COOKING & ENTERTAINING WITH STYLE : Getting to Know You : Entertaining in the New L. A. / <i> Visiting with Joel and Margaret Chen, Yukuo and Akiko Takenaka, Agustin and Maria Garza and Jorge Santos </i>

When Agustin Garza was growing up in Mexico City, he spent most of his time on the streets. He wasn’t a drifter, it’s just that in growing up in a house with five older sisters, he needed to get away.

Garza’s now in Los Angeles, a partner in the corporate design firm of Garza & Labarrere, but the pattern continues.

“Friday nights are sacred,” he says. “That’s the night I go out with the boys. We’ll have dinner and spend a couple of hours talking. It is very important for all of us and we treat it just as we would a business appointment. It is not to be missed.”

If the idea of masculine nights out doesn’t sit too well with some Americans (Garza’s wife, Maria, doesn’t mind), that is one difference between the social world of Mexico and of the United States.

“My wife and I both noticed this when we moved here,” Garza says. “In America, people do everything as couples--the men with the women. When we’re in Mexico, I spend a lot less time with my wife and she spends a lot less time with me. We tend to spend a lot of time with the friends we grew up with or with our families.

“For a young couple in Mexico, there is a lot more social life than there is here and you tend to go out more with your friends--guys go out with the guys, girls go out more with the girls.”

Another major difference between Los Angeles and Mexico City is the hours they’re open.

“In Mexico, we like to stay out late,” Garza says. “I mean, really late. When it’s 2 in the morning, we’re just getting the coffee going. Here, at 11, people are already going cross-eyed.”

And things are much more spontaneous in Mexico, Garza says.

“In this country, we tend to get asked ‘What are you doing next weekend?’ That’s a really tough question. And then, ‘Well, let’s go out for dinner.’ With our friends from Mexico, it’s more likely to be ‘What are you doing tonight?’ and before you know it, you’ve got six or seven people over.”

If they’re going to a concert or movie, they’ll eat out as well--usually in restaurants such as Mandarette or City. But the Garzas tend to do most of their entertaining at home.

Maria Garza is a creative cook who likes to combine the best of Mexican and Californian cuisines. “Really, I didn’t learn to cook until I lived here,” she says. “But I knew what I liked to eat. I guess you could say my cooking is based on that combined with my own creativity.”

Some of her favorite dishes include empanadas stuffed with beef, chile chipotle and cilantro; cold chile rellenos made by stuffing roasted and peeled poblano chiles with tuna, herbs and lettuce and then marinating them in the refrigerator for three days with rice vinegar and onions; and rajas , made with poblano peppers sauteed with spices and crema fresca . An example of a more Californian dish might be baked whole brie served with roasted garlic and sourdough bread.

“We usually have at least one dinner a month at our house and often our friends will bring their friends,” says Agustin Garza. “We have a lot of American friends, but we have lots of European friends and lots of Japanese friends too. And every time we have a party, we like to invite a good bunch of our Mexican friends because we know they’re going to want to stay up late.”