Married Into My Favorite Meal

I definitely appreciate fancy ingredients and expensive restaurants, but my favorite meals are the simple ones. A couple of weeks before Brian and I got married I went to meet his little Mexican grandma. The table was spread with all kinds of food, the American stuff, like pork chops and spaghetti, were apparently for me, although I didn't realize it at the time. I ended up only eating her handmade tortillas, beans, and chili. Luckily his aunt taught me how to make the chili and his mom showed me how to make her mother-in-laws tortillas.

I thought of her at the farmer's market last Saturday after seeing all the anaheim peppers and knew what I had to do. I thawed some homemade pinto beans, made the chile con carne and was about to be lazy and use store-bought tortillas, but could not after thinking about using such thin, dry, machine-made (aka loveless) tortillas on my beloved spicy gravy. Out came the flour and rolling pin and 15 minutes later we had over a dozen fresh tortillas. Such basic ingredients, beans, flour, two peppers, salt, and a pork chop. $2 and a happily fed family of four with leftovers for lunch.

I

And you've got to eat it like a Mexican, little bites,

not rolled into a burrito.

Esme loved the beans while Eli's eyes bugged at the site of tortillas.