Try a Blog Hop for Writer's Block

When you've been blogging for awhile, it's easy to fall into a phase of "I have no idea what to write about anymore." I know, I know, there's always Trump but what if you are tired of what seems like the same topics again and again.

If you find yourself stumped for an idea and feeling like you've drifted away from a blogging community, try a blog hop.

A blog hop is a great idea to feel the energy and the fun of blogging again.

You can read some great ideas to help you get started with a post I am proud to have up on BlogHer today, "Got Writer's Block? Try a Blog Hop." And while you're there, check out their clean, sleek new look!

I hope you'll click on over and find out about giving blog hopping a try, it really is a good time.

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NaBloPoMo Day Six and I'm Already Digging Deep

Why do I love NaBloPoMo? Because when we've gone through the easier to write posts, the lists, the reactionary, the rants, the stream of consciousness, we open the mental vault and see what else we can find. In today's post for National Blog Posting Month, I'm remembering sweet childhood moments. One in particular, of afternoons spent at our east side neighborhood Italian grocery store.

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When I was little, I would go grocery shopping with my grandmother. She loved the Italian market in our neighborhood. She didn't know English, aside from saying "Sank you" in thanks for service, and "Yes yes" in response to any question in the world, so I would go where she had to go, and work as her translator.

We were a household of six children, supported by one widowed mother and cared for by one loving, affectionate Colombian grandmother, our abuela. We didn't shop for anything fancy or any specialty items at the Italian market, but my grandmother came from a country where you bought your food fresh daily so we walked there. If it rained or snowed, we took the bus. They had what she wanted at the small grocery store, meat she recognized, tomatoes onions garlic cilantro, the way she remembered them being in South America.

There was a single door that opened to the store, people were always leaving or coming, and someone would have to step aside to let the other person through. When the way was clear, I'd heave on the heavy door and let my grandmother go first. As soon as you walked in, you stood at the deli counter. Slices of Italian beef were next to tubs of dark olives steeped in olive oil. My grandmother would point and a non verbal exchange with hands and smiles transpired between my abuela and the butcher and a few minutes later, he would carefully weigh our purchase, looking up to her for approval then tightly wrap our night's meal in paper, handing it to us with a laugh and a smile.

There was a supermarket that had just opened in our neighborhood, four blocks from our house, but with canned meat and frozen vegetables, boxed pancakes and potatoes made with water, it only convinced my grandmother of witchcraft. I wanted to be at the grand supermarket and was ashamed to be in the small grocery store--it was an Italian market run by immigrants just the same as we were. The American kids at my school went to the big market that was surrounded by a parking lot equal in size to the square footage of the big store. At the front entrance, leading you into the supermarket as proof of its superiority, were automatic doors.

I would plead my case for the supermarket every day that we passed it, "Abuelita! You don't need anyone with you to open the doors! All you have to do is stand in front of them and order Open Sesame! Like this!" And I would jump in front to show her the magic.

"I have you," she said unimpressed."I don't need to worry about not having anyone with me." And with that, we would continue to our Italian market so my grandmother could do her real shopping.

The few times we did go into the supermarket, because of the kindness in my grandmother's heart, we saw aisles of boxes stacked to the ceiling with factory made cookies and cake mix along with ice cream by the gallon tubs. I wanted all of it: the plastic wrapping, the uniform filling of the rows of Nabisco cream wafers. I was drawn to the efficiency and the modern appeal of assembly line food. So perfectly arranged and neat, like Americans.

But no dice, whatever my grandmother bought to feed the mouths in our house had to be recognizable as coming from nature. My grandmother had to see the hands that rolled the pasta, she had to witness the sausage as it was weighed. Hand packed and hand made was the only way she would buy ice cream. From the bologna we'd see linked by the Italian butcher while we watched through the glass counter to the bread that was sold unsliced and whole and then tossed in a paper bag. No Wonder brand white bread from a bag of 24-slice count for us, and we could wish until our eyes crossed for blister packs of ham with dots of cheesespread from the supermarket--it would still never find its way home to us.

We would buy no more than my abuelita and I could carry home, two bags for each of us. My face would burn red as we passed people I knew, our plain brown paper bags instead of plastic that they gave out at the big supermarket. I worried the whole way home that we smelled of salami and olives, which of course we did.

