Promoting Mexican food through cooking: Rick Bayless new restaurant in Chicago

After succeeding with his Mexican restaurants Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, American chef Rick Bayless has just launched a new restaurant -aplty named Xoco (Aztec name for "litte sister" -whcib Xoco is sitting at the corner of Frontera and Topolobampo), to introduce Mexican sandwiches and sweets to Americans.

Thanks to Bayless constant promotion of Mexican cuisine through his two other restaurants and his Cable TV show Mexico: one plate at a time -filmed in different locations throughout Mexico-



Xoco has been a huge success, with lines of customers waiting for a taste of what probably Mexicans take for granted.

Bayless enthusiasm for Mexican food and culture knows almost no limits and contagiates viewers and his own personnel -that spends one month a year in Mexico, training and learning new dishes.

How can we use this example for our PII projects in 2010?

Ecotourism: transforming natural capital into social and intellectual capital

This year documentarist Ken Burns produced a series of 5 films for television -Public Broadcasting System PBS- that are a good example of how art can attract tourism and support to promote, develop and also protect natural capital.

United States National Parks system started with pioneers John Muir and Gifford Pinchot included the development of lodges and touristic circuits as well as scenic roads and tourism and conservationism education.

Artists like photographer Ansel Adams -who captured the ravishing beauty of Yosemite with his photographies and introduced it to millions of Americans-, literally "opening their eyes" to the park and luring them to come and to preserve it at the same time through conservationist groups such as the Sierra Club

Or painter Georgia O'Keefe, who came to New Mexico from New York and built their home and studio there for 50 years, converting cities such as Taos and Santa Fe into art centers and developing communities and housing development following her art and the local traditions of adobe homes.

<O'Keefe and Adams collaborated also in promoting Taos

That created a style of housing and development that is today a prized characteristic of the town -Taos homes can command 500,000 dollar plus prices because of the appreciation generated by artists like O'Keefe and Adams-

How could we apply these lessons and examples to our PII projects?