Growing up in Chennai, I felt like I could tell time based on when hot drinks were served in our house. The city is famed for its coffee, blended with chicory root and poured into glasses in dramatic foot-long streams, but ours was a tea household. My parents' Guzzini mugs would come out promptly at 6:30 a.m. and once more at 4 p.m., the time I, with my mandated mug of milk,
Known as pan de elote or pastel de elote, this sweet Mexican cornbread-some might even say corn cake-is a staple on the dessert menu at Komal in LA, one of our Best New Restaurants of 2025. Chef Fátima Juárez has built a menu around heirloom corn nixtamalized and ground in-house. Her pan de elote recipe combines white heirloom corn and house-made rice flour, paying homage to her Jacona, Michoacán-born grandmother and the long, storied tradition of pan dulce in Mexico.
