Vanquishing the guilt but not the gusto is the specialty of personal chef Carolina Figueredo. Her knowledge of healthy cooking derives from her informal partnership with her son Vincent, a cardiologist at Lovelace Health Systems in Albuquerque. Together they hash out recipes and cooking practices for preparing heart-healthy Mexican meals topped off with a glass of wine or a beer.

Cooking delicious meals is a way of life for Carolina and a reflection of her Italian-Norwegian roots. Growing up in inner-city Cleveland, where her Italian father was an ironworker, Carolina watched her Norwegian grandmother entertain with lavish smorgasbords. When Carolina was 10, the family moved to Tampa; most meals those days, even breakfast, included fish caught by her father. Carolina remained a busy cook as the mother of four sons. She became especially interested in healthful cooking when a family member developed diabetes.

Over the years Carolina cooked for friends as well as family members and sometimes catered. She moved to New Mexico in 1997; in 2002 she made her avocation “official” by joining the United States Personal Chef Association and starting her own business, Carolina’s Cookin’. Although she limits her personal cooking to just two or three families a week, Carolina also does some catering. On weekends, she runs Carolina’s Café in the small airport in Belen, a town just south of Albuquerque. There her flying customers include celebrities as well as ordinary people who drop in—from the sky—for fuel and food.

As for the family cardiologist, Vincent’s culinary interest includes not only food but also spirits. After graduating from medical school at Columbia University, Vincent conducted research at the University of California, San Francisco, to identify potential benefits of alcohol on the heart. Moderate drinking, Vincent found, decreases the risk of heart attack because it thins blood and lowers bad and increases good cholesterol. (Anyone who has had a problem with alcohol or refrained from drinking in the past, however, should not start drinking purely for heart health. Be sure to consult your physician about consuming alcohol.)

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