to feel closer to his parents

Los Angeles Times

a day ago

When Wes Avila misses his parents, cooking their signature dishes helps to comfort him. And lately the founder of Guerrilla Tacos, the upstart taqueria that became a leader of the Alta California movement, has been thinking of his parents frequently.
His mother, who passed away in 1995, is often on his mind. But his father, still alive, recently left for Mexico. Though Jose Luis Avila is a legal resident of the U.S., he feared being wrongfully swept up in the ICE raids that have put Los Angeles on edge for weeks. It was better for his dad, Avila said, to temporarily leave town and avoid even the possibility of it.
'They're even picking up people who have legal status, and they're just coming right back,' said Wes Avila, the chef of Mexican restaurants MXO and Ka'teen. 'Just the stress of all that, it's kind of a pain. So he left for Mexico.'
His father owns a home and a plot of land in his birthplace of Durango. Now in retirement, he visits it frequently to tend to the property and his garden there. But this trip felt different, spurred by dread instead of a need for relaxation. Avila encouraged the trip: He couldn't stomach the thought of his father being apprehended while out on a hike or shopping.
So Avila, missing his dad, cooks a Durango-style stew studded with beef, potatoes and chiles: a taste of family while they're apart.
'When he's not around, that's something I like to make,' Wes Avila said. 'It connects me to him. I talk to him every other day, and we have a very close relationship.'
Avila's father made his way to California in 1974 after cousins in Whittier recommended he join them in working toward a more prosperous future. He landed a job at a car wash, then at a paper factory, where he remained until his retirement. Shortly after his arrival in L.A. he met his wife, Julia 'Judy' Luz Alicia Ponce Avila. They married the following year and soon started a family.
In addition to L.A.'s sprawl of pan-cultural cuisine, Avila was raised on his parents' cooking. His father would cook menudo for Christmas and occasionally barbecue, but his caldillo was a staple year-round: a meaty soup sopped up with fresh tortillas picked up from specialists on his way home from work. His mother cooked more frequently, and one of the children's favorite dishes featured thick, creamy avocado sauce draped over freshly fried beef taquitos.
His mother was born in Lincoln Heights with a Texan father and a Concho grandmother. Avila feels the dish encapsulates influences from all of these roots, as well as 1960s Americana (sometimes she'd use canned beef in lieu of fresh meat).
Cooking these dishes, Avila said, is also a way to find comfort during a time of precarity and fear in L.A.'s restaurant industry — in part due to the threat of ICE raids, and also general business instability as customers, vendors and staff remain home. When possible, he said, dine at independent restaurants.
'Go and support your local food stands,' Avila said. 'Go and support mom-and-pop restaurants, because they need that.
'As a restaurateur and as a chef, our restaurants are suffering as well but ours have a little bit more backing to be able to keep going, as opposed to some of these that are running on their own. Just go eat. And don't let these guys [ICE] into your restaurants.'
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This Durango-inspired stew comes together quickly — and can come together even more rapidly with the use of time-saving chiles pasados. It's also an adaptable recipe: This stew is hearty and satisfying on its own, but Avila recommends using it as a filling in burritos too.Get the recipe. Cook time: About 1 hour. Serves 6 to 8.
This was a favorite dish of Avila's mom, Judy, and her children's favorite dish to eat at home. The cuts of meat can be flexible — so flexible, in fact, that even canned beef could do for the filling. Once freshly fried, these taquitos get smothered in a thick avocado sauce, which Avila likens to the aguacate found in L.A. Tex-Mex restaurants in the '80s and '90s.Get the recipe. Cook time: About 2 hours, depending on choice of meat. Makes 16 taquitos.