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December 29, 2002
What Did I Do 2
So it's time to mix the masa and I am not 100% confident that I can get the texture just right. Helen says that it should be shiny and not stick to your hand when you pat it. Jennifer and Mom did an excellent job of mixing and mashing and none of us even blinked when we added 2lbs of melted Crisco to both batches of masa. After my Mom and Sister's hands got good and gooey and their respective mixtures looked as shiny as I thought they could possibly be, we decided to start rolling the tamals. My Dad had to go to work. My Brother had a mission on some computer game...(I know. I don't know where we went wrong when we raised him...could have been the fact that he had three moms when he grew up...(me, my sister, and our mother) and he is now in a constant state of rebellion.) My Dad's wife said, "I hate the rolling part" and exited post haste. So that left me and Jenny as primary rollers along with my mom to do as much as she could. UGH....UGH!!! This is why you have entire neighborhoods of women making them. Jenny, Mom and I rolled somewhere along the lines of 390 tamales...Something like 32 dozen. It was a job I can tell you. We put the first batch of tamals on the stove to steam at about 7:30pm. They would be ready at 1:30am. The second and last batch start steaming at 10:30pm and would be ready at about 4:30am. It took about 3 hours to roll 190 tamales...that's six hours for both batches. Get the hoja, masa and stew and roll. With a few secret family recipe steps for good measure.
After the rolling, everything was steaming and I ended up playing the waiting game alone. Jenny went along with Mom to her house to go to bed. Not trusting myself to get up out of a comfortable bed in a different room, I slept for the second night on the futon next to the kitchen. My brother was instructed to wake me up at 1:30am. He was still kicking bad guy ass on the computer. I would worry about the 4:30am tamals when the time came.
Frankly Rhett, you May have saved my Tamale Christmas
I woke up out of my exhausted slumber to the familiar tunes of SaintSeans, my signature ring for Rhett at 1:30 am on the dot. He and Fred were at another wild party and he called to either a)say hello because even though he was having a good time I am still more fun b) give me the scoop on all my competition at the party (what can I say? It's the hassle of dating a handsome guy) or c) rub it in that he was partying it up big time while I was suspended in Tamale Purgatory (Will they turn out or not?) or some combination of the three. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that he called, without realizing it, at exactly the time I needed to be up to take care of my precious endeavor. We chatted for a bit and then I painstakenly took out each hot and steamed tamale and put them in pans so they could cool. I am a little concerned that the masa isn't completely cooked enough but I know that Aunt Helen said 6 hours, they would cook more both in the cooling process and when reheating and I was too tired to stay up and worry about it. About an hour later I was back on the futon asleep. 4:33am rolls around and my brother comes out and asks if I am awake. I say yes and reach for my phone to check the time. I realize that I have 2 missed calls that most likely had something to do with my brother coming to wake me. They were from Rhett and at just the right time, again without him realizing it, for me to take out the second batch of tamales. So I call Rhett back (He had only called about 3 minutes before.) and chatted with him some more. He and Fred were on the way home. It was 5:30 his time and they had a blast. I got up to take care of the rest of my tamals and then fell asleep with wishes of beautiful and tasty tamales just like grandmother's and a big unsightly wart that would mysteriously grow on Rhett's chin so he wouldn't be quite so desireable to the other ladies.Posted by mermu at December 29, 2002 10:43 AM
Comments
Glad your mom kicked in--she must have felt guilty about being a bad minion. I think it's great you did all this, and definitely something to be proud of.
Are you saying that you'd still want Rhett even with said big unsightly chin wart?
Posted by: Elizabeth (cousin) at December 30, 2002 03:21 PM
I may be rejudiced, but I think these are the best tamales I have ever tasted! No kidding!
Posted by: mom (aka Rita) at December 29, 2002 07:51 PM
It should be said that my mom really came through in the end. She rolled tamales like a true champ and even helped clean up the kitchen which is something we all hate.
Posted by: Mermu at December 29, 2002 02:07 PM
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