tamales

One of Chloe's favorite foods is tamales. If you have never really eaten a tamale, I suggest you head to your nearest traditional Mexican restaurant and try one. Don't go to a Tex-Mex place where they'll give you wrapped up enchiladas swimming in cheese. You need to find a little mom & pop Mexican place where the cooks speak Spanish and there are tamales on the menu and they come charmingly and individually blanketed in little corn husks--small piping-hot bundles of bliss.

The traditional ingredients are masa or masa harina, pork, and red chile. Three simple ingredients, none of which are on the allergen watch list.

Masa harina is ground corn treated with a solution of lime and water, also called slaked lime. The literal translation is "dough flour," which sounds a little frightening to those of us who have watched their children wither away from diarrhea caused by a wheat allergy, but I assure you, it is nothing but corn.

Red chile sauce is made from those dried red chiles a lot of people hang in their kitchen. Some of you will find it easily in the Mexican section, others will have to search for it in a special location or store. Over the summer Chloe's babysitter taught me how to make red chile sauce, and it is as simple as simmering the dried pods in water, pureeing the soft pods together with the liquid, and then straining out the small bits. It is a rich, deep red sauce you can use for lots of different things.

Most of the women I know who regularly make tamales use a steam cooker to cook the pork; I assume you could get similar results by slow-cooking a regular pork roast in a crock pot and then shredding it.

The actual assembly process of the tamales remains a mystery to me, because I've never done it.

But the final product is oh-so-delicious. And allergen-free.

Frozen tamales are going to be Chloe's "convenience food." I admit to occasionally giving Andrew a Hot Pocket when there is nothing else, or eating a frozen commercial burrito. Everyone eats convenience foods sometimes. But when you're allergic to milk, eggs, wheat and peanut, processed convenience foods just don't cut it.

The gift of being able to pull out one perfectly-sized tamale, microwave it, and watch Chloe eat it with gusto is priceless to a busy mom who more often than not makes three separate suppers.

Best of all, ever since I put out an email at work (a smallruralHispanic school) various friends have been letting me know, so-and-so is making tamales tomorrow, they're really good, do you want some?? I am able to support someone who is expert at doing something I can't or don't have time to do--like buying farmer's market produce or a handmade pair of earrings at the local gallery.

Tamales. We love 'em. Go get some.