All I wanted to do was watch the Pac-12 Championship game.
Thanks to COVID-19 protocols in the state of Washington, the Huskies football team wasn't able to play the Oregon Ducks in the last regular season game. At that point, the Ducks were 3-2 and the Huskies 3-1, which meant the winner would take the PAC-12 North and go to the PAC-12 Championship to face the opponent from the southern division, the undefeated (5-0) USC Trojans.
Since the Oregon-Washington game didn't happen, the Huskies were set to go to the PAC-12 Championship game, if they could field a team. However, because of the rules (two week quarantine and ongoing testing of players), Washington didn't have enough athletes who could play, so the Ducks, being second in line in the North, were to go in their stead.
There was plenty of controversy about the way that all went down leading up to the game that I don't feel the need to rehash. Some people thought the PAC-12 should wait to play the championship game when the Huskies could field a team, whenever that might be. By that same logic, they might as well play the Ducks-Huskies game first, then the championship game, but I digress.
In the end, the Ducks went to play the Trojans on their home field last Friday night (December 18) and obviously, I wanted to watch the game.
What Does Any Of That Have To Do With Tamales and Cookies?
Here's the deal.
For quite a few months, my wife had been talking about making tamales. Someone we know indicated a while ago she would like to learn how to make them. This was back in August or so. My wife had time off in September, and thanks to the lockdowns, her planned trip to Mexico to visit family was basically quashed. So, my wife decided that during that nearly three week period of time she would take a day and show the acquaintance how to make tamales.
Well, my wife called a couple of times and the woman never responded. My wife's vacation time came and went. But the idea about making tamales remained.
In the week or two leading up to Saturday, December 12, she seemed determined to get the tamales done then. She would have all day, she wouldn't be rushed, and there would be plenty of time to distribute the tamales to people we intended to give them to. My idea, since she was talking about five dozen tamales, and no one in the family, except maybe her, really liked them that much.
Tamales are tough to get right. There's too many things that can go wrong. Most I've eaten (and these are made by Mexican women who are selling them) have too much corn meal (masa) and not enough meat. They also tend to dry out, which is the worst for me. So, you have this dry masa with little meat inside and very little to look forward to.
In the end, they're a lot of work with more downside than up.
As luck would have it, Saturday the 12th came and went. The next time to start the project became Thursday, December 17, but that got pushed back to the 18th. My wife actually had the masa ready to go that morning, as well as the meat, but then she had a lunch date with a friend, and while she was gone, she got a text from work that they needed her immediately to fill in for the housekeeper who was supposed to be on the job, but had left because her husband had ended up in the hospital.
That was around 2 pm. She called me and told me what was happening and then asked me to shred the meat she had previously cooked. There were chicken breasts and what looked like pork chops. She wasn't going to be back until close to 6 pm and still had to work the next day. Normally, she would go to bed around 9 pm to get up at 5 or so the next morning to get ready for work.
All the time she had to put the tamales together was now dwindling rapidly and I was being pulled into a project that I wasn't so keen about in the first place. However, I had promised, because I suggested we give some out, that I would help in some way.
At the time, though, I didn't know Oregon would be playing in the PAC-12 Championship game, and that the tamales would end up being made that same evening.
I told her okay, I'll shred the meat. The game wasn't starting for three hours. I could make my contribution and watch the game when it came on.
The Best Laid Plans Of Wives And Tamales
It was somewhere around 3:30 pm when I got around to shredding. I wasn't really in the mood, but a promise was a promise and I didn't really want to wait any longer.
As it turned out, it took me well over an hour to shred all of the chicken and just over half of the pork. It might not look like it, but there was a lot of meat there. Standing there for that length of time with my arms stretched out didn't feel all that great on my back, either. I decided I'd given her more than enough to get started, and she could finish up the rest of the pork.
