Tamalies

well this weekend was a busy one. My roommate spent the weekend with my family and me. I am sure it was quite a culture shock but i think she had fun. the highlights of the weekend were: we made tamales, watched movies including a very cute movie called Happy Feet, went to the Botanical gardens and took my roommate to her first Catholic mass. :) Yuppers. can't get a grasp of the Hispanic culture without making tamales and going to church. just messing. ;)

My family tradition

Almost every year my family on my mom's side gets together the weekend before Thanksgiving to make Tamales for Thanksgiving and Christmas. This is quite a big task. It usually takes two days to make the tamales. The first day is the prep day. my grandma, dad, and uncles are busy cutting up the pork and making the chili that is used to stuff the tamales with.

The next day all the ladies, my Grandma, aunts, cousin, sister and me, get together to assemble the tamales. We do invite others to join who are not in the family so that they can join in on the fun.

This year we had Karen and Stephanie (who are my sisters friend and have become my family's friend as well) as well as my roommate Jeanette help us.

Now if you are wondering where are the guys in my family. Well the majority of them are not around due to work or other plans. but my Dad, Gandpo and one of my uncles help us carry the pressure cooker and watch it while it cooks. :)

It is such a fun time because i get to take part in a cultural tradition that was started by my Grandma. We take much pride in our tamales. It has almost become our main course at Thanksgiving. You know we have tamales with a side of turkey. They are good. We have the assemble of a tamale down to an art form. We each have a job depending on your experience with an exception of the people who are helping out. You see I am the youngest of the bunch making the tamales so my jobs started off at the lowest level and has progressed to higher levels. I started off washing the ojas, and the dishes. As i have gotten older i have learned how to spread the masa on the ojas, mix the masa with my hands, cut aluminum foil, baby sit the little kids and this year i learned how to stuff the tamales with the Chili. *grin*

but some of the other jobs are wrapping the finished tamales in foil so that they don't explode every where in the pressure cooker and making chili. but the chili making is the top job and that is up to my grandma. without a good chili then we don't have good tamales.

well that is a gimps of one of my family traditions.