Tamalada Time!

#6) Hot Tamales

So optimistic at the beginning....

  I've always heard that it's quite the ordeal to make tamales.  It's a social affair where families gather together and spend an entire day catching up with one another while prepping ingredients, making the masa (Spanish for "dough"), stuffing and rolling the tamales, then steaming them.  My friend, Nestor Martinez, hosted a tamale making party.  His sweet mother agreed to come over and teach all of us the entire process.  

Supervisor/Teacher and Nestor 

  We started at 8am on a Saturday (which for someone who works nights and/or went out with Messy Nessie the night before can prove to be quite unproductive).  When I showed up, everyone had an assigned job -- chopping cilantro, deseeding peppers, deboning chicken, etc.  I thought I would be able to get away with loitering and chatting for a bit -- but Nestor's mom was not having it.  She said, "You need to be working!  Someone give her a job!" Tamale making = hard core.  

   (as you can see above, literally everyone was doing something and I was clearly just going around taking pictures and getting in the way...)  I was assigned me the job of mimosa maker, the most critical position -- you may be thinking it has absolutely nothing to do with making tamales and you're right.  But at 8am with this group -- it is vital to the process.  I've learned though that "too much orange" means make me a new one with more champagne.  

  Even though I'd made everyone drinks, I made myself appear to be busy so I didn't get yelled at again.  Taking mercy on me as she saw me running out of things to "do" -- my roommate let me help her peel garlic.  We thought our hands would never shake the smell, but discovered if you rub this pampered chef metallic circle the odor of garlic goes away.  Weird, but true story.  Once all the ingredients were prepped and good to go, we made the masa.  We got a massive bowl with masa, baking powder, water....and to my horror, a large amount of melted lard.  

  It had the texture of really thick playdough and we used our hands to mash it all together.  By the time it was all said and done our forearms and hands were cramping up.  Each time we thought we had it perfect, Nestor's mom would walk by and say "No, not good enough."  It really felt like we were working in a factory and she was our supervisor.  Over lunch we even discussed the possibility of forming a union.  Once the masa met Mama Nestor's high quality standards, we started the process of smearing the masa onto the corn husks which had been soaking in water overnight.....nightmare of a job. 

Getting dirty!  

  Getting that masa onto the husk and off your spoon/fingers was an act of God.  For the life of me I couldn't get it to look right so I got fired from that shop and promoted/demoted to rolling the tamales.  We finally made a run to Fiesta for these presses that made our lives SO MUCH EASIER!  Put the husk and a ball of masa on there with a plastic bag to prevent sticking, smash, voila!  God send.  Apparently there is only one side of the husk you should use so the tamale doesn't stick to it when you unwrap them -- we didn't discover this small tidbit of info until halfway through the process so it was too late to turn back.   

Stones weigh down the husks so they can soak overnight

  Later, Nestor went and got a WHOLE new chicken to be deboned because he didn't think we had enough chicken tamales....which meant we had to make MORE masa, just when we were finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.  He did not win friend points with this move.  Although when we are finally over our tamale coma and decide to start eating them again -- I'm sure we'll all be glad we have more chicken ones.  We spent an entire day stuffing, rolling, eating, complaining, etc.  On one of our supervised timed breaks, we were exhausted and trying to find ways to delay going back to "work".  I even fell asleep at the lunch table.

Hard day in the factory

  By the time it was all said and done, we made about 50 dozen tamales!!!!  It was messy, tedious, frustrating, difficult, and tiresome -- and SO MUCH FUN!  Of course everything is fun when you're stuck in the trenches with good company.  Thanks Nestor and Michael for hosting, and thanks Andrea (Nestor's mom) for your patience/whip cracking!  My family doesn't know it yet -- but we are having tamales for Thanksgiving this year (and the next 3 years to follow)!

Finished product!

Packaging the goods -- all 50 dozen+ of them.

Tamale making crew -- before the tears 

It's NEVER a Game

Roaring 20's

  When I was in college I never did the whole study abroad thing because....I had a boyfriend (world's worst reason for not doing something awesome).  Hindsight incredible mistake -- as it usually is to base a decision off of a guy.  But that was the route I chose in undergrad.  When I graduated and realized I'd gotten a degree in a field of which I no intention of working -- I pursued some short-term, random jobs that didn't really lead anywhere.  In Spring of 2007, my roommate from college was coaching football in Ireland (actual American football, not soccer) and invited me to come visit.  I was single, in between "careers" (drastic exaggeration to describe what I was doing at the time), and in the whole post-graduation "I'm searching for myself and my place in the world" phase -- so I thought, why not?  I booked my one-way ticket (frowned upon by most customs officials) to Shannon Airport and left for an indefinite amount of time.  I had no idea what I was getting myself into -- but it turned out to be the most life-changing and best decision I ever made (of either well-planned or completely spontaneous ones).

