'Crossing South' To Continue Exploring Tijuana, Northern Baja In Sixth Season

This is KPBS Midday Edition I am Maureen Cavanaugh. The culture and culinary boom in Baja continues and Jorge is following every next big thing. He is the host. We spoke with Mike Lipkin about the places and people featured on the show. Here is the interview. Is Here is causing some post Jorge. It is great to be her. This is your sixth season and one of your goals has been to demystify northern Baja. What you have left. I think the safety issue seems to be a concern for people who have never crossed South. They need to be handheld and I think this show kind of does that. We hope to do that by showing them all these situations day in and day out we have such a long list of things we have not done it that I really don't know if the show whatever and. Some people even locals learn the things that you can do in Baja. They even ask me are you guys running out of stuff today. The truth is we are not even close. The place that has no more inconveniences than anywhere you are thinking of traveling outside of the US but it is close and it has very unique experiences that you can have You mentioned that you want to has seen an increase in violence lately by some reports there were nearly 900 homicides in 2016 which made that one of the deadliest years of the decade. I am wondering whether that has affected what you tell people about visiting the city. Normally those kinds of things are regionalized by areas. I can tell you somebody who is here constantly and even doing our show. I would not put my crew and my producers in a situation where they could be in danger. I think every city in the world that is a metropolis that is large and has growing pains and especially one that is here and geographically located is a corridor where drugs are smuggled into the US is going to have issues like any other city. These are things that are not happening everywhere in town especially with tourists echoing. San Diego is known for really vibrant community but when you look at Tijuana's piercing what did you learn and how is San Diego insulin incident. The comfort of her claim to be the big brother of whatever happens in Baja. The closeness to the San Diego Brewers and I will say the willingness of San Diego Brewers to help their counterparts in two of these fledgling players who mean nothing to them. Some of the kids will start up in my mom's kitchen who now have established a is this is how much they have influenced Tijuana and Baja because there are things that are amazing. They went from a zero player in the craft beer scene in Mexico to basically number one. Their winning awards in Mexico now because of the influence and then taken under the wing and willing to show them the ropes. In the beginning the craft beers that are coming up there trying to imitate the beers as hoppy and bitter as with the help that they are starting to find their own identity they are taking a little bit of what they like and creating their own Baja craft beer which is really good and one of the things we showcase is basically complex at fiesta used to be akin to a mall of clubs. Instead of being a mall of shops was for just go in and getting drunk with chief beer. That place was totally transformed and has become the Mecca Baja artist and craft beer. Every single club that was there has been turned into a brewery so it has become the go to place Suffered anybody that was craft beer that will be a go to place. You are not even close to playing with Baja. Kenny give us a sneak preview. Tijuana is constantly evolving and the reason why is I don't know if I can attributed to the generation X for the millennial's but it is a city that have no identity. It was simply older immigrants opened the typical restaurants and that seems to be perpetual for the city but then Tijuana became world aware and becoming aware of foods taste styles and cultures and there is an entrepreneurial spirit in the city with these kids are realizing they do not have to be. I saw this style there. There is a gentleman and you will see the episode in the season he is and Indian national found himself in Tijuana and saw that there is no Indian restaurants. Opened the first Indian restaurant in the history of Tijuana like five years ago. Things that you take for granted. Tijuana did not have that. They're starting to not only bring things they are learning about internationally they are creating fusions. Happening with migrant communities and new generations and how they can adapt to the local cuisine up at the touch of what is their ethnicity. Because there is no rules in Baja there's no traditions to follow their doing with a lot. There is no limits as to where to go. Thank you so much.