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When Andréa Lawson Gray felt her career as a working chef was winding down, she wondered what her next chapter would be.
“Being a chef is so physically taxing,” the San Francisco Mission District resident said. “I thought, ‘Maybe I can be a cookbook writer.’”
(Ron Armstrong)
Her thinking was correct, and now she has the ultimate validation: A cookbook she co-wrote with chef Rogelio Garcia, “Convivir: Modern Mexican Cuisine in California’s Wine Country,” just won a James Beard Award, often referred to as the “culinary Oscars.”
“I made that happen from an idea in my head. That’s the way I live my life,” she told J. a week later. “It’s about manifesting what you think is possible.”
The recipes in the book are mostly Garcia’s, or a collaboration between the two. She contributed the mole part of the recipe for Pistachio-Crusted Duck Breasts with Black Cherry Mole.
It’s all the more impressive considering that Gray, 71, attended neither college nor culinary school. She’s incredulous that her book beat “Eleven Madison Park: The Plant-Based Chapter” by Daniel Humm, which costs $275 and in Gray’s estimation “is the most beautiful book I’ve ever seen.”
“In this last third of my life, I’m achieving things I didn’t have the time or space for earlier,” she said. “I was a single mom with three kids, with no time or space for me. It’s really important for women, for anyone really but especially for women, if you’re blessed with good health and able to be really productive, to counter the narrative of being old and withering away. I’m really proud of what life can be like when you’re 65-plus.”
Originally from the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Gray was raised in a secular family, where the only Jewish holiday they observed was Passover. After she became a mother herself, she felt a yearning to connect with her Jewish heritage. She believes in living a life guided by doing mitzvot (good deeds) and Jewish ethics.
“It impacts my work in giving voice to underrepresented cuisines,” she said. “As a white person with a gift for writing, being able to write stories for those who don’t have the ability to tell their own stories is doing good work.”
Gray has had a long and varied career. She once owned an Asian fusion restaurant in New York. She began her career in marketing. She owned a drywall and tile business.
It was through some of her workers at the drywall business that she first fell in love with Mexican food. She pursued that interest to Tenango del Valle, Mexico, connecting with the family of one of her workers and spending time in their matriarchal kitchens.
“They killed a wild turkey for me, and made mole and homemade tortillas, and I was smitten,” said Gray, who before that had a pretty basic California understanding of Mexican food.
“My great-grandmother was a Ukrainian Jew, and in retrospect, I think it was that lineage and reaching back to the ancestors. It made me want to learn the old way of doing things,” she said. “Mexican cuisine is so complex and wonderful, and there’s always so much to learn.”
Following her curiosity, she wrote a column about the Bay Area’s Mexican food scene for the San Francisco Examiner for about five years. In 2013, she co-authored with Adriana Almazán Lahi an academic book about Mexican food called “Celebraciones Mexicanas: History, Traditions and Recipes.”
How does she take on the voice of her collaborating chef? “It’s such an intimate relationship. It’s really tricky because you really have to be able to see through someone else’s eyes.”
For many years Gray had been interested in writing a cookbook about modern Mexican cuisine, but she said it was nearly impossible to get a book deal on her own without a social media following or public platform. Meanwhile, she worked as a personal chef and cooked elevated Mexican cuisine, often for small dinner parties.
In 2017, she organized a benefit dinner to raise funds for undocumented people in the DACA program, also known as “Dreamers.” Established by President Barack Obama, it lifted the threat of deportation on those who came to the U.S. as minors. President Trump in his first term rescinded the program. While Dreamers could apply one more time to renew their benefits, it now required a $495 fee.
For Gray, this was personal. Her son’s partner was a DACA recipient from Peru. “I also knew a ton of undocumented people through my work, and I understood how these high-end dinners we do could be used as a tool,” she said.
Organized in collaboration with chef Tracy Des Jardins of Jardinère (now closed), the dinner was a success, raising nearly $10,000. It’s also where Gray met Garcia, today the chef of Auro at the Four Seasons in Napa Valley. Garcia is a former “Top Chef” contestant and also a Dreamer.
