Chef Aquiles Chávez from the show Motochefs helps you celebrate!

Like many generous people, Mexican chef Aquiles Chávez looks like a happy man…and a grateful one.  “Sometimes I feel life has given me too much, no? That’s when I try to make sure I also give back to life.”

Chávez is one of the personable hosts of the Utilísima show Motochefs. He speaks of his colleagues in the kitchen with respect and affection. “Cooks have something very special, very sensitive in our DNA. The business of cooking requires us to offer, to share with two full hands. It’s a business in which we give everything of the highest quality, the best service, the best attitude, always giving, giving, giving…and because of this generosity we’re always teaching, and paying forward what we’ve been given.”

In Motochefs, Chávez shares his expertise at the side of his friend and colleague Aarón Sánchez, as they ride motorcycles together while traveling from Texas to Mexico City. “It’s such fun! The trip is about cooking, adventure, encounters, discoveries, and above all, about two friends who, in the end, conquer all like the good cooks they are. Having traveled for 45 days with Aarón, I grew a lot. I learned a lot…”

Would he repeat the experience? “If they asked me, ‘Aquiles, would you do it all over?’ Of course I would! My coat and helmet are already on, just tell me where to go.”

Enjoying his latest adventures in the US, Achiles has adopted new traditions. “In Mexico you don’t really celebrate Cinco de Mayo but that doesn’t mean we don’t acknowledge this day. We celebrate it with festive and traditional Mexican dishes.” For the time being, Chávez is back at home, where he’s the one who cooks for his wife and three children, Regina, Valentina, and Aquiles. “Why do I cook? I think, and I’m convinced that cooking is an act of love, so it’s the way I can express my affection for my family. It’s a way of spoiling them, of taking care of them. In the end, many of our good memories about growing up are centered on food, right?

And that’s why Aquiles Chávez keeps giving…and giving…and giving.

Motochefs
Mondays at 10pm/9c

Download recipe courtesy of Aquiles Chávez

Tabasco wings

CNN en Español news correspondent Ana Pastor, questions everything in search of the truth.

Ana Pastor, CNN en Espanol’s newest correspondent, always had a nose for news and the ability to sniff out the truth. Pastor began her professional career at Spain’s Cadena Ser radio network. In Televisión Española she anchored 59 Segundos and Los Desayunos de TVE. Not afraid to ask the really tough questions, she became part of Spain’s TV journalistic history with her 2011 interview with Iranian president Mahmud Ahmadinejad.  “Journalism is done for the people not the politicians,” she affirms. As part of the CNN team, Pastor will interview international personalities from the fields of politics, arts, culture, and sports. These interviews will be shown on CNN International, CNN en Español, as well as cnnespanol.com and cnninternational.com. Coincidentally, throughout her career, this mom of two kids, Carlota, 10, and Simón, 2, has admired one of CNN’s greats, Christiane Amanpour. “A lot of my interviews in Spain were inspired by her reporting, which is the way that CNN does it: to always look for the counterpoint and to defend journalism as well.”

Celebrity chef Mónica Patiño dishes about her new cooking show Diario de Cocina.

At the end of the day all across the world mothers (and yes, some fathers too!) must answer the age old question: what’s for dinner? Chef Mónica Patiño is ready to help with her new show Diario de Cocina on Utilísima. “Even when I come home I say, ‘What am I going to cook today?’ This show is my opportunity to share the culinary knowledge that I have spent years gathering and help people get out of their routine.”

You can try her fare at one of her restaurants like Naos which is considered one of the best in Mexico or try your hand with one of her specialties via her prize winning cookbook  Sabores en la Cocina de Mónica Patiño. Mónica, a top international chef with more than 35 years of experience, still feels motivated to create new dishes. “When I am in the kitchen, I don’t think about anything else except being there and having fun.”

Diario de Cocina
Fridays at 7pm/6c

Download recipe courtesy of Mónica Patiño

1. Pork Chops in Sweet & Sour and Chipotle Sauce
2. Pappardelle con frijoles

Chef Pepín shares traditional and delicious recipes.

While living on a farm in his native Cuba, José Hernández, who was then four years old, learned about the science of cooking. “My grandmother taught me how to make butter and it was a kind of chemical explosion. I felt like an inventor.”

