KARLA SENTIES SILVA
Karla is 32 years old. A native of Mexico, she speaks Spanish, French, English and Italian (“a little…”). Today she is celebrating the second birthday of the magazine that she manages which has just published its 12th issue, “Savor & Arte”. A dream which is a little wild, but very real!
K.S.S.: “Like a lot of other people I think, everything started when I was very little: a daddy in the restaurant business, the love for all sorts of pastries, at 12, I learned a micro-wave oven recipe (she laughs)! I decided to become a professional in Hotel management, but the offers in Mexico were not very developed. I joined the school in 2000. The training there was the most pertinent: a complete pedagogical approach, up to date equipment, prestigious chefs yet very attentive to our needs, a cosmopolitan student body, all of this with Paul Bocuse as President…Not to mention the prestigious internship opportunities…”
K.S.S.: “Well, I arrived with a precise project. It was hard not to miss, during my orientation research in Mexico, the lack of any press materials in this universe. I had the wild dream to produce the first specialized magazine of its kind in my country. After a first successful experience in the gastronomic restaurant “Villa des Lys” in the Majestic in Cannes, I really acquired confidence in myself.
In my second internship, I executed my projects: Thanks to chef Pascal Molines, I entered Thuriès,a gastronomic magazine, where the editor had me discover all of the different posts. I played the young journalist during six months, accompanying the photographers, becoming familiar with typesetting, interviewing…Thanks to the entire team, I could imagine the lay-out that I decided to baptize “Savor & Arte”. It started to really take form.”
K.S.S.: “No, this was followed by some serious doubts. I worked for a while in order to chase away the demons and to turn this fear into a driving force. It was only after several months that I spoke to my contacts in Mexico again and started to present the project. After this, everything went really quickly. In December 2004, the first issue was published. At first, we made a lot of diffusions and promotions. As this was a first in Mexico, we needed to find our public. Thanks to the Ambassadors of Lyon, the idea of a partnership Lyon-Mexico worked out and the revue took off, even with the general public. Without saying that we are completely out of danger, this is an exciting human adventure: Savor & Arte employs 12 people full time and prints 10,000 copies. My job as editor is full time, if not more (laughs). Having said that, it is a dream comes true…”
K.S.S.: “Of course, returning to cooking that I don’t even have the time to do anymore, for example. Creating a restaurant could be very complimentary, especially as a partnership. Everything is possible as long as you know how to create opportunities and take advantage of your network, and the Institut Paul Bocuse is one of them…Consider this as a call for projects to all the future entrepreneurs at the Institut!”
