Ingredients + Imagination = Desert Magic
At the confluence of author Felicia Cocotzin Ruiz’s words and of Mexico City–based illustrator Carlos Vélez’s illustrations is a gorgeous tale of Luna and Sol, a brother and sister, whose Nana prepares them a healing soup with a magic ingredient. Their young imaginations run wild as they try to figure out what that ingredient might be. The bilingual book is vibrant and interactive, with a seek-and-find game of healing plants and a magic sopita de fideo recipe readers can make in their own kitchens. The illustrations are reflective of Cocotzin Ruiz’s own home with its clay pots, wooden spoons and colorful ingredients.
While Nana Lupita is author Cocotzin Ruiz’s first children’s book, the strong themes of food, storytelling and healing run parallel in many ways to her award-winning 2021 lifestyle book Earth Medicines: Ancestral Wisdom, Healing Recipes, and Wellness Rituals from a Curandera. Earth Medicines embraces recipes and rituals based on the four elements—water, air, earth and fire—ranging from a nourishing Corn Woman Facial Scrub to Desert Dew Lung Support Tea. Throughout the book, Cocotzin Ruiz shares the experience and knowledge that she’s collected in her own journey as kitchen curandera, carrying forward cultural knowledge of foods and herbs, while encouraging readers to build a closer relationship to the elements themselves.
The acknowledgement and appreciation of plants’ abilities to holistically nourish our bodies is threaded throughout both of her books as well as her other work as a Phoenix-based curandera (traditional healer), Indigenous foods activist and natural foods chef. As a Xicana raised in Arizona, she drew inspiration for creating and forging a unique path for herself influenced by her own family, both through close relationships and the history passed on through family lore, as well as through peers who had different backgrounds and experiences from her own.
Both in and out of the kitchen, she is still greatly affected by cookbook authors who she came across when she was younger. Many of her favorite cookbooks are thrift store finds she’s collected over the past 25 years. She’s been particularly inspired by women of color who wrote about their travels around the globe in the 1960s and ’70s. The stories these authors shared of their lives and experiences were as impactful as their recipes. One such author is Claudia Roden, whose first book, A Book of Middle Eastern Food, was released in 1968 and is said to have revolutionized Western attitudes to the cuisine of the region. Roden’s cookbooks contain recipes with ingredients like pomegranate syrup, sumac and harissa—all more readily available today than they were when the books were originally released—and that undoubtedly expanded people’s palates and pantries.
As she made her own dreams of travel and exploration a reality, Cocotzin Ruiz found a deepened global influence from encounters with people who generously shared their knowledge and recipes. The flavors she learned about and absorbed from those experiences became prominent in her former work as a restaurant owner and personal chef. Likewise—and in some ways coming full circle—she now shares her knowledge of the edible and medicinal landscapes of her home with a wide audience of book readers who might not otherwise consider all the desert has to offer.
For those whose families have called Arizona and the greater Southwest home for generations, Nana Lupita serves as a mirror held up to the beautiful ways our lives are a combination of cultures. The book is written mostly in English with some Spanish sprinkled throughout; the recipe is a combination of traditional, indigenous herbs with the addition of some pasta. The blending of cultures is not unique, but these specific combinations are ours and it feels special to see that on the pages of a children’s book. Phoenix and the surrounding areas are abundant with edible life and sustenance, hearty with deliciously delicate details and a rich history to match. In celebration, Nana Lupita and the Magic Sopita offers a glimpse of the Sonoran Desert to the world and brings the world to the Sonoran Desert.
Learn more about Felicia Cocotzin Ruiz’s work at kitchencurandera.com or follow her on Instagram @feliciacocotzin. Find these books and more at Comal Food Books & Goods, comalaz.com.
Comal is an Arizona-based culinary bookshop featuring a curated selection of books, food goods and events that inspire creativity and connection through cooking and enjoying food together—with a deep appreciation for those who are part of the process—from the farmworker to the world-renowned chef to the family matriarch who cooks with love for her family.
