grandmother

Dec

28

The Sound of Music

stories  Posted by / 0 comments

This post has nothing to do with food and everything to do with Doña Lupe’s Kitchen.

It’s about The Sound of Music.

You know, that movie with Julie Andrews as a singing nun who falls in love, gets married to a guy with a ton of singing kids and then escapes from Nazi Germany?  That movie.

Why is it so important to DLK?

I’ll tell you…

I don’t remember my Grandma Lupe doing ANYTHING for herself.  EVER.  She devoted her life to her family, her God and religion.  She gave back to her community.  She rallied the Guadalupanas at her church into providing a communion dress for a poor girl in the area.  She baked bread for the church bake sales, cleaned the church, and gave, gave, gave.  Never once did I ever see her do anything that wasn’t completely selfless, except for the occasional moment she took out in the patio to eat an orange.

She never just sat still.  Always there was needlework in her hands, she was embroidering pillow cases for someone, edging towels with crocheted lace, making baby blankets even while watching T.V.  I don’t remember her ever just doing something because it was FUN.

Til the Sound of Music.

My grandmother had a library of Catholic books in her home.  You know, things like the Lives of Saints, the Bible and not much else except for the books by Marie Killelea ( a Catholic author who wrote about her daughter Karen’s cerebral palsy and faith) and The Sound of Music.  My grandmother LOVED the story of the Von Trapp family and I think, in some way found it related somewhat to her own life.  She, like Maria Von Trapp, had wanted to become a nun and instead married.

She loved the message of the book. She loved that Maria Von Trapp had chosen duty – serving God even though she wouldn’t become the nun she’d thought she’d be.  She loved the faith of the family and that they prayed often, had their own chapel built on their property when they finally settled.  She loved the book.

I found the book because I was desperate.  I was and am an avid, hungry reader.  I’d already been through the Lives of Saints and had read about Saint Maria Goretti’s stabbing like 900 times.  There was nothing else and then I found it, this little book.  Grabbing an apple and heading out to the patio, I buried myself in the lives of the Trapp Family Singers for a couple of hours.  I fell in love with the book too, not for religious reasons, but because it was an adventure.  That same summer that I’d found the book, the movie came out and my grandmother decided we’d all go see it.

I take my grandkids to the movies all the time, no big deal.  MY GRANDMOTHER GOING TO A MOVIE WAS AS IF THE WORLD HAD STOOD ON END AND TIPPED US ALL OFF IT!

IT WAS HUGE!

She didn’t go to movies.  She didn’t do fun stuff.  She went to markets, J.C. Penny’s to get sensible underwear and pajamas for us.  She didn’t go to movies!

It was the one and only time I ever sat in a movie theater with my grandmother.  We laughed, we cried, we had a good time.  We went home and talked about the movie for days.

To this day, when I see the movie on television, I think of my grandmother and miss her.

It was on this Christmas Day.  “Merry Christmas in heaven Grandma”, I whispered as I saw the opening credits.  I watched the movie and remembered my Grandma.

 

Dec

23

The Simple Joy of the (Un)Common Tortilla

stories  Posted by / 5 comments
tortillas

When I was growing up the best thing in the world to eat was a fresh flour tortilla right off the comal.  My grandmother Lupe would always slather the fluffy, white moon-shaped tortilla in butter and roll it up, tucking in the ends and wrapping it in a paper towel so I would drip butter everywhere.  She’d look down and smile while placing the treat in my hands.  I’d thank her and skip off with my treasure, braids swinging behind me as my little patent leather Mary Janes clicked on the creaky wood floors.  I’d usually head out to the garden or patio and eat my tortilla.  The melted butter and the soft floury texture of it tingled my tastebuds and no matter what I did, a little butter always dripped onto my chin.  It was perfection and I’d always want another.

Sometimes I’d try to roll them out in the kitchen with my grandparents.  I could never get them as perfectly round as my Papa could and he’d laugh and call them my 50 states, meaning that I made about 50 different shapes as randomly structured as states on a map.  He was proud of every single, weirdly angled tortilla I made though and showed them off proudly even if they were more than slightly triangular.

Butter tortillas, as I called them then were moments of pure bliss.  Simple as they were, they brought sheer unadulterated happiness and always, always a smile.  My sisters loved them too and we’d simply crave them far more than any ice cream or candy.  For some reason, the tortillas with butter signified home, family, being loved and cared for and brought with them the warmth and happiness of my grandparents house.