I never hated the small neighborhood grocery store, I just didn't want another reminder of how different we were from the blazing beauty of all things American. The Italian store was dark wood and crowded, the small windows out front barely let enough light in to see to the back of the store. Not more than one person could go down an aisle at the same time. The floor creaked and leaned to the left and when a fresh layer of sawdust was spread in front of the butcher's window, it became slippery. I didn't want to be at the Italian store, but neither did I want to ever give up time being with my grandmother. Being alone with her always won.

In 2010, I read in the newspaper that the original Italian market closed. They moved to a larger, new location. The creaking wooden floors washed down with bleach every night would give way to black and white neat, even tile. The meat counter that was our first stop, right next to the front doors where my grandmother would motion for the best cut of meat for the most affordable price, was now in the back with a modern space of its own, apart from the rest of the store.

And there were automatic doors.

You think I'd be telling myself dreams come true if you wait long enough.

The funny thing is, I cried when I saw the picture of the new market. There were orange awnings with the family name in white swirls of scrolls over large rectangular windows. In between the expanse of windows, were doors, the kind that open by themselves. All you have to do, is stand in front of them.

You don't even need anyone with you.

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Just Two Women in the Kitchen

I stretch my legs out from on top of the red vinyl stool. I'm careful to stay on the right because the seat is split and the foam is coming out from the other side, leaving the plastic to jut up and out, like my Abuelita's black knife. I think of how the edge could slice through a tomato like a blade. My father wants to take this chair and keep it in the garage for his tools but I won't let him. The red sparkles shine through the cover and fill the spaces like tiny galaxies.

It is early afternoon and the sun is streaking in through the kitchen windows. I love to be here in the kitchen more than anything. I am so close to where my Abuela is happiest, I stand inches from her in the small room and I don't know how she stops the urge from stepping away so she has space.

When people's skin gets too close to mine, I feel like I lose the air around me. I have to change how I am and pay attention to how I breathe when someone comes close to me. I don't want them thinking how I am too loud or too fast or that they'll hear my voice shake or say something to me and then I'll have to answer them when they are this close.

Soon, my brothers and sisters will be home from school. My grandmother is getting the rice and chicken started and my baby brother and sister are sleeping. I am waiting to start the most important job, the meal can't begin without my work - that's what my Abuela tells me. I gather the slices of tomatoes and strings of onion that my grandmother has set aside and I toss them into the hot oil in the pan. I jump when the wet from the tomato and onion sizzle and spark as they hit the pan, but I can never say no to the thrill. I go back to my grandmother and her cutting board, I know she will have the garlic smashed and ready for me to carry over in a measured tablespoon. I walk to the stove, my right hand cups under the garlic so nothing tips out. I clank on the inside of the pan to release the garlic in one plop.

Wiping her hands on her apron, my grandmother comes to stand next to me.

“You can go now, mija, the hard part is done.”

“Can I stir?”

“Claro. Si. Of course!" She lifts me up while I hold her weathered wooden spoon, the rim of the edges now burnt brown, and I hear the rasp of my back and forth scraping against the bottom of the pan.

“It's all brown now, Abuelita. The rice can go in.”

"You know just when it is time, little one." I smile and nod, I'm never wrong about the timing of the oil. Setting me down, my grandmother scoops out the rice from the pot next to us where it has been soaking in water overnight. We wait to hear the gurgle of a hard boil and then she stirs everything together, covering rice with water fold after fold. Leaning down, she checks the stove's flame, being sure to lower it to the precise flicker she needs for a simmer.

I set the table with our purple plates, but I wish they were larger. The ones we have aren't big enough to hold the amount of rice I want. Everything is finished and we have time before the rice is ready and we have to leave to get my brother from school.

My Abuela reaches across the stove and pours a cup of espresso, mixing it with warmed milk from the small pot. She divides it into two separate cups and hands one to me. There is an equal amount in both. I blow across the steam the way she has taught me, until it is cool enough to sip. Then I take the first cautious lick. The warmth spreads down my throat and across my shoulders, I feel it slide down filling the entire of my stomach.

We are two women in the kitchen. One is five, the other seventy-five, but we feel no difference. We have earned this time, to blow and sip, while we are across from each other. There is quiet between us, but it is anything but silence.

“Ponque?” she asks, wanting to know if I want cake.

