Test your design IQ

MANILA, Philippines - Who is the James Beard award-winning American chef whose French-Arcadian and Mexican ancestry influenced her acclaimed restaurants Jardiniere and Mijita Cocina Mexicana?

Raised on a farm in California’s San Joaquin Valley, she developed a deep love for the earth and its bounty early in life.

At age 6, she, Mexican in her mother’s side, French-Arcadian on her father’s, began baking with her mother, who prepared family meals with produce from the garden and local game.

While a student at veterinary studies at the University of California, she realized her true calling was the kitchen.  What she lacked in culinary experience, she possessed in sheer determination, enabling her to convince Joaquim Spichal, then running 7th Street Bistro in Los Angeles, to hire her.  Just after two weeks in the kitchen, she was running a station.

With Spichal’s encouragement and recommendation, she apprenticed in France with many of the greats, including Michel and Pierre Troisgros, Lucas Carton, Alain Ducasse, and Alain Passard.

She returned to the US in the late 1980s, worked in several restaurants, and opened her own restaurant Jardiniere, which continues to top the list of San Francisco’s best restaurants in 1997.

In 2004, she opened Mijit Cocina Mexina in the San Francisco Ferry Building, and a second outlet at AT&T Park.  In Mijita, she cooks from her roots using local, seasonal ingredients.

Known as one of the top female chefs in the country,  she has won numerous awards including two from  the prestigious James Beard Foundation: Rising Star Chef of the Year, in 1995 and Best Chef: Pacific in 2007.  She was also named Food and Wine Magazine’s Best New Chef and San Francisco Magazine’s Chef of the Year,  both in 1995; and had the rare distinction of beating Mario Batali in Iron Chef America in 2007.

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Text your answer to 0905-3471998 with your name and address. One winner will be chosen through a raffle of texts with the correct answer. The winner will receive P2,000 worth of SM gift certificates for use at Our Home, SM Department Store, or SM Supermarket. They can claim their prize at Our Home in SM Megamall. Call the store manager at 634-1943. Bring photocopies of two valid IDs and a clipping of the Design Quiz issue in which you appear as winner.

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Last week’s question:  Who is this British designer who designed the new London Bus and 2012 Olympic Cauldron?

Answer: Thomas Heatherwick

Winner: Jeremy V. Cervena of Nagcarlan, Laguna