I’m 49 years old now and when things are going badly or I feel a little lonely nothing makes me happy again like a homemade flour tortilla, slathered in butter and rolled up with a little jacket of paper towel just like Grandma made.  I make them for my grandchildren now and they love them just as much as I did.  I caught myself the other day standing at the stove, handing Aiden and Jasmine a perfectly rolled tortilla with butter and was struck by the fact that it was me on the other end, my grandmother’s side handing out the tortilla.  As Jasmine skipped out of the kitchen, I saw myself at that age and hoped that her tortilla daydreams were just as wonderful as mine used to be.

There is something to be said for simplicity and the joy of plain, comfortable things.  My world is fast-paced, crazy sometimes, filled with information and sensory overload.  I can make it stop though by the simple act of making the simplest of doughs, rolling out a now perfect circle, heating it on a comal and turning it into a memory of a slower, happier time and taste the magic of my childhood.

Oct

16

Doña Lupe’s Birthday – 100 Posts

stories  Posted by / 2 comments
Grandma Lupe & Papa Chava

Grandma Lupe & Papa Chava


Today would have been my gentle grandmother’s birthday. Maria Guadalupe Gonzales was born on October 16th, 1915 somewhere along the way from Abasolo, Guanajuato to where the family ended up settling in Piru, California. The first record on her on any legal document was a census record from 1920 in Piru, California and she was five years old.

I am trying to imagine my grandmother at five. What was she like? Did she run and play amongst the orange orchards on the rancho where they lived the life of many a Mexican picking fruit and working in the fields? It is hard for me to imagine that child that she must have been. In my memories she was always super knowledgeable, very religious and proper and always very loving.

My grandmother knew just about everything there was to know about herbs. She could tell you the story about every plant, flower and herb in her garden. She loved plants that had religious connotations and so those grew all over and they made her incredibly happy. There were two large pots of maiden hair fern (el cabello de la virgen or the hair of the Virgin Mary) on the front porch near the door. The soft, elegant fronds of fern with their delicate black stems would whisper their blessing against your legs as you walked in the front door. In her hanging wire baskets overflowing with moss, you’d find Job’s tears, Bleeding Hearts, Rosary plant, and others. Passionfruit vine grew along the fence and once she took a flower from it and told me the whole story of the Passion of Christ. Each bit of the flower told another part of the story and it fascinated the child I was. She influenced me and influences me still in so many ways. She and my grandfather were great storytellers and never were too busy not to be able to stop and tell me a story about something.

My happiest times as a child were times spent sitting in her kitchen or in the patio out back where we’d sit and embroider while she told me about living in Piru, or about flowers and plants. We’d talk about Julia Child’s cooking show or my stitches. She was so proud of my stitches, which were tiny and tight. I still embroider on occasion, especially if I am making a new traje de gala (regalia) for my Aztec dance. Every time the needle sinks into the manta (canvas) to make a stitch, I think of her and feel she’s watching over me.

When you stepped into my grandma Lupe’s house, the first thing you noticed was the little light switch covers she had. They were unusual in that they had small little fonts for holy water in them and usually a prayer etched into it. You’d come in, dip your fingers into the holy water and make the sign of the cross, blessing yourself as you entered. I miss that. I’m not religious at all, at all but something about the ritual of blessing myself entering and leaving was comforting. I never went anywhere without the blessing of my grandparents, “Que dios te bendiga, hija.” Not having it these days leaves a certain sense of emptiness when I walk out a door, but some days I can almost hear their voices, especially hers and I smile and walk outside knowing I’m loved and cared for, even though she’s been gone over 20 years.

My grandmother died of complications from a stroke in 1984, just two weeks after my youngest son, Robert Salvador was born. I’d had a bad case of pneumonia after Bobby was born and was hospitalized. I missed her funeral and wasn’t able to make the trip home to Los Angeles until two weeks later. I’ll never, ever get over that, missing my chance to say goodbye or even being able to be with her before she did. In those years, I lived about 400 miles away from home and rarely made the trip back home being too busy raising my young family. I would have loved to have live near my grandma and let my children have her around. As it was, my oldest Albert, did make it into her loving arms and she sang to him this song:

SEÑORA SANTA ANA

-Señora Santa Ana,
¿por qué llora el niño?
-Por una manzana
que se le ha perdido.

-No llore por una,
yo le daré dos;
que vayan por ellas
a San Juan de Dios.

No llore por dos,
yo le daré tres;
que vayan por ellas
hasta San Andrés.

No llore por tres,
yo le daré cuatro;
que vayan por ellas
hasta Guanajuato.

No llore por cuatro,
yo le daré cinco;
que vayan por ellas
hasta San Francisco.

