Traditions

When Josh and I got married, we inherited certain family traditions from one another, and the most lasting among them involve food. He has raved about the Copes green beans and Beck pie, and I have craved his mom's chicken and noodles and his grampa's beans since our first respective bites. The food has become more than a way to satiate our hunger--it is a way to reach back into our childhoods and share our pieces of ourselves that might otherwise remain hidden. Josh can feel the suffocating humidity of a late summer evening spent bent over the green bean plants in my Gramma's garden, and he can taste the velvety, watery crunch of a fresh bean; I can see the pinto beans bubble and spit in the oil in his grandfather's sunny kitchen, and I can taste the warm, earthy goodness of beans cooked in the same dish beans have been cooked in for years and years and years.

One of the beautiful things about this food is the not just the connection of ourselves to one another but to our families as well. Josh has, as close as I can tell, perfected his grampa's beans. I am learning my Gramma Beck's pie (even if I cannot bring myself to use her crust recipe because it makes me fear for my salvation...). And I have found an intense desire to learn some recipes that are important to him, too. I can do a pretty good chile con carne, for example. But some recipes allude me; I think, like the pie crust, I am terrified of messing them up. They are so much more than recipes. They are people and tradition and love. And yet...they are my siren's song.

Enter the Enchilada.

His Gramma Lupe's recipe. His mother's tradition.

Twice Rita has allowed me to shadow her in the kitchen, to watch her nimble, skilled fingers create a Mexican masterpiece from the simplest, most unassuming ingredients. This time, I took pictures and, much to Rita's chagrin, videos. I'm going to learn this recipe. I'm going to make enchiladas. My kitchen will one day hold the taste of Lupe's kitchen, and of Rita's kitchen. Their tradition is going to become my tradition.

And one day, they'll look as good as this:

The secret ingredient