Coach Levy

  I'd traveled overseas before -- but never completely alone.  It is really different going by yourself (in a good way).  It's just really empowering navigating your own way through the airport, customs, etc.  And considering nothing else about post-graduation made me feel like a grown-up, it was nice to have that sense of autonomy.  I'm one of those weird people that LOVES the airport -- I love people watching, getting lost in the crowd, knowing I have a completely legit excuse to turn my cell phone off, the normalcy that comes with downing a beer in 15 minutes because my flight is boarding, and pretending I'm not American by putting on the best (aka worst to other ears) accent of my choice.

Gave the accent the best I had......my best wasn't good enough

  I boarded my flight, completely stoked, until I saw that I was in the window seat of the two-passenger section -- next to an incredibly large, disheveled man who took up his seat as well as a portion of mine.

I awkwardly squeezed by him to my seat as he refused to get completely up and out of the way.  As the plane took off, the Russian man (as I discovered later) started to sing Frosty the Snowman -- very slurred, very pitchy, and very alcohol-induced.  To make matters better (heavy sarcasm), he removed his shoes only to reveal bare feet, both of which suffered from neglect of toenail trimming for about a decade, and one of which suffered from serious clubbing.  The remainder of the flight continued to play out in a similar fashion when I got food poisoning from my airplane-fresh chicken dish (shocker) and had to hurdle over the now passed out Drunk Russian Man in order to sprint to the bathroom and puke about five times.  I thought, if this is foreshadowing for the trip to come, God help me.  As all good things must come to an end, we finally landed in Ireland.  I couldn't get off the plane fast enough -- but of course, as it would happen, I got stuck behind Drunk Russian Man who moved at the pace of a slug and I was the very last person off the plane.

Made fresh daily

  I walked as fast as I could to baggage claim, ready to be done with my airport experience.  I spotted my bag on the carousel, pushed Russian Drunk Man out of my way, snatched my suitcase and headed for the exit -- when I heard a beeping noise.  At first I didn't know what it was, but quickly realized it was coming from my bag.  It started off beeping slowly, then faster, faster.....sounding like the countdown just before a bomb is sure to go off.  As this is happening, two flight attendants started looking around anxiously.  I heard one say, "Who is it? Where is it coming from?"  I thought, oh my God -- CATCH PHRASE!!!!  I had to pack the damn games, didn't I?!  The flight attendants got more and more frantic as the beeping noise sped up and I made myself look even more guilty by trying to sprint out of there before I was spotted.

  Apparently a girl running for the exit as she drags her bomb-like beeping suitcase frantically behind her tends to draw too much attention to herself from an airport security standpoint.  The ginger flight attendant pointed directly at me, then yelled, "It's HER!  It's in HER BAG!"  (yet another strike for the ginger population).  Other passengers started looking at me, some with fear and some with curiosity.  Security was on me in 0.2 seconds and there was no escape.  To keep from getting tazed on site or pinned up against the wall, I kept saying, "It's just a game, it's just a game."  They pawed through my suitcase in full drug raid fashion, throwing my clothes out until the "bomb" was discovered. 

TSA's worst nightmare

 The security guy pulled out Catch Phrase and it went off in his hand. I had so many inappropriately timed comments I was tempted to say:  "Woops, you didn't pass it in time", "I guess the entertainment category wasn't your thing", or "Team America gets the point!"....but I assumed he wouldn't see the ironical humor in the situation.  That assumption was confirmed when his response to my comment of "It's just a game" was, "Miss, it is NEVER just a game." (say in voice of Nicholas Cage during his worst acting moment -- just pick one; and insert slow, dramatic return of Catch Phrase game here).  I took the game, half wanting to laugh at the situation but half wanting to cry from the relief that freedom was still mine.  

  As I walked out of the airport, I was convinced this abroad thing was going to be an absolute disaster from start to finish -- but what happened I've chosen to tell briefly through these next photos....I got to:

          

                        Make lifelong friends like this....looking at them now it's questionable if this is a "pro" of the trip

                                       

                                                 Live with fun guys like this....717!!

                          

                                     Embrace spontaneity/bad decisions like this....English Channel bridge jumping

                                        

                                                    Dated a guy like this.....available in NYC ladies

Travel to awesome places like this.....Prague

See incredible view like this....Cliffs of Moher

Eat delicious (pound packing) Irish homecooking like this....Mama O'Sullivan

Have crazy nights like this.....Kings of Leon

 Tons of awesome experiences, so I'd say the trip took a turn for the better.....such a good turn that I ended up moving there the following year.  Well worth enduring Russian Drunk Man, food poisoning at 35000 feet in the air on an international flight, and almost getting form tackled by airport security for carrying a "bomb".....I'd do it all over in a heartbeat.  Here's to 717 lads and our reunion next week!