From Pediatrician to Culinary Host: Isabel García: A Life Of Care, Resilience, And Culture

By Judith Jenya

In the welcoming kitchens of San Miguel de Allende, visitors from around the world gather to learn the secrets of traditional Mexican cooking from a woman whose life has been defined by caring for others. Long before she began teaching travelers how to prepare family recipes, Isabel García built a career as a pediatrician, hospital administrator, widow’s advocate, and mother of three. Her story begins in México City, where she was born the eldest of four sisters. “The youngest is 15 years younger than me,” she recalls. Responsibility came early. When she was just 16, her father died suddenly after a brief illness believed to be cancer. Within six months, he was gone. His death changed the family overnight. Her mother stepped in to manage the family’s lumber business in the state of Guerrero, the operation alone. Eventually her mother sold the lumber operation and continued working in a wood shop in México City, supporting the family while her eldest daughter helped raise the younger sisters.

Despite the hardship, education remained central. She completed her schooling in México and entered the prestigious National Autonomous University of México,  known as UNAM, to study medicine. Later she specialized in pediatrics at the Instituto Nacional de Pediatría.

Love eventually redirected the course of her life. While studying pediatrics, she met a fellow medical student who was two years ahead of her. After many invitations she finally agreed to go out with him. The relationship blossomed, and the two married. Because her husband was from Guadalajara, the couple settled there, where their three children were born.,

When her first child was about to be born, she made a decision many professional women struggle with: she stepped away from her career to raise her family. For 11 years she devoted herself to motherhood.“I am very grateful I had those years with my children.” But tragedy struck again. After nearly 13 years of marriage, her husband died suddenly at home from a brain aneurysm. Their children were just 10, 8, and 5 years old. She returned a pediatric practice, opening consultations in her late husband’s office. Yet grief filled the room. “The mothers were crying. I was crying. Everyone was in grief.”

She turned her experience into advocacy. Along with other widows, she founded an association to support women and children coping with loss. The organization developed programs to help grieving children in schools, educate teachers and families about grief, and create employment opportunities for widowed mothers.

Eventually she relocated to San Miguel de Allende in 2011, building a home on land her mother had purchased years earlier for her daughters. While living there, she commuted daily to Querétaro to serve as a clinical director at Hospital Ángeles. She then became the director of Hospital H+, the predecessor to Hospital Joya. A former patient, me, later introduced her to Ric McBrier and they later married.

Later she helped launch a hemodialysis clinic with Médica Santa Carmen in San Miguel. After decades in medicine, she retired—but retirement didn’t mean slowing down. A trip to Italy sparked an unexpected new chapter. While visiting Bologna, she and her husband took a cooking class through “Traveling Spoon” in a local woman’s home. The experience—preparing pasta together and sharing a meal with the family—left a deep impression. Returning home to SanMiguel she contacted “Traveling Spoon”, a global platform that connects travelers with home cooks around the world. She applied and soon began hosting small cooking classes in her San Miguel kitchen. Her class is titled, “Pre-Hispanic Cooking Class with a Mexican Grandmother” and uses ingredients used in cooking in México for 10,000 years. Her style is relaxed and intuitive. “The kitchen is like life,” she says. “You open the refrigerator, see what is inside, and imagine what to cook.”

Guests learn traditional dishes passed down through generations—recipes from her grandmother, mother, and aunts. But beyond ingredients and techniques, she sees cooking as something deeper. “To cook is to give love,” she says. “And I am proud to share my culture and traditions through food.”

Her classes typically host between two and eight guests, often travelers who discover her through online platforms or word-of-mouth recommendations. While she could expand the business, she prefers keeping it small. “If it becomes an obligation, I won’t enjoy it the same way,” she says. After a lifetime spent healing patients, raising a family, and building institutions, she has found joy in something simpler: welcoming strangers into her home and sharing a meal.

And in her kitchen, as in her life, care remains the central ingredient.

Contact Isabel at 415 154 6080 Isabel.gabage@gmail.com