PRESTON HOLLOW’S INTERNET STAR

‘THE FRUGAL CHEF’ ADDS TEXAS TWIST TO SOUTH AMERICAN AREPAS

By ELISSA CHUDWIN / Photos by KATHLEEN KENNEDY

THOUSANDS OF SUBSCRIBERS and 40 million views isn’t enough for Mary Ann Allen to consider herself a YouTube sensation.

Allen wasn’t seeking internet fame when she branded her online personality as The Frugal Chef nine years ago. She created her blog and YouTube channel after she entered a Food Network video contest on a whim. Allen didn’t place in the competition, but it sparked her interest in creating videos.

“I thought, ‘I can show people how to cook healthy, easy, inexpensive food,’ ” she says.

The channel and its Spanish counterpart, La Cocina Frugalista, are popular in places that Allen never anticipated.

When her husband introduced himself to a man at an airport in Vanautu, the man immediately asked if he was related to The Frugal Chef.

It’s funny for Allen, whose entrepreneurial spirit guided her to running a spa in Bolivia, a deli in New Hampshire and a real estate business in California. Her latest project is Arepa TX, a Preston Hollow-based restaurant that fuses Venezuelan-style arepas — corn cakes typically filled with meat, vegetables or cheese — with familiar flavors like barbecue brisket or chicken tinga.

Her son, Jammil Handal, and daughter-in-law, Susana Arce, pitched the idea to Allen while she was living in Guam. They wanted to be the first to introduce arepas to Dallas.

Allen packed up her belongings and moved in with her family, where they spent six months experimenting with recipes that incorporate flavors from many of the places she has lived.

“When I created the menu, because it’s such a new product, I didn’t want it to be a full education,” Allen says. “It’s Texas friendly.”

The majority of the restaurant’s offerings are gluten-free, and they serve a few American staples for picky eaters. Allen also concocts homemade custard pops for dessert and champagne cocktails for brunch.

Running the restaurant and maintaining her website hasn’t yet made her tired of cooking at home. She has a collection of 200 cookbooks, and she jokes she reads them like novels.

“I go to bed thinking about food,” she says. “I wake up thinking about food.”

Dorothy Malone

URSULINE ACADEMY OF DALLAS

Her legacy

Before Dorothy Maloney changed her last name to Malone, bleached her hair blonde or won an Academy Award, she was an SMU student who spent nine years at Ursuline Academy. Malone’s acting career spans four decades and dozens of credits, yet she considered Dallas — not Hollywood — home. She spent most of her life in the city and died in a Preston Hollow assisted living facility in late January. She was 93.

Three things to know

1 Malone attended Ursuline while her parents traveled in search of a cure for her sisters, who both battled polio. After graduating from Highland Park High School, she got her big break at SMU. Her performance in a university production impressed an RKO talent scout, who recommended her for a studio contract.

2 She’s most revered for her role in the 1956 film “Written in the Wind.” Malone received an Oscar for her portrayal of a spoiled nymphomaniac.

3 She believed dyeing her hair blonde in 1954 propelled her career. “I came up with a conviction that most of the winners in this business became stars overnight by playing shady dames with sex appeal,” she said in a 1967 New York Times article. “And I’ve been unfaithful or drunk or oversexed almost ever since — on the screen, of course.”

— ELISSA CHUDWIN

DINING SPOTLIGHT

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DINING SPOTLIGHT enchiladasrestaurants.com

Like us on Facebook

For Catering Call The Fiesta Line 214.691.1390

Voted by Advocate Readers as Best Date Night in Lake Highlands

Come Enjoy Our Resort Style Big Brunch Buffet Every Sunday from 10AM-2PM.

Sunday, March 25 – 10:55 a.m.

Procession of Palms Worship Service

Friday, March 30 – 8:00 p.m.

Good Friday Tenebrae Service featuring “The Weeping Tree’’ by Joseph Martin

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Children ages 3 – 1st Grade: GODLY PLAY

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