April 24, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Great Mexican food at Caliente with no ‘Mexican lady’
by LEN LEAR

Caliente owner Nancy Heridia (right) and her assistant, Rosaleen McGill, a Chestnut Hill resident whose five older siblings have all worked in the Chestnut Hill Farmers Market, display one of their “Pizza-dillas,” a scrumptious combination of pizza and Mexican food. (Photo by Erin Vertreace)

The food is so good at Caliente, the Mexican food outlet in the Chestnut Hill Farmers Market, that customers occasionally ask, “Where’s the Mexican lady who makes this wonderful food?”

It turns out that the “Mexican lady,” Nancy Heridia, 45, is no more Mexican than Betty Crocker (despite her Hispanic last name), but her food is as healthy and tasty as anything we have sampled during trips to Mexico City, Ixtapa and Acapulco. (It’s not that unusual anymore for chefs to prepare ethnic food that is foreign to their own ethnic group. For example, Vince Viola, an Italian-American, is the executive chef at Yangming, an upscale Chinese restaurant in Bryn Mawr, and Lassine Sylla, who is from Mali in West Africa, is the executive chef at Kaizan, a Japanese-French restaurant at 1420 Locust St.)

Nancy Heridia (neé Stinson) grew up outside of Detroit, Michigan, in a community with a large Mexican-American population. Nancy’s ex-husband was half-Mexican and half-Native American. “He and his mother and sisters all taught me how to cook Mexican food,” she recalled. “I’ve always loved it. Even though I make Mexican food all the time, I still go out to Mexican restaurants as often as possible. I can’t get enough of it. After all, in Mexico people eat Mexican food every day.”

Nancy came to the Philadelphia area in 1984 when her ex-husband got a job here. At first she lived in Hatfield, but now she lives in Telford, Bucks County. For 25 years she worked as a bartender, both here and in Michigan, in chain restaurants like Ground Round and Ruby Tuesday but also in independently owned restaurants like the Montgomery Inn. She was always interested in cooking, though, and “was lucky that I worked in some restaurants with chefs who were very willing to share their knowledge of cooking.”

Eventually, Nancy asked herself the same question that so many other hard-working salaried employees, especially in the restaurant business, ask themselves: “Why am I working so hard for someone else’s benefit when I could be working just as hard for myself — and at least reap the rewards of my hard work?”

For Nancy, the answer was to look around for a small business to buy. Her search came to fruition in 2004 when she purchased Jazzmine’s Garden, a Persian/Mediterranean foods outlet at the east end of the Chestnut Hill Farmers Market. (The business had been owned by Maurice and Martha Lavasani, who also own the Shundeez complex — another Persian foods outlet in the farmers market and a restaurant and gourmet food store at 8705 Germantown Avenue, about 100 yards or so behind Borders Books.)

Nancy changed the name to Francesca’s Garden in honor of her teenage daughter, but business was not exactly bustling until six months later, when she switched from Mediterranean food to her own freshly prepared Mexican food and changed the name from Francesca’s Garden to Caliente (“very hot” in Spanish).

In fact, business was so good that Nancy began looking for a much bigger space. She eventually found it in a vacant space in the midsection of the farmers market, which had previously been occupied by a bakery. After six months as Caliente, Nancy moved into her new space, which is twice as big as the previous location.

In addition to the display cases, there is a counter where customers can eat (although most take their orders out) and a kitchen, where Nancy comes in on Tuesdays and Wednesdays to prepare everything from scratch except tortillas, chips and cheese. Those three items are purchased from a commercial firm that supplies many local Mexican restaurants with products.

Mexico’s often-underappreciated cuisine has Aztec roots, particularly in its use of corn. That staple, dried and ground, is the basis of the tortilla — Mexico’s daily bread that is eaten as it comes from the griddle or transformed into tacos, enchiladas, chalupas, flautas or crisp chips for scooping up dips, guacamole, etc. Chilies and chocolate were two other Aztec delicacies. Conquistadors in the 16th and 17th centuries became so enamored of Mexican foods such as tomatoes, peppers and chocolate that they carried them back to Europe, where they have become staples of Continental cuisine ever since.

Everything at Caliente is delicious, but some of the most popular dishes are: quesadillas stuffed with cheeses and your choice of chicken and spinach or veggies ($5.75); burritos stuffed with beans, rice and your choice of ground beef, shredded pork or veggies with sour cream and salsa ($5.95); and chipolte chicken — tender chicken in a creamy smoked jalapeno sauce ($8.99). There are always rotating daily specials, and you can call in advance to find out what they are.

“I just love preparing this food,” said Nancy. “If I didn’t, it would just be a job, and if all I wanted was a job, there are other things I could be doing that would bring in a lot more money. I keep doing it, though, because I enjoy it so much. And it’s important that I make all sauces from scratch — no mixes — and that the food is healthy. I use no lard, only olive oil and canola oil, lean cuts of meat, do not cover everything in cheese and even have lots of vegan choices.” (Nancy has been influenced by her daughter, Francesca, 15, who has been a vegan for a year-and-a-half because of her love for animals.)

Caliente also does catering and even catered a wedding for 80 people, but Nancy does not do much to promote the catering “because I don’t want to have to work every Saturday night and Sunday morning.” She is also frequently asked, “When are you going to open a restaurant?” Her reply: “I have a teenage daughter, so I do not want to be in a restaurant all the time. And even if I were, there are no guarantees the food would taste as good. There would be half a dozen people in the kitchen making food, not just me.”

Nancy has an assistant, Rosaleen McGill, a Chestnut Hill resident and Philadelphia Community College student. A graduate of Jenks Elementary School, Rosaleen and her five older brothers and sisters have all worked in the Chestnut Hill Farmers Market.

Like many others in the food and restaurant business, Nancy recently had to raise some prices because of the skyrocketing cost of flour, meat, sugar and other staples. “But you can still pay less than $20 here for two freshly made dinners,” she said, “and that’s still a pretty darned good deal.”