Two First-Generation Mexican-American Creators Use Home Cooking to Rebuild Community

The useful part

08:00 A particular kind of magic happens when the smell of chilies, cinnamon, and pineapple drifts through an apartment. For Fabrizio Villalpando, it's the smell of childhood—and the scent he's carrying next door to celebrate his vecinos. In Los Angeles, Jon Dillanes—better known online as Hrna Eatz —is doing the same: cooking a Latine-culture-inspired meal and bringing it to next-door friends, the perfect excuse to knock and spend time together.

How it works

• Both are first-generation Mexican-American creators whose work returns to the same idea: food is an excuse to gather people around a table and connect.
• He spends his days making his favorite foods, sharing recipes with his digital audience, and inviting brave followers to cook along.
• Watching chefs work planted something in him: cooking was cool, an art form worth pursuing.
• "Every single time I go out to restaurants, I'm like, how do I make this at home?" Moving to LA cracked the world open for him.
• "Koreans use SPAM in a lot of dishes," he says—and that's how he fell for it.

What to take from it

"I love learning about the world through the lens of food, because it teaches you a lot about our cultures, our history. "When you're working in a restaurant, you kind of get rewarded with eating a lot of food, because you're just in the kitchen all the time." He kept at it for nearly a decade, eventually moving into high-end restaurants in Los Angeles. It's about what the food creates," he reflects.

Example or evidence

• Fabrizio started washing dishes at fourteen at a small mom-and-pop restaurant in the Oregon town where he grew up.
• When the pandemic hit, he set out to teach himself, beginning with French classics, Julia Child, and Italian technique before his curiosity pulled him closer to home.
• Cracking eggs, he's quick to point out, was no small task either: not a speck of yolk in the whites, or the meringue won't puff.
• For a long stretch, it was just the two of them—except when people came over.

Details worth keeping

In Their Kitchens, Every Meal Is a Way Back Home. Aksa Lima | Courtesy By Maria Lavandera September 22, 2026. He'll be the first to tell you the job title still makes him smile.

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