Lidia Celebrates America

How you doing? Como estas? I met one of the recent graduates of the program, Erika Rojas. I am excited for you, I heard your-- - I'm excited and nervous. (laughs) She came to show me how to cook her most popular recipe, birria. Birria? - Birria, is beef with spices and my customers love it. Onion, garlic-- Sesame seeds? - Yeah sesame seeds-- That's great. - Ginger. Ginger, all right, powdered ginger. And oregano. - Oregano. This is chili California and tomatoes. Everything in the blender, and then I need to put on the meat. And then you cook slowly, slowly. - And cook it slowly for-- Three. - Two hours, two hours 15 minutes. We're gonna do two soft tacos and two crispy tacos. -

Lidia

With her training at Comal, and a grant the organization helped her apply for, Erika was able to attain one of her dreams. -

Erika

You wanna put just the meat. Owning her own food truck. She's invited me to join her selling tacos outside a small soccer arena. This is how you do it on the truck? Yeah, when the people want toast tacos, like this. -

Lidia

Ah, right, oh that's the crispy on both sides. Yeah, I like this. In Guadalajara, every morning the people ate these for breakfast. I learned to cook from my mom when I was eight years old. She talked to my older sister, she say, "Come to cook with me you need to learn." And she say, "Uh uh, I don't want." And I am there every day, and I learn every recipe and now my mom and me cook the same. And she help me now. (upbeat music) -

Lidia

To her support her family, Erika still works her regular job delivering newspapers. But with her Comal training, she's now developing a growing business. (gentle upbeat music) On my first day when I just sell just $100, I fill with many feelings (laughs), because it's a just a couple dollars. In the next week I sell more, 150, and I say, "Okay, it's more, it's okay." And I know, when I start, I can't expect to sell a lot and it took time, and I'm fine. I want to try to spend more time, more and more and more, to be success.