No llore por cinco,
yo le daré seis;
que vayan por ellas
hasta la Merced.

No llore por seis,
yo le daré siete;
que vayan por ellas
hasta San Vicente.

No llore por siete,
yo le daré ocho;
que vayan por ellas
hasta San Antonio.

No llore por ocho,
yo le daré nueve;
que vayan por ellas
hasta Santa Irene.

Si llora por nueve,
yo le daré diez;
que vayan por ellas
hasta Santa Inés.

To listen to a part of the song, click here.

It’s about a woman with a crying child and the orchard keeper asks why the child is crying. She answers that the boy is crying for an apple that he lost and the orchard keeper replies, “Let’s go to the orchard and cut two, one for the boy and one for God. The song goes on to talk about the different places in Mexico and mentions my grandmother’s family home state of Guanajuato, so she must have learned it from her mother. I’ll never forget her singing to him and how she rocked him, holding him close to her chest. It is one of the most beautiful memories of my Grandma that I have, that of her holding my firstborn son.

I have so many memories of my Grandma, all wonderful and far too many for one post. In my culture, we have a belief that our ancestors never leave us, they just move over to el otro lado, the other side. As an Aztec dancer, I believe that she is just on the other side, never forgotten, always remembered and honored, always honored. Happy birthday Grandma, te quiero mucho.

Oh this is my 100th post on Doña Lupe’s and so cool that it landed on her birthday!

Sep

18

Project Food Blog Challenge #1: Who Am I?

Challenges  Posted by / 22 comments

Project Food Blog ay, ay, ay….what did I do?  Project Food Blog is a contest run by the amazing Foodbuzz social network for foodies.  When the contest first came into my email, I blindly signed up thinking, “Wow, que cool!”  PFB is a contest where Foodbuzz Featured Publishers are competing in a series of culinary blogging challenges.  The prize is $10,000 and a special feature on Foodbuzz for one year.

The competition is stiff.  1855 contestants, 1 winner.  Wow.  The first cut is brutal.  Only 400 will advance.  Intimidated?  Scared?  You bet I am.  So why am I even doing this?  One answer: To preserve a rich legacy and pass it on.

I started this blog three years ago on my birthday as not only a tribute to my beautiful, gentle grandmother who cooked like a goddess, but as a legacy to my grandchildren.  I’d had some pretty hairy health scares and illnesses which got me thinking about legacy, about what a rich culture and family history I had and how often those things fall through the cracks.  How many times had I sat in a room with family members bemoaning that certain thing my grandmother had made that we didn’t have the recipe for?  Enough times to have it worry me that what had been saved, remembered and maintained would also be lost.  My granddaughter Jasmine once asked me, “Did your grammy cook with you like you do with us?” and that was what fueled me into starting Doña Lupe’s Kitchen.

This blog isn’t just about food, though food is a constant presence.   Food is a large part of our Mexican cultural patrimony.  Doña Lupe’s is about the traditions, the love, the memories.  It’s about culture, family, music and even poetry.  Occasionally, my rather outspoken opinions about politics or random things work their way into it, but I just see it like that brightly colored sarape of my Papa Chava’s that was woven so expertly.  We Mexican’s have a saying that holds very true for me; we stand on the shoulders of our ancestors.  Doña Lupe’s Kitchen is in a way those shoulders I stand upon, the traditions and food handed down from mother to daughter, grandmother to granddaughter.  It is the  love that got me through my life, the dreams I have of a future where my grandchildren and their grandchildren all know where they came from, who their ancestors were as well as know the smells, tastes and memories that came from our collective ancestry.  This blog is far more than a food blog – it is a legacy, the one I am trying to leave.  It is my way of preserving something precious that absolutely cannot be lost.

I don’t know if I have what it takes to be the next Food Blog Star or even if I will make it past the first cut, I do know that no matter what, my grandchildren will be proud of me.  I know that my grandmother’s recipes will live on not just in my family but perhaps in yours.  Maybe they will even start new traditions in other families, other cultures.  I truly believe that food transcends borders and helps us understand each other. Project Food Blog gives my family stories and recipes a chance to be spread to a wider audience and for that, I am grateful.

This post gives you an idea of what drives me, what this blog is about but I strongly encourage you to visit the About page to get to know more about the wonderful woman who inspired it.  Wander amongst the recipes and stories and get to know me, my family and most of all the food.  Nuestra casa es tu casa.  Feel free to comment, linger, have a cafecito and a recipe or two.  You’re always welcome in my kitchen.

Voting begins on September 20th…more details to come.

