BATAVIA — As a mid-morning session of yoga concluded on the Eli Fish Brewing Co.’s bocce courts, scents of authentic Puerto Rican food wafted through the air.

She entered her family's traditional Puerto Rican baked custard, and she won. The prize was a cookbook, and she still has it, but the true gift was reinforcement for her love of baking.

So Alva used her mom’s culinary talent, plus a generous helping of the recipes of another wise woman, her grandmother, as the starting point for Latin Flavor, the restaurant she and her family ...