Cooking for a crowd doesn’t faze Vidal Mozqueda, who often hosts generous fence-to-fence gatherings behind his home in San Francisco. “At home, my wife is the chef,” Vidal demurs, “but I take care of the people in the backyard.” And at their parties, the number of guests often swells to more than 100. “My relatives, my wife’s brothers, the neighborhood--they’re all welcome,” says Vidal, who works as a busser at Acquerello restaurant in San Francisco.
Vidal immigrated from Michoacán, Mexico, to California at age 17, and credits his Tío Jose Leyva, a now-retired construction worker, with teaching him how to cook. It was his uncle, in fact, who first showed him how to make carne asada, one of Vidal’s signature dishes at the grill. Over the past 20 years, Vidal has put his own spin on the classic recipe, adding beer and nopales to make it tangy and bright; his wife’s homemade green and red salsas underscore the chile flavors and char
on the meat.
During a typical party, you’ll find Vidal presiding over his oversize charcoal kettle, grilling his carne asada in waves and serving it up to guests. But sometimes, he admits, “people don’t even wait for a paper plate—they just grab tortillas and meat right off the grill.”