Thursday

Today was an interesting day, one that tested my domestic abilities. We started out by going to Delma's house. Delma lives close to Casa and makes tortillas for Casa and she was willing to show us how she makes them. She buys huge bags (50 lbs.) of corn and takes the corn to another residence that has an electric grinder that grinds the corn kernals. She then takes the ground corn meal and mixes it with lime. No not lime juice, but lime as in put on your garden. It should be noted that only a few teaspoons are added to a huge amount of cornmeal.

Then it is kneaded until it is soft (by adding water a little at a time). Then a small amount of this is placed on a press and made into a perfect tortilla. that was then placed on a wood adobe stove heated by wood fire. Well I was trying to learn how to make them but it did not go well. I was able to "kneed" it but I could not get the hang of pressing them. They were either very big, very little, too thin or too thick. No matter how many times I tried, I could not get it right. But to make me feel better, Delma allowed one of mine to make it to the stove. I advised her that she should charge extra for that one because a gringo made it. She showed her business saviness by instantly telling Karen that she would sell the one I made to Karen for extra money. So I sorta failed at the tortilla making.

Karen has a recipie for French Onion Soup that she wanted fixed for supper as she and Dorian discovered that they like it. Well I don't even like French Onion Soup, but today I made it from scratch and guess what? They liked it!!! Go figure. So today was not a total loss.