Wordy Wednesday: Fexican

It’s 7:39 and not a single child is awake yet and the piano teacher will be here in twenty minutes. If I were a different sort of person I would wake someone up and make them practice. But instead I think it’s time for a food interlude.

This new kitchen is pretty great. It is quirky and weirdly impossible to photograph, although I have every intention of continuing to try. But it is more functional than any kitchen I have cooked in probably ever. The stove is tucked into an angular peninsula covered in faux marble Formica, and marvelously, the sink is far away on the opposite side of the room so that one person can be busy chopping and cooking, and an entirely other person can be washing and cleaning. The two don’t constantly bash into either other. The peninsula also acts like a sort of wall or gate so that children can come crashing in, but their movement is arrested by the counter and they can either be encouraged to leave or sit on a stool out of danger of wrecking what’s on the stove.

Speaking of faux, I’ve been perfecting my Fake Mexican, or, as I’ve recently learned to say, Fexican, and yesterday I feel like I put forward a pretty successful effort.

First I went to Aldi and bought a strange little jar labeled Mole which I put on the counter in front of me and left there, as inspiration. Maybe someday I’ll open it, but yesterday was not that day. Then I started to chop an onion but I’m having a spot of eye trouble. How so, you ask? Well, what I did was I went to the old house and dug up some of my day lilies. And then, when my hands were well covered with the dirt and scent of these beautiful yellow dreams, I rubbed my eyes. And, see, I’m super allergic to day lilies–not in a sneezing sense, but in an eye swelling up and turning blistering red and itchy sense. So, because I broke my own glasses, I’ve been wearing Matt’s pair for two weeks, waiting for my turn at the eye doctor, and alarming passers by with my beady yet swollen red eyes. I’ve been slowly on the mend so I blithely and naively set out to delicately dice two onions but I’d bought the stringent white onions instead of sweet yellow ones and as my blade cut smoothly down the onion chemicals flew up invisibly through the air and smacked me in the eyes so that I felt sure I was about to perish. So then my mother lit two candles and tried to chop them herself but either the candles were too tall, or the onion too obtuse, because she began to weep and so we wept and finally had two onions sweating in the pan with some olive oil.

Skipped the garlic because of all the weeping.
Meanwhile, browned about five pounds of ground beef in another large pan and opened four tins of black beans which, once the onions were soft and translucent, and after I’d messed about some chorizo with them so that they smelled really glorious, I then dumped in along with two large tins of crushed tomato. Liberally applied salt and cumin and let it all meld together while I applied myself to making einkorn tortillas for the first time.

Matt was given by Alouicious for Father’s Day a tortilla press. Stood around making tortillas and continuing to weep while Matt’s mom did all the less pleasant chopping of salad, tomatoes, cilantro and cheese grating that always prevent me from attempting Fexican.

When everything was cooked and chopped and ready, I opened the oven to pull out the children’s ordinary tortillas (because einkorn is not for people who lack sense and taste) and carefully touched the top of my thumb to the oven rack so that I had to go around for the rest of the day with my hand swaddled in peas, ice, frozen chicken stock, and finally a bowl of water.

So there you are, Fexican. So delicious. So worth all the sorrow. Today we’re having leftovers though. No reason. Pure coincidence. Just like that plane full of unmarked bills delivered to Iran.

Pip pip.