Masa and mayhem

Carmen knocked on my door at 10 AM with a grocery bag full of corn husks and a determined look. “Today’s the day we finally do this,” she announced, dumping everything on my kitchen counter. We’ve been talking about making tamales together for months, pooling our grandmothers’ recipes, but somehow never got around to it until today.

Masa and mayhem

Three hours later, my kitchen looks like a masa bomb exploded. Carmen’s grandmother’s masa recipe is apparently very… enthusiastic. We’re both covered in flour, there are corn husks everywhere, and our first batch of tamales look more like abstract art than food. But Carmen kept laughing every time one of mine fell apart, which made me laugh, which made the next one even worse.

The taste test moment

The taste test was the real moment of truth. Carmen took her first bite and her eyes went wide - not in the good way. “Well,” she said after a long pause, “they definitely taste like tamales. Sort of.” Mine was… dense. Like really dense. But we ate them anyway because we spent three hours making them and also because Carmen brought wine. Next time we’re definitely watching some YouTube tutorials first.