In her novel "Like Water for Chocolate" released in 1989, Esquivel uses magical realism to combine the ordinary and the supernatural, with narrative devices similar to those used by Cuban author Alejo Carpentier as "el real maravilloso" and by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez and Chilean author Isabel Allende. Como agua para chocolate is set during the Mexican Revolution of the early twentieth Century and features the importance of the kitchen and food in the life of its female protagonist, Tita. The novel is structured as a year of monthly issues of an old-style women's magazine containing recipes, home remedies, and love stories, and each chapter ("January," "February," "March," etc.) opens with the redaction of a traditional Mexican recipe followed by instructions for preparation. Each recipe recalls to the narrator a significant event in the protagonist's life.