Why Salma Hayek Pinault’s Christmas Dishes Are ‘Once In a Lifetime’ (Exclusive)

“I like to go look at food and come up with a recipe,” the actress and producer tells PEOPLE

Salma Hayek Pinault is just as at home in the kitchen as she is in front of (or behind) the camera.

When the holiday season rolls around, rest assured that the Oscar-nominated actress and producer is cooking, sauteing or stirring something on the stove with her mom, Diana Jiménez Medina.

“My mother and I never cooked for Christmas,” the 57-year-old Mexican-born star tells PEOPLE. “Cooking is how families come together.”

The menu, however, is never the same from year to year.

“I don’t have any recipes,” she continues. “I like to go look at food and come up with a recipe as we go. That’s my special thing. I can improvise if we don’t have the right ingredients. When you have kids, you learn to do that.”

There is only one problem with her tactics. With a few exceptions he knows by heart, most of the dishes he prepares are “once-in-a-lifetime opportunities,” he jokes.

Mariana Treviño and Andrés Almeida in ‘El Sabor de la Navidad’.

Ventanarosa Productions

Food and family play a big role El Sabor de la Navidadthe new Spanish-language film (now streaming on ViX) was produced by Hayek Pinault.

The ensemble drama follows three intertwining stories: two best friends work as Santa impersonators during the season; a demanding chef hires a new assistant; and a transgender woman who reunites with her family for the holidays after a long absence.

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For Hayek Pinault and José Tamez, 58, her production partner of nearly 25 years, films like El Sabor represent their long “good fight” to tell modern, meaningful stories about the Latino community.

“Celebrations based on family and tradition and childhood nostalgia, they’re universal,” Hayek Pinault says of the film. “But we took it and modernized it. That’s what sets it apart as a Christmas movie. It feels very ‘today’. ”

The same can be said for Hayek Pinault’s holiday celebrations, which have evolved since she married French businessman François-Henri Pinault (61) in 2009. Pinault is the chairman and CEO of luxury goods corporation Kering, the parent company of brands such as Gucci and Balenciaga.

Salma Hayek and her saving owl Kering.

Salma Hayek/ Instagram

“I have some new traditions and some old traditions because when you get married you have two families,” says Hayek, who was raised with her younger brother, furniture designer Sami, in Coatzacoalcos, Mexico, and was raised by Sami Hayek Dominguez, an oil company executive. and Jiménez Medina, opera singer.

Find out more about Salma Hayek Pinault in the new issue of PEOPLE magazine.

Salma Hayek congratulated her husband François-Henri Pinault on his birthday in a sweet post: ‘My warmth, my strength’

Hayek Pinault has a 16-year-old daughter Valentina with Pinault, and she is also stepmother to his children François (25) and Mathilde (22) (with ex-wife Dorothée Lepère), and Augustine (17) (with model Linda Evangelista).

With her blended family and relatives around the world, the actress is happily expanding the holiday season into a multi-day affair.

“Every year we celebrate one Christmas with my Mexican family and one Christmas with my French family,” explains Hayek Pinault.

He jokes that one of them is “fake” because it is not celebrated on December 25th. “But it feels very real to us,” he quickly adds. “It’s just another day.”

El Sabor de la Navidad now streaming on ViX.

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education