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LA Cocina - Cookbooks

Cookbooks

LA Plaza Cocina’s online book catalog is a place where one can find their perfect cookbook. With topics ranging from Northern Mexican cuisine, Southern Mexican cuisine and desserts, each book provides information and recipes for new and experienced cooks.

Each month, we will be featuring a book and recipe that highlights a unique aspect of Mexican cuisine, whether it be related to a historically significant Mesoamerican ingredient, or holiday favorites. Look out for potential cookbook author events and classes!

Cookbook of the Month

Earth Medicines: Ancestral Wisdom, Healing Recipes, and Wellness Rituals from a Curandera

By Felicia Cocotzin Ruiz

Earth Medicines: Ancestral Wisdom, Healing Recipes and Wellness Rituals from a Curandera by Felicia Cocotzin Ruiz is a cookbook and guide for wellness. Following the wisdom from the indigenous foodways and ancient rituals of Mexico and beyond, she shares recipes that have been utilized for centuries by herself and her family. 

Ruiz breaks down her books by the elements: Water, Air, Earth and Fire, each element provides recipes that shares how the ingredients used in her recipes function and relate to the chapter’s element. 

Ruiz’s hope is that through her recipes and guidance on beauty and spirituality, that the reader takes the time to build a healthy relationship with food, the elements and themselves. 

 

Cookbook of the Month: Review

Connecting to the Natural Elements: Rethinking our Relationship with Ingredients

About The Author


Felicia Cocotzin Ruiz

Felicia Cotozin Ruiz has grown up in the Northern region of New Mexico, where she has learned from her great-grandmother the ways of the land, herbs, and its foods. Growing up in this region, she shares that the land itself has also raised her to learn more about energy. 

Her interest in becoming a curandera was sparked by her great-grandmother. Following her great-grandmother’s way through collection of herbs and plants in the desert, she too was inspired to take that same path. 

Ruiz took it upon herself to drop out of college and begin the journey through taking classes at a Massage school, where she learned the trade of healing the body by reading its energy forms. However, she dedicates this journey to her father, where she recalls her memories of sharing food with him. It is with her memories of her father where she has dedicated her work to healing and caring for the body through the means of food. 

After 30 years of training, Ruiz was given a ceremony, honoring her with the title of a curandera. 

She currently lives in the Sonoran Desert with her husband while providing for her local community, medicinal and food-related workshops. 

You can purchase her book here at LA Cocina Tiendita during our hours of operation or online by clicking here.