She laughs when she sees my eyes pop open. I love cake and my grandmother knows this, she has hidden a piece for me, away from my five brothers and sisters. “Si, Abuela, Si!” From behind the sliced rolls in the bread cabinet, she has a torte that is wrapped in re-used wax paper. Placing it in my lap, like she's trusting me with a hummingbird, she hands me the square. I open it and see dense baked apple, the white frosting cracks as my teeth break into it.

My grandmother is small, with thick waves of still dark hair. She is awake when I first come down in the morning and she is awake when I go upstairs for the night. She never tires, she never sits. But in these afternoons, while the others are deep in sleep or away at school, she takes time.

Tomorrow's dinner may be pork sausages with quartered cabbage. The day after that a thick oxtail soup. I know the meals will be different, but they will always begin with me doing the most important work. Laying the foundation for everything that is to come when I toss in the tomatoes, the onions, the garlic.

It's the hardest part, my Abuela tells me, and I do it well.

 

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Oomancy: Food for the New Year

If you were to walk into my childhood home on New Year’s Day, you would see six children tip-toeing around a dining room table, careful to not bump and disturb the tall, clear glasses that had been set on it the night before. They were filled to the rim with still tap water. "You can't move them even a bit!," we would caution each other, "If you do then none of it counts!"

Inside each glass, floating like a plump newborn, would be a globulous raw egg. The water would grow bubbly as it sat over the hours, the strings of congealed egg white taking shape, reaching for the top with their thin strands of arms. I remember thinking how much those gelatinous peaks of egg white looked exactly like the sea monkey habitat ads from the back of my brother’s comic books.

It was the New Year, and my Colombian immigrant family was doing what we do on New Year's Day: egg divination. Oomancy. An egg symbolizes a beginning, and my grandmother, my abuela, would seek to predict our future for the coming year by the power of raw eggs in water. My grandmother lived with us and had been her small Colombian town’s esteemed medicine woman: a bruja buena, good witch. She was in charge of making her town’s monthly coca water (just what you think it is) as well as possessing the knowledge of fortune telling, in this case, via egg whites.

The first thing at midnight on New Year's Eve, my family would fill eight ounce glasses with water. We would then take take a still in its shell raw egg, rub it over our body, hand it to my grandmother who in one sweep of a movement, would crack the egg into our glass. This egg in water ensemble sat undisturbed through New Year's Eve and into the night. Most important of anything, was that the egg remain unshaken, motionless, in the tepid water. Nothing could influence or jeopardize the egg as it wove and dodged, the thick egg white separating from the yolk, stretching to the point of almost breaking as it searched for the meaning in the year to come.

We would awake the morning in the new year, and run to find our abuela. We surrounded her as she took each of our glasses, which we had left sitting on top of square pieces of paper with our names printed by our own hand. One by one, she'd hold our glasses up to the day's light, shifting the angle this way and that. Humming and murmuring, sometimes silent, she assessed the predictions for the new year. The egg white swirls pointing the way to good, or bad, news.

Your swirls could tell you who your future husband would be. If your egg had red spots, someone had put the evil eye on you. The egg white swirls could point to the next  possessor of the oomancy powers. If there was to be a long trip in your future, the peaks of the egg white would form a mountain, making sure you were the first to know and pack accordingly.

* * *

What child could keep something this amazing a secret? If you had a grandmother who was able to interpret egg white strands, you would tell everyone in school, wouldn't you? And so, we did. My five siblings and I came back from Christmas break one school year, with stories to tell, chest bursting proud ones, of my abuela, the good witch with the egg divining powers. And since she did this every year, they were all invited to our house for New Year's! "Bring your own eggs!" we reminded them.

That New Year’s Eve, people did come. They came dressed like Mad Magazine’s Spy versus Spy, incognito in black coats, black head scarves, and black movie star sunglasses; sneakily knocking at the back door, whispering if now was a good time for an egg reading.

None who came seeking were turned away.

They hungrily took in what their egg peaks revealed. Miss Quill, who was my second grade teacher and single, in particular nodded eagerly when my grandmother pointed out that her egg whites were forming a bell shape. Miss Quill, rapt with her lashes just inches from her glass, begged my grandmother, "But Senora Pinzon, please, what does it mean??" In her broken English, my abuela answered back, "... a wedding, una boda, perhaps for you, maybe soon..." My grandmother had to shake her head no as Miss Quill pulled a plastic bag of eggs out of her spy coat pocket, begging for a continuation of the reading.

By everyone's smiles and general cheeriness, my siblings and I knew that our visitors had no idea  what was about to go down next. Your egg divination session didn’t simply end with an individualized reading of your egg white swirls.

No Sir.

After your egg white fortune telling was complete, my grandmother handed you back your glass with the raw egg congealed and wobbling at the bottom. Toast! “Salud!” she would motion with a nod of her head for you to clink your glass with hers, and then 1-2-3 you were to tilt your head back along with her and let that good fortune slide right down the back of your throat, like it was the world's biggest slug. We could stand and peek from behind the kitchen door watching 15 pained gringo egg glottal slammings in a row and it never got old.

***

Years later, my brothers and I went to see the movie Rocky when it first came out. I remember the three of us gasping out loud as we watched Sylvester Stallone take an egg, and in the same precise one-handed manner as my grandmother, he cracked it on the edge of his water glass and plopped the yolk in. Then he sat and studied his glass as the strands of egg white floated upward. The popcorn fell out of our mouths as we turned to each other in disbelief, asking, “Rocky’s Colombian?!"

Who knew.

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The Cilantro Way

In the kitchen of my childhood, in the middle of our round wooden table, sat an ever present rinsed-out glass herring jar. My abuela had repurposed it to hold her home-made Colombian spicy sauce, called Aji. On sunny mornings, the day's rays glinted off the jar's ruby red cap and sent rainbows shooting out from the raised fish outlines etched on its sides.

Sunday afternoons would find my abuela pulling out her wooden cutting board and with a heavy thud, she'd set it in the middle of the table. Her board had been worn to a caramel brown in the center, and on it, she would begin slicing white onions, flattening garlic bulbs with the edge of a butter knife, dicing tomatoes, chopping cilantro, seeding Aji peppers, and filling our house with the sweet ripe smell of onion and garlic. When the ingredients were ready, my grandmother would take her wooden spoon made smooth with years of use, and mix everything together in a glass bowl for the week's Aji.

My abuelita's Aji wasn't blazingly hot, as the Aji peppers would lead you to believe, but instead it was a condiment that skimmed across your taste buds turning what seemed lifeless before you, rice, soup, potatoes, chicken, alive with a more profound level of experience. All you needed to do was unscrew the jar's squeaky metal rim, reach in with your tablespoon and bring it back up generously filled with the Aji, and spoon atop your food. With a snap of a finger, your meal was abracadabra'd into something that made you smile through a mouth watering explosion of delight.

The Aji peppers never made the original taste of the food disappear. The opposite happened. Your  chicken, your beef, became more -- from something routine to in-the-moment sparkling.

My grandmother is gone now, but the lesson I learned from her then, of how a few embellishments can catapult the ordinary into the stratosphere, has stayed with me. 

 

With some small effort, the surprise addition of the new and novel, an already delicious existence can become spectacular. Like a walk on a misting day without an umbrella, a spontaneous weekend away, or throwing down a blanket unannounced in the living room and spreading out a picnic dinner.

Just a small dusting of lip-tingling unexpectedness and life goes from mundane to thrilling.

 

Just like Aji spooned over a 5 o'clock dinner.

 

Abuelita's Aji

 

1 cup coarsely chopped cilantro leaves

2 seeded, chopped Aji peppers

1 sweet onion cut in strips

2 coarsely chopped plum tomatoes

Juice of three limes

3/4 cup water

1 crushed garlic bulb 

3/4 tsp kosher salt

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Mix together in a glass bowl. Let sit at room temperature for a few hours, then keep refrigerated in a repurposed glass jar. (it must be a repurposed jar)

 

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Listen To Your Mother Milwaukee 2014 Videos Are Here!

It's just like the holidays. When the Listen To Your Mother Show videos go live, my internet goes wild. Everyone, cast and producers, are sharing. This year, LTYM had 32 shows in 32 cities. Our videos are ready for viewing on our channel, Listen To Your MotherYoutube Channel.

I had the joy of sharing a story again this year in our Milwaukee show. Giving you a feel of life, when your grandmother considers modern medicine, a far cry from anything to be taken seriously.

My piece, "The Medical College of Abuela."

Childhood Food Becomes Our Comfort Food

*For My Grandmother*

I always childishly hoped my grandmother would be with me forever.

