7. WE ARE LIKE WITCHES IN THE KITCHEN
WE ARE LIKE WITCHES IN THE KITCHEN
Fresh ingredients are a must. Ground beef.
Carrots. Potatoes. Zucchini. Roma tomatoes.
Corn on the cob. White onion. Garlic. Cilantro.
Mint. Oregano. This is how you’ll get the best results.
This is the recipe passed down from your great-great grandmother, Catalina.
She perfected the recipe. She understood the meaning of putting love into cooking.
Even though her husband was a vile drunk who eventually left her, she never forgot about love in her cooking.
Love in spite of being unloved. I am not saying it to be mean.
Your great-great grandma was an excellent cook.
I would give anything to taste her food again.
She was a phenomenal seamstress too. Her handmade dresses were exquisite and impeccable.
Her taste in men was questionable. As an enamorada, she was an idiot, but what can you do?
Okay, first, we chop the white onion but you have to be fast or you’ll cry.
Then, the tomatoes. Mince the garlic. Then, the cilantro.
Smell it on your hands and fingertips, get to know the layers of fragrances.
Now, mint. I grabbed some from the garden.
Smell the mint on your hands and in the air.
Get swept away by the fragrances, get swept away by the fact that you are making something that will turn out delicious.
You will be nourished by your own hands.
Your great-great grandma never remarried, but she kept her children fed.
We’re moving on to the oregano, which I dried on my own in the spring.
Smell it. Take it in. We are like witches in the kitchen.
We make magic with everything we’ve grown.
I even made the chicken broth, if you can believe it.
None of our family line comes from curanderas, my little olive.
Cooking is as close as we can get. After your grandpa died, your grandma used to sell fraudulent love spells.
They were all lies. She wasn’t a bruja. She was a grifter with a sweet way of speaking to men and women alike.
Our old house in Chihuahua had a room filled to the brim with candles, roses, love letters, sigils, bible pages, and polaroids of men and women who wanted to control each other or who wanted to break up.
They never questioned why your grandma was single.
You know how I feel about her. She did what she had to even if it meant her children suffered.
A delicious meal makes you forget your suffering.
I like to have a bowl out for each individual ingredient.
This is almost like witchcraft. Almost. Thank the animals and the plants involved in feeding you.
Always. Add olive oil to the stock pot. Let the oil heat up and add your minced garlic, white onion, and diced tomatoes.
Let them simmer and once the tomatoes have softened, add your broth.
Now, our meatballs. The star of the show.
In a large bowl, add oregano, salt, pepper, mint, minced garlic, and rice.
Add the ground beef and for every pound of meat, add an egg.
In this case, we have two pounds so, two eggs.
Mix it all together and shape the meatballs.
Add more broth into the pot and simmer at a low heat.
Your Tía Letty skips the mint and the onion, she uses canned tomato sauce and adds cabbage to hers.
What an abomination. I’ll tell you what else is an abomination: she used to think she was better than me because she had a job in an office in one of those twinkling skyscrapers.
Well, she was fired for having an affair with her boss.
Letty left her marriage for that woman! Can you believe that?
There’s nothing wrong with falling in love, but at least get a divorce.
Letty has never been one to be honest. She lies to me all the time.
Not only that, she botched this recipe. Cabbage in caldo de albóndigas is absurd.
This is a family recipe that you can pass down.
A recipe to continue within the lineage.
You can pass it down to your daughter. Do you want a daughter?
A baby of your own? A baby who will ruin your body and suckle you dry?
Do you know what you want to do with your life, Olivia?
You couldn’t possibly know. Do you want to become a mommy like me?
Don’t answer. I don’t want to know. If you become a mommy, you’ll see how hard it is, how hard life becomes.