A style setter who learned to cook her mother’s cherished Mexican foods in their modest home now shares her favorite ways to savor life, one homemade meal at time. It’s all in her coffee table book, Caren Rideau: Kitchen Designer, Vintner, Entertaining at Home.
Growing up in Arizona and California, Rideau made Christmas tamales on a family assembly line that included her parents and grandmother. Rideau and her sister added the final touches, folding the husks and wrapping the delicious packages in paper. In honor of their father’s Louisiana Creole heritage, they also made Christmas gumbo.
“We express ourselves through food,” Rideau said. “And I match my food with traditional Mexican pottery from my collections. Presentation matters. I still have some of my mother’s dishes.”
For her, cooking and entertaining are passions to share. “We love to gather with our friends and family,” Rideau adds. “To celebrate being alive and being present. When I entertain, whether for six, eight, or twelve, I make what lets me be together with people, not alone in the kitchen.” With guests, she might grill marinated meat and assemble fixings for Grilled Steak Tacos; mash the avocados and toast bread for Avocado Toasts Three Ways; or prep the garnishes for Butternut Squash Soup with a Latin Twist.
Rideau knows the childhood recipes by heart. “But everything evolves,” she says. “I try not to use so much of the manteca–that’s the lard—in the tamales now.”
She also has a girlhood memory of growing up in a family with love, but no generational wealth or college education.
“I didn’t think I could design. I didn’t even see that career. We shared our beds with siblings in my home,” she says. “But being educated matters. It’s overwhelming, but you can’t give up.” She wants young people in struggling families or from the inner city to be exposed to good careers and passions, too.
“I’m never going to stop mentoring,” notes Rideau. “If I can touch a handful of people, then I’m doing what I’m supposed to do.”
Now, the celebrated kitchen designer offers her book, with photos of California tangerines that seem to pop off the page (the author grows them); a cache of her favorite recipes in the back; a helpful charcuterie board diagram; and wine tips. We made her soup with a Latin twist—the, roasted pumpkin seeds, and sliced Fresno chili garnishes took it over the top. Best fresh Mex? Yes.
Photography by Meghan Beierle-O’Brien.
Produced and styled by Char Hatch Langos.
Like what you see? Get it first with a subscription to aspire design and home magazine.