Bayless, Rick

Rick Bayless (1953–) refers to himself as a “gringo from Oklahoma,” yet he has become one of America’s leading emissaries of Mexican cuisine thanks to his odyssey as an award-winning chef, restaurateur, author, TV personality, salsa manufacturer, and teacher. Bayless was born in Oklahoma City in 1953 into the fourth generation of a family of restaurateurs and food people. His great-grandparents were the first grocers in the state of Oklahoma, and his parents ran the family barbecue restaurant. Bayless demonstrated his own culinary bent when, on his tenth birthday, he asked his parents to buy him Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking.