history

Nov

26

The Guayaba Trees

Garden / history / stories  Posted by / 0 comments

PB260055 1024x768 The Guayaba Trees

Far in the back of the house on Goodwin Avenue was a garden. Well, there were several gardens in that house, but the one to the very back of the property; past the patio and the garage was the vegetable garden. That garden belonged to my Papa (grandfather). There were nopales (cactus) growing against the back wall of the white-painted garage; a membrillo (quince) tree that I had planted with him when I was about two years old; a lemon tree that always seemed full of big, juicy fruit; and two guayaba (guava) trees. There was cilantro, chiles, strawberries, chives, and tomatoes growing in neat rows in one patch and a stand of tall caña a (sugar cane) and corn growing against the back fence that sheltered us from the witch’s house. Really, she was just a mean and nasty old lady who yelled at us over the fence. I have no idea why everyone in the neighborhood called her the witch, but she scared the crap out of all of us.

I loved that garden with it’s strange, but efficient irrigation system of old MJB glass coffee jars that routed the water from the hose neatly down each row. I loved my grandfather’s ingenuity. Two old and re-purposed broom sticks leaned against the lemon tree. My grandfather had attached the curve part of a wire hanger to them and those handy hooks on a stick would bring the highest lemons, tumbling into my basket or apron with just a single twist and pull. Most of all, I loved the guayaba trees.

My grandfather once told me he brought the seedlings of those trees from Mexico many years before. I believed him. I believe he nourished those seedlings with all the love and care he gave everything in that garden. Those trees to me, were a symbol of his love and devotion and I knew he would care for me and keep me safe just as he had those trees all those years ago.

Come the end of September and through the beginning of December those two trees would produce a wealth of delicious guayabas. They smelled musky and the white kids on the school bus would laugh at my full bags of fruit on the bus because they said they smelled like underarms. I didn’t care, through my face burned hotly at their cruel comments. I loved them. The guayabas tasted of my grandparent’s house and love. They were soft, sweet and delicious and I loved the little round ball of edible seeds. There’s nothing like the taste of guayabas and for me, they say Autumn in the way falling leaves do for other people.

I loved bringing in bowls full of the yellow fruit to my grandmother. What we didn’t gobble up fresh off the tree was made into cajeta, ate de guayaba that was later used for empanadas, ponche navideño, and even once, a very pink cake that caused my Aunt Jessie and I so much work to strain the seeds so they didn’t fill the batter. I loved walking into the kitchen and smelling the guayabas ripening in bowls around it. The two trees themselves reminded me of a favorite song of my grandmother’s by Pedro Infante Dos Arbolitos, a song about two trees.

When my mother inherited the house, she let the gardens die including the two trees my grandfather devoted a big chunk of his life to caring for. When I heard from a nephew that the trees had been chopped down, it felt like my grandparents had died all over again.

Every time I see or taste a guayaba, I am transported to that garden that will live on in my memories forever. In that garden, the trees are entwined and represent my Papa and Grandma.

Aug

07

My Grandma’s Avena (Oatmeal)

breakfast / family recipes / history  Posted by / 1 comments

avena1 768x1024 My Grandmas Avena (Oatmeal)

Oatmeal in a Latino home is nothing like oatmeal in other places.  The microwave stuff is just ickygoop nonsense and it just plain grosses me out.  The plain oatmeal I’ve had at restaurants I will never have again because, well it’s just plain boring.  It sits in the bowl all sad kinda looking at you saying, “but I’m healthy.”  Yes it’s healthy and filled with cholesterol reducing fiber.  It’s great for your heart but it’s NOT my grandma’s oatmeal.

That wonderful little house on Goodwin Avenue in Los Angeles was always filled with good smells and flavors.  The flowers, trees and herbs scented the air and the frogs singing in the evenings was magical.  Mornings there were spent under piles of blankets in my Auntie Jessie’s bedroom with the antique oval framed picture of St. Teresa of Avila looking down upon me with sad eyes.  Eventually, the scent of my grandma Lupe cooking would drift in and capture me.  One of the aromas that always got me smiling was the cinnamony goodness of avena or oatmeal.

The oatmeal I grew up with was rich, decadent and almost like a pudding.  My grandmother would pull out her hammered pot with the worn wooden handle, add water and cinnamon (canela) sticks to it and a handful or two of plump, juicy raisins.  The water would boil till it was a deep, dark red and the house was absolutely redolent of cinnamon.  The raisins would plump up huge as they drank in the cinnamon water and start to float up.

avena3 1024x768 My Grandmas Avena (Oatmeal)

When that happened, my grandmother would add in the oats.  She used old-fashioned rolled oats, or a mixture of grains and oats still with lots of fiber that my uncle would bring her from this grain place.  No quicky five minute oats for her.  No, she used the kind that takes at least 20 minutes.  She’d lower the flame on her oatmeal pot and stir in those yummy oats slowly.  They’d simmer away for 20 minutes absorbing all that cinnamon and raisin liquor.  Then came the decadent part.

Grandma Lupe would take a can of evaporated milk and pour that into her simmering pot of avena.  That thick, creamy, almost yellow milk would imbue the oatmeal with an intensely milky flavor and make the texture velvety.  Slowly the oats would bubble, with my grandma stirring carefully so it wouldn’t stick.  She’d had sugar bit by bit until her practiced eyes would tell it it was just right.  She’d then let it simmer, stirring all the while for another five minutes just to make sure that sugar was well blended and not grainy.

There was nothing better than that avena. She’d serve me in a little bowl with fresh milk poured over it and a pat of butter on top.  The first spoonful was super rich, super creamy and all kinds of delicious.  The raisins would burst in my mouth tasting unbelievably, insanely delicious.  I never forgot those mornings, made her avena for my kids almost every day and now, on a lazy Saturday morning am making it for my grandchildren whom I hope will have the same memories of a kitchen filled with love and cinnamony avena simmering in a pot.

avena2 1024x768 My Grandmas Avena (Oatmeal)

Mar

19

Aunt Jessie, Gratitude and the Miracle

history  Posted by / 1 comments

p 00027 Aunt Jessie, Gratitude and the MiracleThis is not a recipe – this is a family story and one of our best yet.  It’s the story of a miracle and one of gratitude for the love and strength our family has had pouring in from all over the world in our time of worry.  It’s a story of a favorite aunt and how we almost lost her.

I’ve had a crazy week.  Flew into LAX from cold, snowy, rainy, muddy Virginia on Sunday to the gorgeous L.A. sun on my face.  Driving with my guy on the 5 freeway and seeing that heart stopping emerald green view in that bit of freeway from Broadway to Stadium way with the windows down and the breeze kissing my skin was a revelation.  I was home!  I travel a lot, go all over but L.A. is home and it always finds ways of surprising me and showing me more of its beauty.

Couple of days into my return home, I get a Tweet from my cousin Maria to give her a call.  Immediately, I got nervous – something was wrong.  A few harried IM’s later, my nervousness was confirmed – something was wrong, very wrong.  My Aunt Jessie (AJ) was desperately ill in the hospital.  They were pretty sure she had cancer that had spread all over her body and reached her kidneys.

Luckily, I was in Glendale at the Starbucks there having coffee.  Coffee forgotten, I packed up my laptop, slung the bag over my shoulder and ran the whole way over to Glendale Memorial.  Stopped only long enough to splash water on my face, catch my breath and compose myself so I could walk in with a smile so as not to scare her.  My heart almost stopped when I saw her lying so frail and tiny on the bed.  She almost didn’t recognize me.  I made light of stuff, joked around and kept her talking till my Aunt Lupita and cousins arrived.

I can’t tell you just how important this aunt is to me, to all of us.  She’s always been special, an amazing blessing to our family.  She taught herself how to sew just so she could make me school clothes.  She was my first best friend, my first imaginary friend because I honestly thought she was a fairy left behind from NeverNeverland.  My cousins, sisters and I played board games with her, rode bikes and loved her.  Aunt Jessie is a high functioning autistic.  We never really knew what exactly was going on with her all the time we were growing up, only that she was special and that we were lucky to have her.  She was quiet and shy and patient with us kids.  She taught us to bake cookies and cakes and how to sew.  She loved video games and books we liked and we thought she was the coolest aunt ever. Each of us has our favorite stories about AJ and we all love her very much. She loved us and taught us more than she will ever know. Important lessons like kindness, tolerance, generosity and a strong sense of community are just a few of the lessons learned from being blessed enough to have her in our lives.
Throughout the day in the hospital, we spoke to nurses, doctors, specialists.  The news wasn’t so good.  She’d lost tons of blood.  They gave her transfusions.  Seven units of blood she got.  We spoke to colorectal surgeons who thought she had a tear in her colon, the words hysterectomy, cancer, radiation, chemo, colostomy bag all were said, each one like a knife in the hearts of my family who gathered around her room.  We saved our tears for the hallways when we sent out of the room during her exams and kept on smiling, laughing and joking when we were in there.  She wanted to go home.  We thought she’d never come home again.  One nurse told me that she’d never seen anything like it – that no one with their blood count so low outside of ICU let alone walking around like my Aunt was before she arrived at the ER.  We’re made of strong stock, but we didn’t think she’d pull through.  We prayed like crazy, got friends praying, lighting candles, Aztec dancing, putting her name in temples.
I went home exhausted, spent and worried.  In the morning, I headed over to the hospital again to find her looking much better.  The blood they had given her had given her some color and she seemed in much better spirits, though still very weak.  I kept notes as the doctors and specialists came in.  We waited for her surgery to happen, then late in the afternoon we heard the amazing news  - the surgery they had planned was cancelled and a new surgery would take its place.  All the problems that she was thought to have had were potentially not happening and it was something completely fixable – a fibroid with necrosis.  For the first time since it happened, we began to hope, really hope that she’d be ok and come home.
AJ Aunt Jessie, Gratitude and the Miracle
During her surgery, we sat in the lobby of the hospital anxiously.  Time passes slowly when you’re waiting.  Then I saw the two most amazing people on the planet – the two color rectal surgeons coming round the corner and they came to us with huge smiles on their faces.  She was going to be 100% better!! It was just a fibroid – a huge one and there were no other problems that they knew of.  They still had to wait for the pathology, but chances were she’d come home the next day!
She’s our miracle, a living breathing miracle and proof that prayers and positive energy work.  To the staff at Glendale Memorial Hospital in Glendale, CA – a huge thank you.  We can’t thank you all enough.  From the paramedics that got her to the ER, the ER staff that cared for her, to Nurse Pat on the 8th floor, Nurses Madonna and Victoria on the 7th floor, Don Octavio who got her safely from one bed to another, Drs. Anaki, Shanassa, Versuk, Garza, Cabrera (probably misspelling half these names), Vlad the joking orderly who brought her back from recovery, you all are wonderful, caring and amazing people that treated my our very special aunt like gold and made her feel not terrified.  We love you all and you’ll always be in our thoughts and prayers.  We can’t possibly express the tremendous gratitude we have for this staff, this hospital and the amazing people in it.  To everyone on Twitter, Facebook, the churches, the dance groups who danced out prayers, the people who lit candles, ran prayer circles, took flowers to the Virgen de Guadalupe, thank you, thank you so much from the bottom of our hearts for your love and healing energy.  We have our aunt home and she’s going to be ok.  She’s our miracle.
**Thanks to my cousin Maria for the pictures.
Mar

08

The Sopes at the Fair

history / stories  Posted by / 0 comments

My grandparents were avidly religious, devout Catholics which meant that my grandmother spent a lot of time working for the little church down the street, Christo Rey.  When I was little, they’d have little tardeadas or late afternoon celebrations.  There were booths where food was sold to make money for the programs at the church, etc.  My grandmother tended a booth and hers was one of the busiest there.  She sold sopes, those wonderful cripsy corn tortillas with the pinched up sides filled with meat, beans and other toppings.

I remember helping make the sopes.  My job was to pinch up the sides of the tortilla, not such an easy job given it was a hot little thing.  My grandmother was make the masa, shape it into little balls and my Auntie Jessie would press them in the tortilla press.  She’d then had a fat little tortilla to my grandmother who would toast it on the griddle or comal till it was well cooked.  The hot sopes would land in a plate near me and my grandfather and we had the job of making the sides.

To create the sides on a sope it has to be hot or it just doesn’t hold up the side very well so you take it and pinch into the hot dough and pinch all the way around till you end up with about a 1/4 inch rim around the tortilla.  I always felt very brave and grown up pinching sopes because the tips of my little fingers would burn with the heat of them.  We kept a little bowl of cold water nearby and I’d dip my fingers into it when I felt them growing too hot.