My first memories begin with her, and even though it’s been over 25 years since her death, I still can’t believe I’ve had to learn to live without her.

She was born in Spain and came to Colombia, South America when she was four years old. She learned to cook from her Spaniard mother, and these are the recipes I grew up with. When I was about three or four years old, I began helping my grandmother in the kitchen. She would tie one of her flowered aprons around my waist, and I would stand next to her on top of a cracked red leather kitchen stool. She would sing in a soft and low voice as she’d grind the corn meal for our sweet corn cakes, one of my favorites. With a worn rock from our yard, she’d grind the corn meal until it was as fine as white flour. The sand paper sound of the rock crushing the larger bits of meal is one that I can still hear if I close my eyes. When the corn meal was as smooth as silt, together, her hands over mine, we’d slowly add the milk and eggs, mixing all the ingredients together in a large wooden bowl.

With the thick meal ready, we’d roll the dough mixture into little balls, pressing them down into the palms of our hands until they were flat discs. She had a large cast iron pan with just a bottom of oil heating up on the stove. To check if the oil was hot enough for the griddle cakes, she’d wet her fingers from the kitchen faucet and then flick the water into the pan. If we heard a sizzle, then we knew the oil was ready. She’d toss the flattened patties in, and I’d hear the hiss of a pan that was perfectly calibrated.

We'd fry the corn cakes until they were a pale gold, and then my grandmother would lift them out deftly while my job was to lay them between paper towels, pressing down with my small hands to squeeze out the extra grease. While they were still hot, we’d spread the cakes with butter and apricot jam, and the two would melt on top into a sticky sweet syrup. We’d sit grinning and eating those cakes that were almost as large as a salad plate. I’d always take a stack of two or three and my grandmother would say "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach, mija!"

There's so much more time to tell her what I want to tell her, that was always my thinking. My grandmother is gone now, and even though it’s been so very long, I still can’t write about her without tears stinging my eyes and a lump starting to build in my throat. But, somehow, I have this hope--that through the shining dark eyes of a grinning four-year-old girl, gazing up at her adoringly, clothed in one of her aprons while standing on a kitchen stool next to her, that she knew how much she meant to me.

I hope.

Abuelita’s Corn Meal Griddle Cakes

1 c. boiling water
3/4 c. yellow corn meal
1 c. buttermilk or sour milk

2 eggs
1 c. all-purpose flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. soda
/4 c. vegetable oil

Pour water over corn meal; stir until thick. Add milk; beat in eggs. Mix flour, baking powder, salt and soda. Add to cornmeal mixture; stir in oil. Bake on hot, lightly greased griddle. Makes about 14 pancakes.

Place on paper towel to absorb oil. While still hot, spread with butter and jam. 

Can We Be That Short Story?

About five minutes ago, when I sat down to type this, I accidentally kicked over a stack of books that is always at my feet. It is the exact pile of books that my husband grumbles and mumbles about having to step over. But I still keep it right there--my treasured tower of short story anthologies. A stackful of printed spines that read Best of American Short Stories, and Best of Latino Non-Fiction, you get the picture.

My love for the short story has always been a part of me; I can't remember how far back it's been there, but I do know the one who lit that spark for tales from the soul. It was my Colombian grandmother, my Abuela.

I tell about my grandmother, The Queen of the Short Story, at TikiTiki Blog today, where I am honored to have a monthly column.

Come join me as I remember how my Abuela's childhood tales left me wide-eyed and with a vision of her as the eternal little girl, whose life was more enthralling than any written pages.

My grandmother is the reason for my daily practice of telling my children about my own childhood days. I want them to remember me forever as I do her, a story unfolding.

The Colombian Way: How To Avoid A Good Kidnapping

image

  *Picture of  future-me, nice and old, because I did what this post told me to do.

Being raised Colombian style is quite an experience. Highly skilled parenting ways are required in teaching survival, safety, and always outsmarting any potential dangerous circumstances up ahead.

Daily, hourly, I call upon this ninja style of living learned at my Abuela's knee, and I am more than aware of possible threatening situations and how to circumvent them. We have a third eye and a sixth sense about life in the streets, so odds are in our favor of our actual goal --  total avoidance of bodily harm. 