Sep

14

Papa’s Papas: My Grandfather’s Potatoes

breakfast / family recipes / stories  Posted by / 3 comments

Papa's Papas

My grandfather (Papa Chava) was one of my favorite people and biggest influences in my young life. To me he was the strongest man in the world and the kindest. He was a sobador (traditional massage healer) and never took a dime for the help he gave people in the parish. He’d always say, “no cobramos por ayuda” we don’t charge to help. He and my grandmother were old school Latino – they gave to their community, the genuinely cared about everyone and thought it was their duty and their privilege to be able to do for the people in the family and neighborhood.

My grandfather was strong. Like superman strong from a lifetime of hard physical labor. This is a man who a month after 7 major surgeries was out breaking concrete with a sledgehammer no matter what we said to try to stop him. In the end, he was frail, so frail with skin like tissue paper and no appetite. I’d parade food on days I was there, trying to tempt his appetite and rarely succeeded. He’d nibble just to make me happy, but with my grandmother gone and the cancer that was now in his bones, he was drifting away. During that time, we’d talk about food. He loved cooking too, but a different style than my grandmother. He liked big, peasant style meals – odd things like store bought chicharrones soaked in chile verde so bad for you; but oh so good. If he talked about a recipe or told me a story about food, I’d rush to recreate it in the hopes that the strength of memory would urge him to take a bite or two.

Papa

He told me about Mexico and living there as a child and young boy. He’d left as a teenager during the Revolution and his life there had been a hard one. He told me stories about working out in the milpas with his father when he was only three years old. He would proudly tell me how he earned a few centavos, bought his mother an olla and gave her the other two centavos. His work ethic was ingrained from the beginning and he passed it on to me, the one who can’t stop even when I’m falling asleep.

Papa would talk about the mineros (miners) that worked in the silver mines. I don’t know if he worked in the mines or family did. I just know that he knew about them. He’d talk about big, manly style one-pot food that often got made by his mother. Pots were expensive, a poor family didn’t have too many. Maybe one or two so often things were made all in one pot. That’s why that olla he bought his mother was so important and made him so proud. They were dirt poor and it was a really hard time in Mexico in Guanajuato, the seat of much unrest. The city of Celaya in particular has some pretty bloody history.

He never talked about hard times much. If I asked, he’d just say that he didn’t like to talk about it, that bad times were better left in the past. It was enough to have me not speak of it again and enough to ignite curiosity and a passion for Mexican history, especially the history of the Revolution and the time just before it. I could see why the family didn’t want to talk to children about those times and why he preferred to talk about Cantinflas, La India Maria, Chucho el Roto and food.

He did talk about food a lot. Papas (potatoes) in chile verde, big pots of potatoes, onions, eggs and chiles all mixed together, the tortillas his dear mother made, enchiladas mineras (a specialty in Guanajuato) and of maguey worms and nopales. One day I tried to recreate one of his miner /peasant one-pot recipes and he loved it so much, I made it several times. I lost my grandfather not too long after but my boys loved the recipe so much that I made it often. Every time I make it, I get a little weepy but I smile too, remembering that most gentle and strong man who taught me some of the best life lessons that have sustained me all my life. We call the recipe Papa’s Papas, a name my youngest son Bobby came up with when he was just about four years old.

Que rico!

Papa’s Papas/Papa’s Potatoes

10 potatoes, chopped into bite-sized chunks with peel on
2 onions, halved and sliced into half rings
6 eggs
Salt and pepper to taste
Jalapenos en escabeche, sliced
1 lb of bacon, each sliced cut into four equal pieces

In a large dutch oven or skillet fry the bacon until crispy then add the potatoes right into the pan with the bacon and grease.

Add salt and pepper to taste and the onions. Fry on medium heat until the potatoes are nicely browned and the onions well caramelized.

Lower heat and cook until the potatoes are fork tender.

Crack the eggs right on top of the potatoes when they are done, in a circular pattern around the pot, sprinkle them with salt and pepper, add in about a cup of sliced jalapenos en escabeche (Herdez or La Costena brand is what I use) right in the center. Cover and turn off the heat. Let sit for about five minutes, letting the steam poach the eggs. The vinegary escabeche of the jalapenos will mix with the steam and infuse the whole dish.

Sabroso

Serve with crema Mexicana, refried beans and warm corn tortillas. It makes a super hearty breakfast.
Make sure each person gets a section with a whole egg in it. If you’re serving more than six people, add in another egg per person. The recipe is very flexible.