Over the years, my fingers grew more and more accustomed to it and rather desensitized.  I pinch the sides of a sope without even thinking about it now, but when I was a kid in my grandmother’s kitchen it seemed a very grown up, big girl job that I was very proud to be able to do.

My grandmother and aunts made 100′s of sopes, chopped massive piles of tomatoes, onion and cilantro, shredded head after head of lettuce, cooked enormous pots of beans and meat.  They’d then schlep all that stuff to the church, set up the booth and using a little camping type fire, would immediately start heating the oil to fry the sopes in.

Soon enough there’d be a long line and the tias and my grandma would fry and fill, fry and fill.  I never remember a time when my grandmother’s booth didn’t sell out completely and then we were free to enjoy the event.  Once, there were even voladores that came and sent us all to gasping as they flew round and round the pole tied by just what appeared to be a ribbon.  I remember holding my grandpa’s hand thinking that they would fall and I still remember how he squeezed my hand and smiled down at me with that special smile that always made me feel safe and warm.  He was proud of the voladores, proud of being Mexican and proud of his heritage.

It’s been many, many years since those days of church fairs, sopes, cracked confetti eggs on the heads of my cousins and the music of boleros drifting in and out of the crowds of people in the transformed church parking lot, but the smells, sounds and memories are still as sharp as that first sting of hot dough on my fingers.

Mar

06

Rain

history / stories  Posted by / 0 comments

The rain beats against my window with no rhythm, no rhyme.  At times it is unrelenting, vicious in its determination to get inside.  It batters the windows, rattles them; then frustrated, it takes a breath and prepares for the next assault.  It’s been raining five days now in Los Angeles.  There have been tornado warnings, 65 mph gale winds, hail and rain in buckets enough to generate a Twitter hashtag called #theendoftheworld.  At times the rain is gentle, soothing; the kind of rain that makes one long for Sunday papers in bed, a good book, a cuddle with a loved one or the smell of bacon and coffee drifting upstairs to waken you.

I love that kind of rain, it always propels me to the kitchen, to bake or make soup – the vegetable rich, lemony caldo de pollo that my grandmother made so often.  Brimming with color from corn on the cob, translucent green cabbage, dark green zucchini, bright orange carrots, the pale quarters of onions and the earthy dark of unskinned potatoes.  She’d serve it in a deep bowl over a scoop of red Spanish rice with warm corn tortillas wrapped in a cloth to keep them warm and a half slice of lemon to squeeze over it.  She always did hers a little different, a way I thought special.  To hers, she’d slice up a regular banana, not a plaintain but a banana and add a sprig of mint.  It gave an unusual sweetness to the soup that was distinctly Grandma Lupe.  No one else ate it that way, it was Grandma’s soup.  Sweet, distinct, unusual with a gentle touch, just like her.

Always on the table was the fresh salsa de molcajete she made and my grandfather, Papa Chava would pile it up on his bowl.  It added a smoky, spicy flavor to the soup that I loved and still do now with the added flavor of memories.  I make it often, roasting the tomatoes on the comal till their skins burst, wrapping the roasted chiles in a damp cloth so their skins can steam off and gently removing the cilantro leaves from their stems to add whole to the salsa.  I am recreating my grandmother’s steps, I am keeping her memory alive in my kitchen.

My grandmother’s salsa had little cilantro flowers in it because my grandfather grew cilantro in a way to ensure she never ran out.  He’d stagger the planting carefully so that there were soft earthy mounds with tiny stems poking their heads out, the next with the cilantro a little bigger, the next in full cutting mode and the back mounds were left to go to seed.  He gathered those round seeds and dried them carefully, saving them in an old glass baby food jar that he kept in his garage/gardening shed.

When the cilantro flowered, my grandmother loved to put the tiny white blossoms in her salsa and in the tomato relish (I guess you can call it that) that she made for tacos and tostadas.  The blossoms were surprisingly flavorful, that sharp green tang of the cilantro intensified.  You’d never know such a tiny, wispy flower would pack such a punch.  Store bought cilantro just isn’t the same.  The leaves are so much bigger, the flavor not as intense and of course, there are no delicate, lacy white blossoms to beautify and flavor your dish.

The rain is calming now and I’m still making up my mind whether to go out, bake or make soup.  For now, I’m content to snuggle in, pet my dog and remember a kitchen where love what the secret ingredient.

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