Since it was closing in on 5 pm, I sat down to watch the game. It didn't start right at 5 pm, so only a few minutes of actual game time went by when my wife called again. She didn't think she was going to get home until about 6:15 pm, and now she wanted me to cut up the vegetables that would go into the chicken tamales.
Tomatoes, onions and jalapeños.
BUT...!! I'M TRYING TO WATCH THE GAME!!
I admit, I lost it a little bit. This wasn't my project. It wasn't my fault she'd waited so long, or that she'd been called into work. I'd already shredded the meat. What else would she want me to do? Prepare the tamales and then cook them?
I told her I was watching the game. She said okay, and hung up. After 30-plus years of marriage, I knew she wasn't happy, but she didn't want to argue over the phone. Me, I fully wanted to just go back to the game, but then I thought of her spending all night on the stupid tamales when she would have to go to work early the next day and I just couldn't do it.
Dang it. All I wanted to do was watch the game. Was that too much to ask?
Yes, Yes It Was
I started cutting up the tomatoes. In my huff, I realized I didn't really give her a chance to give me instructions. I had no idea how many of each she wanted me to cut, nor how she wanted me to cut them. I thought they were all going into the blender to be made into a salsa for the meat to be cooked in, anyway, so I figured all I really had to do was to chop them all into smaller sizes to make the blending easier.
I still didn't know how many, but I figured I didn't need to do them all. Six or so tomatoes, about that many jalapeños and a couple of onions (I'm not an onion fan, so I don't like chopping them a whole lot either) and I should be good to go.
Meanwhile, I tried to watch the game from the kitchen. I'm near-sighted, so that didn't work out so well, despite the 60" TV and unobstructed view into the family room. It was just too far away.
Two interceptions in the first quarter led to 14 points for the Ducks before USC's QB and offense finally drove most of the field to score. That gave Oregon the seven point edge, one they would basically keep throughout the rest of the half.
True to her word, it was around 6:15 pm when my wife made it home. By then, all of the vegetables were cut and she put them into a pan to cook on the stove. When I told her I didn't know how she wanted them cut, she didn't say much, but apparently they were fine as is.
But they weren't going into the blender. Instead, they would go straight from the frying pan to be wrapped inside the masa with the shredded chicken. Now, there was some blending to be done, but it was the chilies that would accompany the pork tamales. The meat would be cooked in them.
As she looked around the kitchen, she wondered what happened to the chicken and pork broth. I'd dumped them both out, using the pans to keep the meat in while I shredded the pieces. I didn't know she wanted it, but I did know I didn't want to be sticking my fingers into the water to pick out and plop back pieces of chicken and pork as I broke them down.
She wasn't very happy with me to begin with, and that made her less happy. Which made me less happy. I retreated to the couch in the living room to try to watch the rest of the game. Meanwhile, she waited for the vegetables and pork/salsa mixture to cook up, then started work on assembling the tamales.
That's a fairly straight forward process. You take corn husks (she had those soaking in a water, which I had also been asked to take out of the water, separate and stack up for use), smear on an ample amount of masa, and then put in the chicken, vegetables and previously sliced cheese, or in the case of the pork, just it in the sauce.
It was sometime in the fourth quarter, after my wife had put together a couple dozen tamales that she realized that the remaining husks were blackened. Apparently, they go bad if they're not used in a certain time frame. With all the meat, fixings and masa left to sue, that meant she needed to go to the store, and naturally, she wanted me to take her.
Oh, sure! Why not!
All I wanted to do was watch the game, and at this point, I wasn't really enjoying it, though the Ducks were ahead and trying to hold onto their lead.
I drove her to WinCo. By the time she got in, found the husks, paid for them and got out, there wasn't a whole lot left to the game. I got home in time to see the last minute or so, where USC was trying to at least tie the game up with a last second TD. The Ducks held, however, and won the game, 31-24.