A few years later, Gray approached him about co-writing a cookbook. “Convivir” is groundbreaking in that it’s about Mexican cuisine and technique through the lens of Bay Area ingredients.
At the same time, it tells Garcia’s personal story about what it’s like to be a chef in fine dining restaurants as a DACA recipient.
“When his application was taking a long time to process, and he was not allowed to go to work, he had so much anxiety and couldn’t use that time productively,” she said. And the anxiety continues, albeit in a different form. Unlike chefs of Mexican descent with full legal status, he is afraid that if he goes to Mexico on a food research trip, he could be prevented from returning.
Next up for Gray is “Caribbean Cocktails: Mixed Drinks and Bites from the Afro-Latino Diaspora,” which she co-authored with Oakland chef Nelson German and will be published in 2026 by Ten Speed Press. She said she’s in talks with other chefs about co-writing their cookbooks.
Below is a recipe from “Convivir.”
Pistachio-Crusted Duck Breasts with Black Cherry Mole
Adapted from “Convivir”
Makes 4 servings
- 4 duck breast halves, preferably Liberty Ducks brand
Mole
- 4 chipotle meco chiles
- 4 ancho chiles
- 4 pasilla chiles
- 1 star anise
- 6 Tbs. unhulled white sesame seeds
- 2 slices Spanish white onion, each ¼-inch thick
- 4 cloves garlic
- 6 to 8 tomatillos, husks discarded and rinsed
- 4 to 6 Tbs. olive oil, for toasting the nuts and seeds, plus ¼ cup to ½ cup for cooking the mole
- ¼ cup sliced almonds
- ¼ cup pepitas
- ¼ cup pecan pieces
- 2 Tbs. pistachios
- 4 to 5 cups chicken or duck stock (see note)
- 4 cups pitted fresh or thawed frozen black cherries
- ¼ cup coarsely ground 70 percent cacao dark chocolate, preferably Dandelion Camino Verde
- About ¼ cup grated piloncillo (or brown sugar)
- 1½ tsp. kosher salt
- 1 corn tortilla, if needed
Pistachio crust
- Canola oil, for deep-frying
- 3 dinosaur (Tuscan) kale leaves, stems and ribs removed
- ½ cup pistachios, toasted and finely chopped
- Grated zest of 4 lemons
- Kosher salt
- ½ cup honey
Place the duck breasts, skin side up, on a small sheet pan or large plate and refrigerate uncovered for 48 hours. This step dries out the skin, which helps it become crispier when cooked.
To make the mole: Place a comal (preferred) or griddle over high heat. Have ready a large bowl of water. When the comal or griddle is very hot, toast the chipotle chiles on the first side until charred (do not allow to burn). (Use a bacon press or metal spatula to make sure the entire chile is touching the hot surface.) Flip and char on the second side. The chiles will start to puff up. Transfer the chiles to the bowl of water, making sure they are submerged. Repeat with the ancho chiles and the pasilla chiles. Let the chiles sit in the water for about 20 minutes, or until softened.
While the chiles soak, add the star anise to the comal and toast until fragrant, then transfer to a blender. Next, toast the sesame seeds. Watch them closely, and as soon as they start to jump, transfer them to the blender.
Continue working with the hot comal, first charring the onion slices on both sides and then the garlic. Add them to the blender.
Finally, char the tomatillos on all sides. They will turn from bright to paler green when done. Transfer them to the blender.
Select a large cast-iron skillet (this will allow space for the nuts and seeds to spread out in a single layer and toast more or less evenly) and place over medium-high heat. Pour in enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan — about ¼ cup — and heat the oil until it is hot. When the oil is ready, add the almonds and toast them, turning them as needed, until they begin to color, then scoop them out and add to the blender.
Toast the pepitas, pecans and pistachios the same way, adding them to the blender as they are ready. Be sure to remove all residual bits of seeds or nuts before adding the next batch, as the burned bits will make the oil taste burned. If needed, add a little more oil between batches, as some of the oil will end up in the blender as you scoop out the nuts and seeds. Add any of the residual oil, which now is full of flavor, to the blender jar.
