Buen Provecho

I can remember dark mornings before the sunrise, waking up for a few seconds to the smell of roasting chili’s. Peeking my head over the edge of the bed to see the glow from the burners creeping underneath the door frame. The only light in the house came from the stove fires blazing and the early rays of the sun pouring through the singular kitchen window. Peeking through the keyhole I see the craftsman quietly working with skilled hands, there are no fumbling noises, no clanging of pans. The only sounds are the soft crackling of pepper skin and squishy dough being formed and rolled. She does not make the peppers for herself, they are for her husband and family members, who are still sleeping. The smell of roasting chilis is not particularly salivating but comfortingly steadfast. Years from this moment I will smell the familiar fires burn when different hands make these recipes and still envision these past memories.

From the time we were 4 and 5 my sister and I would spend the night at Abuela’s house almost every Friday. We would play together and watch old VHS tapes. At some point we would decide to bother Abuela for a while and catch up on our novelas. She always answered our endless questions in English and would explain in detail the show’s plot, never censoring the heavy adult themes.  After an episode we would run around and dance in our imaginary games, and decide that 10:00pm was the absolute perfect time to bake chocolate chip cookies.

Sometime during the night before the cookies were completely eaten  and after the novelas were over Abuela would go to the bathroom to get ready for bed. Every night she brushed her teeth thoroughly and had a special gum pick she would use while she chatted with us. She wore a long sleeved fleece nightgown with flowered embroidery and would sit on her bed and hold her rosary slowly praying from bead to bead until it was complete. We would barge in her room to wish her goodnight and she never reprimanded us for interrupting her. She kept one hand on the rosary  bead and wished us good night, dutiful to finish her prayers once we left.  We would return to the serious business of princess movie watching and chocolate chip cookie eating, and hours later we would hear the front door open and Grandpa would saunter inside with his trench coat half off and his feathered grey fedora cockeyed on his head. The cloud of booze wafted in behind him. In one of my last memories of him being healthy enough to get plastered by himself, he came home and gave us each two extra large pink swirly lollipops with a Mini-Mouse sticker on them before strutting off to bed, that was a good night.

In the morning there was always fresh flour tortillas with butter on the kitchen table. Abuela would pour us each a little tea cup of coffee, filling the tumbler a quarter of the way and the remaining 3 quarters with sugar and sweet cream. 

It was decades ago around the age of 7 the first time Abuela taught me how to make tortillas. She took out the large plastic bowl she always used for mixing potato salad, the large flour container, a tub of lard, a jar of salt, and a bowl of warm water. The seasoned rolling pin and wooden cutting board were already in their designated positions and she began to swiftly mix the ingredients together. No measuring cups or spoons, no fancy blenders or cuisinart, this was love food as was every dish she made. The palm of her hand was the master measuring utensil, and with it she could determine the perfect amount by its mass and weight. I never once saw her use a recipe book or write one down, she always cooked by instinct and heart. Abuela taught me how to make tortillas as an aged storyteller would perform, with ancestral knowledge, refined practice, and endless patience.  Each meal she made every day was carefully crafted. She was a master of Mexican cooking, however having lived in the multi-cultural neighborhoods of Chicago since her 20’s she also learned to make dishes from her neighbors and other parts of our country. My dad still lovingly reflects on her homemade egg rolls. 

The first time I made tortillas with her, all of mine turned out as small as my child sized hands. I didn’t have her finesse with the rolling pin, but she assured me every step of the way that I was doing well and she knew exactly what to do with the tortillas I was making. She carefully fried each doughy disk and after they puffed on the stove she cut a hole in them and spooned some of her homemade beans in the center. Somewhere in the historical recesses of my taste buds I know I remember the taste of that meal we shared together. 

Abuela made food for us after grammar school every day, she would do it with or without our request for a snack but always it was met with enthusiasm. Usually it was little quick tacos, made with salami and tomato or some fresh soup she made that day.  On a regular afternoon my siblings and I bounded into her kitchen, and we asked for our daily snack and coffee. She had a pot of food already bubbling on the stove-top seemingly in anticipation for our arrival. The room smelled thick like tomato sauce. 

Her eyes twinkled playfully as she sang, “Sí, mis niñitos chiquititos,” before disappearing into the pantry. Excited to eat, we started our homework at the dining room table.

Some time later she walked into the room with a steaming pot of meaty spaghetti sauce and her plastic tortilla warmer. She laid it out in front of us and sat down to eat. She told us to “coman” and we sat there staring at one another, confused. “Abuela,” my voice rang out. “Where's the spaghetti?” She laughed heartily, as if we had asked the most ridiculous question in the world. “Spaghetti?” she repeated, shaking her head. “You want to eat this with spaghetti?”The air shifted, and the room took a different shape. The colors now muted. My sister Lori forced herself  to say, “Thank you for cooking, Abuela” as she smiled, picking up a tortilla. “Come on, guys. Let’s eat.” 

We ate as many of the spaghetti sauce tacos as we could with delight. The tortillas were harder, and bland, and the sauce was overly salted; but it was all somehow comfortingly bittersweet. It didn’t make sense and it wasn’t right, but it worked out. She asked us how we liked the food and we eagerly praised her efforts spooning more onto our plates. We told our dad about our after school snack that day and he reasoned away our concerns. Having noticed on his own that her food had been changing lately he informed us that some people could eat sauced meat the way she prepared it similar to sloppy joes. It was an easy mistake, he said. We all knew, she had already received her diagnosis months prior and was already on medications to abate the symptoms. Almost immediately after this day, Abuela nearly set the kitchen on fire by using cooking cleaning products on the stove, confusing them for ingredients. My dad was in the house and at this moment he was unavoidably faced with the reality that she could no longer hold space in the kitchen. He quietly locked all of the burners from her access and all of the cleaning products were placed behind a locked cabinet. Thus began our time to come of locks and keys. 

Alzheimer's can progress in sharp and gradual declines. The gradual declines can seem like years of a plateau in the disease, while the sharp declines are abrupt and assaulting. Memories and abilities vanish one by one like dandelions in a breeze.  I reminisce with Lori about the spaghetti sauce tacos now that we are years removed from this memory, and how we ate so many of them with gusto. I think deep down we knew, even so young,  that would be the last time she ever made us a meal.