Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - My friend Liana Turner is one of the most resourceful people I've ever met - an award-winning chef, baker, caterer, promoter, writer, and single mother. Not one to stay stuck in any kind of rut, Liana is a woman who constantly re-invents herself, and I am so impressed with her ability to be creative in the face of challenges. She also has a wickedly sarondic sense of humor and is a ton of fun.

Liana has a new blog: Liana's SazOn - About The Art of Food and Living Well in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. She is a fine and entertaining writer, funny as hell, and has a lot of experience in how to live well in Mexico. She shares fabulous recipes and interesing information on her blog, and I highly recommend you check it out.

Originally from Seattle, Liana comes from a long line of foragers. A good part of her childhood was spent clam digging, fishing, mushroom hunting, andbasically pulling things out of the ground or the sea, not from economic necessity, but from deeply ingrained culinary needs.

She has spent her working life in a variety of activities, almost all of them having to do with food or wine. She started out in the food business in her parents’ restaurant in Eastern Washington State then on to the San Juan Islands, where she worked and trained in several restaurants, including the Roche Harbor Resort. She spent several seasons working on fishing boats in Washington and Alaska, gillnetting for salmon and longlining for dogfish and halibut.

Liana has “slimed” salmon in a cannery, worked on a piledriver, sold and designed advertising, worked as a Public Relations Director for a winery, spent six months cooking at two airfields and a remote camp in Antarctica, cooked on tugboats in Alaska and as executive chef for luxury yachts in California, Alaska and Costa Rica, and that is just the short list.

In 1995 Liana moved to Yelapa, Jalisco, Mexico, where she worked as a caretaker and manager for guest houses, as well as chef and baker at the Hotel Lagunita, where she focused on Special Events as well as baking and selling famous desserts and breads.

In 1999 she opened her first restaurant, Café Un Mundo, also known as The Slippery Rock Café. The name for the restaurant came from the fact that the trail on which her palapa restaurant was located winds steeply down a hill, with a section right behind her place that was particularly difficult to navigate. From her restaurant, many times a day, one could hear the ubiquitous yelp and thump, as a steady stream of gringoes unfamiliar with the trail landed on their butts. Told you she had a sardonice sense of humor!

A few years after her daughter, Maia, was born, Liana moved to Puerto Vallarta, where she has been enjoying living, cooking, catering and baking ever since. She wrote a weekly food Column, The Irreverent Chef, for the Vallarta Tribune for about three years, starting in 2005, after which she wrote for BanderasNews.com on an occasional basis.

In 2000 Liana started Paradise Bakery and Liana’s Sazon Catering. Her food philosophy is simply to create good food with healthy and fresh ingredients and to make it visually pleasing as well as tasty.

This year she re-invented herself yet again, with the inception of the Lunch Lady Program, with incredibly delicious and healthy lunches delivered Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the Summer at the bargain price of $100 pesos, including delivery.

“Basically, I just love food and cooking, and having been given the gift of the ability to make people happy through food is something that I really appreciate.”

Be sure and check out Liana's SazOn - About The Art of Food and Living Well in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

Liana, You Go Girl!