Indoors or out, I know there are car tailers, wallet grabbers, purse nabbers, kidnappers, grocery grabbers, kiss snatchers, butt feelers, wolf whistlers.

Oh, yeah … there are. Everywhere. You don’t see them because you don’t have that SpideySense that was instilled and encouraged in me since the day I opened my eyes and could assess my surroundings and grade my safety in them --  on a scale of one to ten, one being the safest. 

Do you want to increase your odds of being around for your grandchildren? Take a quick tour of my world and all that I do that is second nature, and just living to stay alive:

--Carry cash elsewhere on your body other than your purse. That way, if they grab your purse, let them enjoy the Target bag of the season.

--Carry your credit cards in your pants pockets or in your bra. Again, you want my purse? There ya go, nothing to see in there, move along, folks.

--Always wear ready-for-action shoes that allow a quick getaway. Carrie Bradshaw's nightmares are what's on my feet. Really. You should see the hausfrau clogs I'm in right now.

--Develop a walking gait that is somewhat aggressive and shoulder-leans toward the left, with a side of crazy. After ten years of carrying babies on my hip, this is easy enough.

--If someone wants your purse, hand it over. Now is not the time to be feeling your newly prescribed  "mood adjuster" meds kicking in with shouts of “Oh, yeah, mofo?? You wanna piece of me? Cause I feel like I could take a bullet right now.”

--If someone tries to get you out of the public eye, fight like a woman who hasn’t had chocolate in five days. Be the child that Trinity and Katniss would have had. Start daydreaming now about the chance to kick full-blown ass someday. Fantasize daily — when the time comes, hell hath no fury like a long anticipated ass-whoopin' WalMart style.

--Pay attention to your surroundings. If you go for a walk, then only go for a walk. Don’t make it into joyful time alone just you and Maroon 5, eyes closed, arms raised up, swirling over your head in moves like Jagger. Leave the iPod at home.

--When in a strange, new place, refrain from the country mouse visits city mouse look on your face. Let your body say you’ve seen it all before, including what they're up to. Eyes on your surroundings, people. 

--Do not make eye contact with strangers on the street claiming to be housing demons within and asking for a dollar for a good hot cup of coffee that they know will send Beelzebub on his way. No. Keep on walking. Let someone else buy the debil his one-way ticket home.

--Change the way you dress throughout the day. Sunglasses here, floppy hat there, yoga mama by eleven, skinny jeans at three. Anyone following you will think you’ve got sisterwives.

--If your SpideySense kicks in while you're driving and tells you you're being tailed, make an immediate left turn, go straight for three blocks, then make a right turn without using your blinker, go straight for half a block, then U-turn at the first driveway you see and make two right turns. Then signal for another right turn, but go left instead. If they follow you on all these turns, then your astute life-saving skills are confirmed -- you're being tailed. Head directly to the cop shop. Don't talk yourself out of it. 

This list will keep you ninety percent safe out there.

But this piece of advice right now will take care of the other ten percent: TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS. DON’T SECOND GUESS YOUR GUT.

Oh, sorry … was I shouting? Just thought I remember you saying YOU WANTED TO LIVE TO SEE YOUR GRANDCHILDREN.

Good luck. Stay safe. Happy situational risk assessment; I wish you a lifetime of ones on a scale of one to ten, one being the safest.

Peace out.

***

*This post first appeared at the fabulous Taming Insanity's place. If you don't know KLZ, you've got to meet her. She is the bomb.

We're Just Visiting

What does a little girl think, when she sees her family continue on as if they don't even realize they're in America? Why don't they even want to try and fit in with Americans?

What thoughts and answers pop into a five-year-old's head as she notices other families staring at her at the beach, curious about what her family packs and takes for a day in the sand?

There can only be one reason for this determined behavior... we are just visiting. My post today at TikiTikiBlog -- where I'm proud to be featured monthly.

TikiTiki -- cultura, color, y sabor!

A Latina blog celebrating Latin culture

Things I Eat Now Because I Can And I Never Had As A Kid

Did you know that you can make a soup out of anything? Ears of corn five for a dollar at the market? Bring 'em on home. Boil the bejeebus out of them, puree, add milk, cilantro and Voila! soup.

Left over potatoes? Boil away on superflame! Then mash them down and drown them in the big four: salt, pepper, garlic, onion. Ring that dinner bell now...