Jul

30

A Perfect Pot of Beans

family recipes / main dishes  Posted by / 9 comments

Some things are just meant to be simple, delicious and evocative.  My earliest memories of food and cooking always have the gorgeous aroma of beans simmering on my grandmother’s stove.  She made a fresh pot almost every day and the smell is woven into all my memories of her, the house with the creaky wooden floors and the smells of her flowers.

Every time I make a pot, it is like she is right back front and center, larger than life with her gentle little hands, showing me how to pat a tortilla, measure something out for baking, how to chop finely, how to pinch up the sides of a sope and a million other life lessons.  I miss her as keenly over 20 years since she’s been gone from this world as the day I lost her, but the scent of beans cooking in the pot always makes me feel her presence and it comforts me.
Beans seem like simple fare, maybe even bothersome or peasant food to some but to me they are necessary.  They go with just about any meal, are loaded with nutrients, are economical, versatile and filling and I couldn’t imagine life without them.  My favorite though is just out of the pot topped with chopped onion, tomato and cilantro.  It’s like a soup, absolutely delicious and with a freshly made tortilla dipped in, pure ecstasy.

To my mind, nothing is better than that first bowl of beans fresh out of a clay pot before they get re-fried or used for other things like tostadas, burritos, etc.  I still love them however they are cooked, but that first bowl of soupy pinto beans with the bright Mexican flag colors is just special.

I often get asked, “how do your beans come out so good?” or “what did you do to make them so good?” and it always surprises me, because to me beans are beans and no work at all.  I do remember my mother couldn’t make a pot to save her life.  We’d come home from school to the smell of burnt beans permeating the house and think, “Jeez, mom forgot to put water in the beans again.”  That never happened at Grandma’s house.  When I go over the steps in my head to my Grandma Lupe’s perfect pot of beans, its almost zen-like to me.  Maybe other Mexican cooks have different ways of preparing them but I only know hers and they’re always, always perfect so I thought I’d share the steps.

My grandmother never used just pinto beans.  She had this beautiful, big acrylic container my Uncle Adam had made for her that was filled with a mixture of large white beans, kidney beans, pintos, small lima beans, navy beans and pink beans.  The varying colors and sizes were beautiful and to me as a child, like little gems in a treasure box.  I loved sticking my hands into that clear container and picking up handfuls and letting them stream back in.

First step to a pot of good beans is cleaning them.  This is where the zen comes in.  My grandmother would pile in front of me little hills of beans and my job was to carefully inspect each one.  Broken ones, little dirt rocks and ones with the skins peeling were swiftly scooted off into a discard pile.  Good ones went into the keep pile.  I always found it very soothing to sort the beans and still do.

Once you’re done sorting the beans, put the good ones into a colander and wash them throughoughly in warm water then set aside.

In a large pot* fill just about an inch below the rim with cool water and bring to a boil.

Once you have the water at a rolling boil, add salt (no measurements here – depends on taste and how much you are making), two cloves of garlic and one golden onion, peeled and quartered.

Next add the beans and lower the flame/heat to very low.  Cover with a tight fitting lid and let simmer (no peeking) for three hours.  You do need to keep adding boiling water every so often to keep the water level an inch from the rim.  Don’t forget to put water in the beans!!  My grandma always kept a small pot simmering on the back burner so she could add in water and keep the temp the same.

One thing I notice is if you want nice, pink beans you limit the lid lifting.  One of my friends is a compulsive lid-lifter and her beans, while they are delicious come out very dark.  Some weird chemical reaction (oxidation?) happens when you lift the lid.  I’ve also found that people who soak their beans before cooking them also get the dark thing going on.  I am not a fan of soaking them.  Why bother when you can put a pot on in the morning and have delicious beans in the afternoon?

Ok – so everyone is gonna ask but, but, but Gina you didn’t give us measurements and we don’t know how many beans to put in so I’ll attempt to gauge the amount I put in this morning. I’m using a large soup pot (stainless steel because my olla broke and I have to go back to Mexico and buy another one because I’m so not buying an olla from here but you can that’s just me) and it holds 18 cups of water just an inch below the rim, to those 18 cups I put in about 4 cups of beans.  Salt is to taste so no measurement there.  I start with about hmm three tablespoons and go from there.

So that’s it my grandmother’s secret for a perfect pot of beans.  Love, care and some patience.

*When I was growing up, beans were cooked in a clay olla or pot.  Nowadays, there is a concern with the lead content in Mexican ollas so I won’t tell you to use one even though I do.  I love the flavor my olla imparts to the beans.  If you want to use a traditional clay olla, please find one that is lead-free.

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.