Kitchen experiment

Carmen showed up this morning with a grocery bag full of corn husks and her grandmother’s handwritten tamale recipe. “How hard could it be?” she said, spreading everything across my counter like she was performing surgery.

Kitchen experiment

Three hours later and we’re both covered in masa, my kitchen looks like a corn husk bomb went off, and our first batch of tamales look more like abstract art than food. Carmen keeps insisting her grandmother’s handwriting is perfectly legible while I’m pretty sure we’ve been reading “1 cup” as “1 tablespoon” this whole time.

Reading the recipe for the third time.

The ones currently steaming smell incredible though, even if they’re held together with hope and determination. Carmen’s already texting her mom for backup instructions while I’m googling “how to know if tamales are actually cooked.” First time for everything, right?