With a family of six children and being new to this country, money was tight for us growing up. My grandmother was adept in the kitchen and truly could whip anything up into a serving-stretching soup. I'm surprised that I, or any of my brothers and sisters, have a tooth left in our mouths today since we never got to use our choppers for much. It was all slurp and swallow.

As much as I loved my grandmother's beef rib SOUP and milk leek SOUP, there were meals I'd fantasize about as a little girl. Oh those covers from Family Circle and Good Housekeeping that would sit up on the display shelves of the grocery check out lane. Pictures of the stoneware of the day shown overflowing with heaping, spilling golden macaroni and cheese, or brown gravy spilling out of a volcano cratered monster scoop of mashed potatoes along side toasty breaded pork chops. Or -- the one thing I'd bargain for in my prayers -- fried chicken! with biscuits!

Sigh. Those meals were never to be for me in my childhood home-on-a-budget, but I became so very skilled at weaseling invites to my American friends' houses, where their American mothers would be servin' up and ladlin' out those fine abundant American meals of  fried chicken, smothered potatoes, Parker House rolls with butter dripping off the top. I was an amazing eater on my visits to these homes, and my friends' mothers loved me. Who doesn't love a skinny little grateful kid who gobbles up everything set before them like they're coming off a juice fast, praises galore after each swallow? I mean, I could barely understand how these friends of mine weren't gushing all over their moms' cooking.

None of us ever grow up, really. We take on our adult form, but inside we remain the little child we once were; still wishing for that very same thing we never got enough of. When I do the weekly grocery shopping for my family of five, I can't help it --  I always get myself something from my Food Bucket Wish List, ages six through twelve. The meals I used to daydream about. I pick up something off of my list -- getting it from the deli is the most authentic way to go -- and sit in the car after shopping and eat it. By myself, and satisfyingly alone in my gluttonous joy.

Every Saturday morning I'll leave my family of three boys at home and whiz through PiknSave getting through the family shopping list and then my own: tossing in jello cubes rolled in Cool Whip or BBQ glazed meatloaf with a canned peach on top. I get to the store before noon so that the 100 percent real beef frankfurters wrapped in bacon are still plentifully plumped up and not shriveled from the heat lamp. I'll order 8 ounces of green bean and cream of mushroom bake, I'll go for the double serving of toasted crumb top macaroni and cheese. Getting to the store before 2 p.m. guarantees me a nice standing slab of mozzarella topped lasagna. Window shopping past the deli-of-dreams display case I'll ask for egg rolls, creamy tuna salad, hojo potatoes, beef stroganoff, beef tips in mushroom sauce, stuffed pork chops, deep fried haddock and home-made poor boys on crunchy submarine rolls. All things I'd lay in bed and promise that I'd eat some day when I was in charge of me.

I get these things now because I can. I'm not really hungry as much as I feel it's making up for lost time. Getting those things that I always dreamed of into my mouth.

To me, it's celebrating my fortunate life. For five dollars and two bits, it's like a clink of  glasses to myself with how well things turned out to be for me. I mean, lookame, getting the things I used to wish for. Like a boss.

I come back home from errands, stuffed, but still sit down to a meal with three children that I adore and a man who is good to me. My husband thinks I am the daintiest eater he's ever seen; but if you look very closely, you'll see the golden crumbs of item number three from my Food Bucket List, freshly sitting right there on the corners of my mouth, ready to give away my blessed secret life.

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**Holy cow! My post is syndicated at BlogHer today! Always a thrill to have a post picked up for the pages there ... validation of the highest order. If you feel like it, please stop by and sparkle/comment/read/tweet/hurray it. Thank you.

The Kitchen Witch

I am always happy when I find a place where I can write about my grandmother.  My abuela is at the very front of all my childhood memories. Always.

Because of blogging, I have met the most wonderful people. People who share my feelings and aspirations about life. I met Dana, the lovely food and life blogger behind The Kitchen Witch, through following one rabbit hole of the internet to another. Dana's blog is beautiful, her recipes appetite satisfying, and her posts food for my soul.

I'm guesting there today, while Dana heals from surgery, where I share a story and one of my favorite childhood recipes from my Spanish grandmother.

I hope to see you at Dana's, and my wishes to all of you for a restful week off while you enjoy the 'energy' of having your little ones home. *wink*


*Feel better soon, Dana. xo

The Kitchen Witch

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