grandparents

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

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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!

Mar

08

The Sopes at the Fair

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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.