That was about 8:45 pm. There was more than half of the tamales still to do, and she had to soak the new husks before they could be used. She wasn't going to make her 9 pm bedtime. She was already into the new batch of husks when I came into the kitchen, feeling a little better because the Ducks won, but wishing this tamale fiasco were over.
I was going to ask if she needed something else, when she said she thought I was going to do more. Exasperated (I mean, it wasn't like I'd done nothing this whole time), I asked her what she thought I'd be doing, and she said helping her put the tamales together. So, I started to grab husks and slather on the masa.
It's not the easiest thing to do, since the masa wants to stick to your fingers, and my first attempt wasn't what she wanted. I watched her and tried again, and this time got it more or less right. I did a few more and then some more and after about an hour later, we made it through the rest of the husks.
Fortunately, I was able to convince her to wait to steam the tamales until another day. I thought that would be a three to four hour affair, and it was already 10 pm. She didn't need much in the way of convincing. She gave me two large pans of tamales to take out to our overflow refrigerator, and then we both went to bed.
You Said There Were Cookies, Too!
My wife spent last Saturday at work. When she got home, she wanted to cook the tamales, but I told her to wait. Again, she didn't resist. She was tired from cleaning rooms all day so she sat down on the couch and watched the Hallmark Channel's Christmas movies.
The next morning, she announced that along with the tamales, she was making cookies, too. From scratch. Or, mostly scratch. The butter cookies with frosting, along with the wedding cookies would be from scratch. The macaroons just needed to be baked. They came from a freeze-dried mix that needed reconstituting with water first.
She enlisted our daughter-in-law to help with mixing and frosting. I don't know if that was a good thing or not because she seemed to sample her work, or give it to her husband (our oldest son). I found it all annoying, but I stayed out of it because I didn't want to get sucked into this new project. I was going to drive my wife around to deliver the tamales and now the cookies, anyway, because I'd opened up my big mouth weeks before.
In the meantime, I did contact three of the five families we intended to give the goodies, too. It was a good thing I did, since two of them were planning to leave between 4:30-5 pm. That didn't give the tamales a whole lot of time to steam, though, since they didn't get started until after the cookies were baked, at about 1:15 pm.
While I thought it would take longer, apparently, one to two hours is sufficient. I ended up checking on cooking times. Remember, there's not much of a window between having gooey and dry masa, neither one being that desirable to eat, but in the case of one article I read, it was best to side on gooey because most of the time, tamales would not be eaten right away and would be reheated later. Plus, all the fixings on the inside were already cooked.
All told, the tamales got two hours and forty-five minutes. My wife took out a couple to try. Now, I've acknowledged I'm not a big fan, but these were undeniably good. And while they could have cooked longer, I think, the husks would keep them insulated for a bit until they started to cool down, which is what they really needed.
With the plates of cookies and tamales ready to go, we loaded up the car and headed off to make our deliveries. My wife got out of the car and presented her creations to each one. Everyone seemed very happy and thrilled to receive them.
The Verdict
After hitting three of the homes, we went back to the house to grab the remaining two batches. When the deliveries were made, we returned home for good, and ate our own tamales.
I liked them a lot. My wife and I each ate four. My son and his wife, though, didn't seem to like them as much as we did, even though they said they were good. They managed to down three each.
Whatever. I think the main problem was they both ate too many cookies, which they both consumed like they were ten year olds on a sugar binge. You'd think at 31 and nearly 27, respectively, they'd grow out of that.
Nope.
All in all, despite my evening of grumpiness on Friday, I'm happy with the way things turned out. That's not to say I'm wanting another round of tamales any time soon. I will say, however, the next time my wife wants to buy some, I'm going to suggest she make them instead. Right now, the going rate for a dozen tamales is $22. I don't think she spent that much on the ingredients that yielded four dozen.
We'll just have to find some people to share them with, but since I'm hoping it won't be any sooner than next Christmas, that shouldn't be a problem.
All images courtesy of Glen Anthony Albrethsen