Next, scoop the chiles out of the water (they should be soft and pliable) and remove and discard the stems. Then, remove the seeds from the chiles and reserve the seeds and the chile water (it’s fine if there are seeds in the chile water). Add the chiles to the blender.
You may need to blend the mole in two batches, depending on the size of your blender. Add 4 cups of the stock, the cherries, chocolate, piloncillo and salt to the blender and blend well, starting on low speed and gradually increasing the speed to high. You want a perfectly smooth mole. Taste for salt, sweetness, and spice and balance as needed with more salt, more piloncillo (the amount you will need will depend on the sweetness of the cherries), and the chile seeds and water for additional spice. Continue tasting and blending until you achieve the desired result.
The mole should have the consistency of a thickish pancake batter. Making mole is part art and part science. If your mole is too thin, use tongs to hold the tortilla directly over a lit gas burner on your stovetop until it burns around the edges and has a few burnt spots in the center, then tear it into pieces, add to the blender, and blend until smooth. (If you don’t have a gas stove, use a comal or dry cast-iron pan and overcook your tortilla until it starts to burn around the edges.) If your mole is too thick, add more stock and blend again.
To cook the mole: Pour ¼ inch of oil into a cazuela or other wide, shallow pot and heat over medium-high heat until the oil ripples or smokes very slightly. Keep a splatter screen nearby and add the mole to the hot oil. If needed, rinse the blender with some leftover stock to get every last bit and add it to the cazuela. Lower the heat to a simmer and cook for 15 to 20 minutes. As the mole cooks, use a large wooden spoon to stir it occasionally, being sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the pot and to stir in any oil that collects around edges as you do. The mole will darken slightly as it cooks, and it is ready when it coats the back of the spoon — the classic test for the correct mole thickness. If the mole is too thin, continue cooking until you have achieved the desired consistency. Remove from the heat and set aside until needed. You should have about 2 quarts. You will need only about 2 cups for the duck breasts. The remainder will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
To make the pistachio crust: Pour the oil to a depth of 2 inches into a deep skillet or sauté pan (no more than half full) and heat to 350°F. Line a plate with paper towels and set it near the stove. Dry the kale leaves well to avoid splatters. When the oil is ready, one at a time, add the kale leaves to the hot oil and fry, making sure they are submerged in the oil and moving them around gently so they emerge evenly crisp, for about 1 minute, or until they darken slightly. Transfer the leaves to the paper towels to drain and let cool completely.
Finely chop the cooled kale leaves and transfer them to a small bowl. Add the pistachios and lemon zest, season with salt and mix well. Pour the mixture onto a flat plate or small sheet pan, shaking the plate or pan to create a thin, even layer. Set aside.
To cook the duck breasts, first score the skin in a crisscross pattern, being careful not to cut into the flesh. Season the breasts with salt. Put the breasts, skin side down, in a large heavy skillet or sauté pan and place over medium-low heat. (If you don’t have a pan large enough to hold all the breasts, use two pans.) Cook, pressing down on the breasts with a bacon press or metal spatula from time to time to create good contact between the breasts and the pan, for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the fat renders, allowing the skin to become golden brown and crispy. Flip the duck breasts and cook on the meaty side for 1 to 2 minutes, or until browned, taking care not to overcook. The breasts should be medium-rare.
Transfer the breasts to a plate and let rest for 10 minutes before proceeding with the crust. Reheat about 2 cups of the mole until piping hot. Once the duck breasts have rested, using a pastry brush, brush the skin side of each breast with the honey. One at a time, turn each breast skin side down onto the crust mixture, press gently to adhere, and then turn the breast right side up on a cutting board.
Cut each duck breast in half, plate the duck breasts on four individual plates, and either smother in the mole or offer the mole on the side.
Note: To make the mole vegetarian, substitute vegetable stock for the chicken or duck stock.