Pati Jinich was a political analyst at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington, D.C., before she became a Emmy-nominated chef and cookbook author. So her primetime PBS culinary docuseries "La Frontera with Pati Jinich," which uses food to showcase stories of the "fronterizos" who live on the U.S.-Mexico border, seems a natural progression.
Yet it was what the Mexico City native didn't know about her homeland that actually inspired the TV series, which was to premiere its second season April 3.
The official chef of the Mexican Cultural Institute since 2007, Jinich has always been intrigued by the history and politics of the Mexican people. Still, it was only after several years of doing her PBS show, "Pati's Mexican Table," and writing three cookbooks that she recognized how much more she still had to learn about the country she grew up in.
