There's something I miss about home. No matter where I've been since I've been out of the nest, it's never really felt like home. I've lived with a few people over the course of those years and despite best efforts, I just can't seem to settle in.
So it happened that a couple of weeks ago, I was visiting my mom when I got this wild idea that she teach me how to make proper flour tortillas. By any stretch of the imagination, I'm not a whiz in the kitchen, but I am more than useful. I don't eat a lot of prepared dinners as I really prefer to make my own food when I can. An ex has declared that to some degree, I am a food snob. I had never really given it any credence until recently.
Now mom had been making flour tortillas by hand since she was an early teen. Pushing eighty years, her hands aren't quite so nimble anymore. When she began to show me, I could see that her aged, crumpled hands couldn't do the same things as they used to do. I insisted that she coach me through. There were no proper measurements to be had, simply eyeballing how much of what to put in. Six LARGE spoons of all purpose flour, just more than a smidge of baking powder, a few globs of shortening (not lard) and some warm water. I followed her guidance and kneaded the dough, but not too much, pulling out smaller portions to roll into proper size tortillas.
I got the griddle hot, but not hot enough according to her, and the first couple didn't exactly make the cut. A few more into it and they were beginning to take shape. They weren't exactly as round as I remember mom making them, but the smell test was spot on. They smelled exactly as I remember when I was growing up. Those Saturday mornings when I could hear the rolling pin against the counter and I was eight years old again.
And then I really understood that the meaning of home is something different to everyone.
Today, home is the smell of fresh flour tortillas.