Today he is known as Chef Pepín and has become a beloved household name. Since 1988 he has been cooking up a storm on Univision, and he is still motivating viewers to chop and stir during his down-home cooking segments on Despierta América. “I always make traditional meals, but in the healthiest and most natural way possible.”

During Hispanic Heritage month, Chef Pepín says it’s time to make classic meals. “We have a lot of dishes that bring us back to our childhood. Some of my favorites are meat dishes like ground beef (picadillo) that we eat in all parts of Latin America.”

Download recipes courtesy of Chef Pepín

1. Gazpacho Sevillano
2. Arándanos Azules
3. Picadillo de Pavo

Despierta América
Wednesdays at 7am/6c

Chef Lorena Garcia shares the perfect meal to celebrate with family and friends with her fresh Latin flare. In this episode of Sazón on Utilísima Lorena takes you step by step on how to make a traditional Argentinian Chimichurri accompanied by oven baked sweet potato fries. To finish off the meal she shows you how to make a tempting flan inspired by her good friend Maruja. Enjoy!

There is nothing more New York than the tradition of eating “brunch” on the weekend. Chef Aarón Sanchez will take us to “Tacombi” his new taqueria restaurant in Nolita, to try out a typical Mexican breakfast. Then, he will take you over to the restaurant Balthazar in Soho, to savor their popular French style brunch. The recipes of the day are: huevos rancheros, corned beef, tomato salad with serrano chile, and blue potatoes in the oven. Delicious!

Celebrity Chef Maggie Jiménez began to cook at the age of seven while “bound” to her grandmother’s apron strings. “I was a little devil so my abuelita kept me ‘tied’ to her side and when people ask ‘how did you learn to cook?’ I say there was no other choice.”

Today, Maggie shares her love of the kitchen on the cooking show Delicioso on TeleFutura and Univision where she shares her secrets like this great barbecue tip: “Use liquid smoke to marinate meat overnight. It’s marvelous!” Maggie also plans to share more recipes in a book she will launch this winter. “Cooking is an art that the more you love, the more you enjoy.”

Download recipes courtesy of Ingrid Hoffmann

1. ORZO SALAD
2. CUBAN MARINADE

Delicioso
Saturdays at 1pm/12c

Travel across the world this summer with Diego Buñuel of Don’t Tell My Mother…

If you are looking for some real life action and adventure this year, try touring some of the remote and dangerous parts of the world without setting foot outside of your home. Just click on your TV and watch Nat Geo Mundo’s No Le Digan a Mi Madre. “You are going to be traveling to places that are crazy and exotic,” says host Diego Buñuel. “You will go across the globe and the stories will make your jaw drop.” It’s your chance to journey to some of the world’s most dangerous places. Encounter gun-slinging schoolgirls in Russia, border wars in the US..and even criminal war lords in Somalia. To get the story, Diego has put it all on the line. “Somalia was the most brutal and violent place of all. I had 30 bodyguards and I was locked up in a compound for 22 hours a day.”

Buñuel, who started out as a foreign war correspondent, wanted to tell the whole story. “Foreign news has been dominated by dry stories about war. It’s bang, bang; when it bleeds it leads,” he recalls. “I realized I was talking about just 1% of the stories over there and 99% were going unreported.” Interestingly enough, his war coverage also gave him the inspiration for the name of his show. “When I would leave for those danger zones, I would tell my production team ‘don’t tell my mother’ because I knew she would flip out. My assistant suggested the name and I thought it was great.”

As the grandson of the award-winning Spanish director Luis Buñuel, it’s not surprising that Diego is very hands-on with his show, from producing to editing. If you ask him, though, their similarities run deeper. “If we have something in common, it’s that I use humor to criticize the brutality of the world, and my grandfather used a lot of humor to criticize hypocrisy. Humor is a very powerful tool.”

When asked, his ultimate mission is very clear. “My job is to really bring that vision of a different world to a new generation; to tell young people today that virtual is great, but if we do not get out there and grab a handle on the real world and on our planet, nothing is going to change.”

