The hills are alive....with the sound of a good Colorado food joint around the corner!!
To be honest, it was something that I have been wanting to do for a very long time. It all started with my upbringing. I come from a rather large family. My mother was the youngest of 8 and being a single mom was tough. I had my grandparents around most of my life and I would consider them integral in making me who I am. When much younger, we would always have large family gatherings. It was great to see the extensive family. Generally, I would say that I came from a poor, humble household, but creating good food was what sort of livened some of those dreary days. Again, without learning that, then I guess I would never truly appreciate spices, food textures and all that makes good food just, well good!
Parental units and sister...wasn't I a cutie??
Sometimes, we would all get together as a family and dig large holes to cook a whole pig or make tamales during Christmastime. We would always have large BBQ s. I loved it though when it would be just my grandmother and I. She would show me her little tricks on how to cook unique things such as menudo, tripe, or liver. As I grew older, I had a knack for baking and would bring pastries to the family gatherings. My grandfather would be spoiled as he would get his first big piece of strawberry cake (with fresh cut strawberries). Such small memories are what I truly cherish.
So what happened then??
Eventually what happened was, well I got older, college kicked in and then later on, I moved away to Houston in 1997. It was hard when I moved away especially as I lost both of my grandparents. They were both really important to me. When my grandmother passed away, I decided to do an homage to her and made tamales at her home. It was weird, but I truly felt her and knew that she was there in spirit as we cooked away. As a family, we always shared whatever was cooked. That was the right thing to do since not only would we share with the extended family, but the comadres or neighbors nearby. To this day, I think I have continued to carry that tradition because that was what I was reared to do.
Both of these pictures show what we did at my grandparents' place while making tamales.
Throughout the years, I have met great people and continued that tradition of bringing in great dishes for a gathering, soiree or the like. Much more recently, I decided to take on writing a blog because I wanted to share with close family and friends what I continued to do in my kitchen. I have many close relatives that would say on my Facebook that I needed to give them some of the various recipes with those pictures that I posted into my page.
Wine, pork sandwiches, cheese and bruschetta for a friend's soiree
What better way to keep them in the loop by making this page. Thus far, it has been great and have been getting great feedback. I continue to learn how to use a blog, but I hope that people become inspired to cook good food and enjoy it with great family and friends as I do.
