Her recipes especially during the holidays were something we all looked forward to. I sat there enthralled with the mixing and baking. The tamales were the first project which started early in the morning standing in a long line in front of La Palma Mexicatessen in San Francisco's Mission District. I would stand there holding my mother's hand while every other Mexican mom in the neighborhood eventually got there to stand in the same line. When we were finally admitted inside the smells of sauces, and meats simmering assaulted my nostrils. I could not get out of there with out whining for carnitas and freshly made tortillas.
My mother was on a mission though only the dough (masa) for tamales is what she came for and that is all we walked out of there with. Then we would walk to Casa Lucas, our next stop and buy all the fresh vegetables that would be mixed into our tamales. One more stop from here and we would be done. The next stop was the Gallinita a old school butcher shop. We would wait in a long line there too and I was always transfixed by the Spanish I heard here. It was not like the Spanish I heard at home, it was rapid fire Mexican Spanish. The men in the back of the counter were always jovial and talked a mile a minute. I couldn't keep up with them but my mother did and she ordered her meat products and then laden down with our purchases made our way home.
At home is where the magic happened during the day she prepped everything and by nightfall when everyone was home she would station us around the table to help her wrap her little packages of deliciousness. I was the closer and in charge of the olive station. I knew my job well, so well that as an adult that is the only part I really remembered it took my sister and I a few years to finally get to the point we can make them. This year she finally shared with me the holes that were missing in my memory and together with my cousin we shared the recipe so it would not die with us. We are getting a little long in the tooth and as my cousin pointed out we are now the matriarchs of the family. Scary proposition, but when she said it I realized she was right and if we did not start teaching our daughters these recipes they would literally die with us as only a memory.
I spoke to my neice and we decided to make pastelitos another dessert that my mom made for the holidays. My sister in law who was more interested in cooking my brother's favorite foods had painstakingly worked along side my mother to glean some of her son's favorites. One of those was the milk custard that goes into the pastelitos. I only liked the jelly ones, so I had mastered the cookie part and then used strawberry jelly to fill them, good enough for me, but not good enough for the girls who wanted to learn how to make the milk ones. So my neice went home with her mom and got her to make the custard and then we all got together with my other cousin's daughter, her son and my daughter and set off to a day of baking at my neice's house.
Baking together we talked and regaled each other with stories and memories of my mom. The girls had had a chance to bake with my mom. As little girls in order to entertain all these little five, six and seven year old girls she taught them to bake. They like me were in charge of parts of baking, one would press the little balls of dough into flat pancakes on the press my father had made for my mother. It is two metal plates fused to a hinge with a metal handle welded to it. My father was a welder by trade, so this little piece of equipment has survived at least fifty years, and the tortillas presses that they currently sell can not give the right pressure to create the perfect little orbs we need to make our pastelitos. My father made this for my mother, because back in the day you could not find a tortilla press to save your life around San Francisco. Now you go to any store on 24th and they have all the tools you need to make food your Abuelita made. We bought our big tamale paddle there this holiday season.
The girls talked and we remembered the other things they baked with my mom, like the peanut butter cookies which my daughter has mastered because they are her favorite. I watched with pride as they assembled the little pies and their hands remembered how to close them so they would not leak out the custard or jelly. My neice's son is only three but he helped with the press and I knew that he would forever be part of the lineage of this baking tradition that I want to keep up with all these girls and their children and hopefully they will continue with their grandchildren one day. My mother was with us this day and I feel her presence even more strongly now that I am trying to re-create her gifts to me.
Today as in many days this past year I again wanted to try to make her bunellos, but again I failed, but I am closer than I have been in the past. I close my eyes and remember the feel of the dough, the textures and the taste of it because that is all I have left is my memories of these taste long gone, but not forgotten. My daughter has forbidden me to try to make arroz en leche because it doesn't taste like her grandma's and she does not want to pollute her memory of it with my inadequate attempts and I totally respect that.
I will not stop trying to make the taste I remember though, things they may have never tried because I don't know what she cooked for them when I was a work and she had a houseful of kids once again. All I know is that it is in my hands to share what I know I do not want to selfishly hold onto these recipes because my mother was not like that, she taught all of us and it was our lack of attention that we did not learn more. I know for myself I did not care how it was made, I was just interested in the results because that is what I loved. I loved to eat my mother's food it was soothing and it bespoke of love greater than anything I felt as a child. My father was strict and not one to demonstrate affection and he disapproved of my mother's sensitive nature. I believe through her meals she spoke volumes of love and understanding she could not demonstrate to us in any other way without getting in trouble with my dad.
I now appreciate her sacrifices and I appreciate the time and effort it took to make all those meals and special dishes she made for each one of us. We all have an all time favorite and I know my mother would make each of us whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted it. My kids will always have that special memory of my mom making them exactly what they wanted. I have no patience for that and after my mom passed it was you eat what I made if you don't you starve end of conversation, but in my defense I did have to work and could not spend all day in the kitchen. Now I want to go back and give back some of that love and if I don't do anything else in this lifetime I hope that I can at least make people feel special when I make the meals my mother used to make and I hope that I can share what I learn with my children and my neices and they will also continue the tradition. In this way my mother's love is transcending time and space and I feel her with me everytime I turn on the stove, pick up one of her pots to cook one of her meals.
