The plot of this movie is a Hispanic version of Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), about an aging widower chef who raised three daughters alone, both being written by Ang Lee. Even the opening crisis, the restaurant previously run by the chef has ruined the main feature of a huge banquet and he is called in to save the day, is the same.
The food that Martin Naranjo (Hector Elizondo) cooked was prepared by Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger who run restaurants in Los Angeles, California and Las Vegas, Nevada.
The three poems that Leticia's (Elizabeth Peña's) "secret admirer" sends her are "To His Coy Mistress" by Andrew Marvell, "Her Face, Her Tongue, Her Wit" by Arthur Gorges, and "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" by Robert Herrick. The last note is from Titania's speech in Act III, Scene 1 of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream".
"Naranjo" is Spanish for "Orange Tree".
The dish Martin makes in a wheel of cheese is a bread and cucumber salad created by the food stylist for the film, Mary Sue Feniger, served in a wheel of panela cheese.