Don’t Tell My Mother
Mondays at 9pm/8c

BMX rider Ricardo Laguna goes to the extreme with his reality show.

Ricardo Laguna knows all about extremes. At the age of 13 he and his family were living in the lap of luxury in La Paz, Mexico. Then, everything changed. “In La Paz I was the big kid in the neighborhood. Our house was like a mansion; we had a boat and we would water ski. I was the only kid who had a Nintendo. Then we sacrificed everything to follow an opportunity in the US and ended up in a run-down trailer park in Las Vegas.”

As he would quickly learn, sometimes good things come out of tough situations. While riding his bike and looking to make friends, Ricardo discovered BMXing and the rest is history. Today at the age of 30 he has created BMX events like The Ricardo Laguna Pro BMX Dirt Challenge and he holds titles like the “South American King of Dirt”. His latest endeavor is his reality show The Ricardo Laguna Project on Tr3s which is produced by his good friend, the famous actor Wilmer Valderrama. Laguna remembers talking to Valderrama at the back-yard barbecue of a mutual friend. “It came up that as a BMX rider, I never really had a hero. There was no Latino dude that I could look up to. Wilmer then said ‘what do you think about being that hero?’” The result is a show that gives you a view of the sacrifice, risks and temptations that Laguna faces as he tries to stay grounded and true to his roots; all with the help of his family and friends. “The show is about someone that comes from Mexico and chases the American dream.”

Laguna is also considered one of Las Vegas’ hottest bachelors, a title his mother is actively trying to change. Viewers can watch her methods on the show. “My mom wants me to get married and put the bike down. I think she is trying to set me up on blind dates,” he says with a groan. ” So what is that perfect girl like? “I like someone I can grow old with. I don’t care if she’s green, purple, short, tall as long as she supports what I do and I love her to death, like I do my family and my bike.”

Looking back at all his successes, Laguna wants to be an inspiration to everyone. “There are so many dreams that you can make into reality, whether you want to be a pilot, doctor, baseball player or BMX bike rider. If I did it, you can do it too.”

The Ricardo Laguna Project
Wednesdays at 9pm/8c

Watch what you say!
Have you ever left a message like this on a social networking site? “Leaving tonight, looking forward to four wonderful days of vacation!” Guess what? You’ve told all your contacts—and THEIR contacts—that your home will be empty for the next four days. Save vacation news for when you get back!

Watch what you play!
When you receive requests to play games with your contacts on social networks and you click on the requests, you may be taken to a screen that asks permission to access your name, profile picture, gender, networks, user ID, list of contacts, and other public information. The game provider may even ask for permission to send out messages in your name or to access your information at any time—even while you’re not playing. So think twice before you hit “Allow.”

Watch what you answer!
Sometimes, your social network contacts will pass along quizzes and word games that ask for seemingly harmless information: “What city were you born in?” “What was your first pet’s name?” Be careful. Banks, utilities, insurance companies and health care providers will usually ask you these same questions before letting you transact business on their websites. By revealing your answers on social networks, you may be enabling identity thieves to access your accounts and steal your information and your money.

Chef James is cooking up something special as co-host of Telemundo’s Levántate.

Look at this picture of James Tahhan—better known as Chef James to fans of Telemundo’s morning show, Levántate. You might think he’s wearing a chef’s tunic, but he thinks he’s sporting a cloak and dagger.

“As a chef, I am a secret agent, because I have so many missions when it comes to my cooking.” His latest objective: help in the fight against obesity. “A lot of people think ‘food makes me fat,’ but food makes you lose weight.” It’s a matter of staying away from the wrong foods. “When dieting, you eat more salads but then, you buy salad dressing. It has a lot of chemicals, sugars and carbohydrates. They make you unhealthy!” Chef James suggests making your own vinaigrette. “It’s a simple ratio: two parts olive oil, one part vinegar (any type), one teaspoon Dijon mustard, salt and pepper.”

In his program, Levántate, James has one goal in mind, to make your taste buds sing without too much complication. “What I try and do every morning is to make the process of cooking quality superstar dishes easy.”

Levántate
Monday – Friday at 7am/6c

Download recipe courtesy of Chef James

1. Open-faced sandwich with brisket, cheese and onion jelly