Tortillas Made with Love

My family has been spoiled with homemade tortillas all of our lives because of my Nana. My Nana always has fresh tortillas at her house, and whenever a family member shows up the first thing they do is head to the kitchen for a tortilla. Some of my family puts butter on their warm tortilla, some of my family likes their tortillas with mustard (gross....obviously not me), the rest of us just heat it up (if needed).

My Nana doesn't use a recipe so she never measures the ingredients. It's amazing to watch her hands roll and knead the dough with speed and perfection that only experience has taught her over these 60+ years. Some of my earliest childhood memories are rolling out her "bolas" with my great grandmothers rolling pin, which looked like a small smoothly rounded old branch.

As a child my tortillas were shaped like ovals, squares, or like blobs from an inkblot test. My Nana was always able to somehow transform my weird shapes into almost perfect circles by pulling and stretching the dough before placing them on the comal.

A few years ago I attempted to follow along with my Nana to learn how to make her tortillas. Without measurements and a recipe you can imagine how hard it is to follow along. The tortillas I helped make that day were delicious, because let's face it, she did most of the work.

Yesterday, I finally attempted her tortillas on my own. I called her ahead of time for some advice and looked up a recipe to try and gauge the measurements I should use.

My dough wasn't the consistency it should have been. Half of my bolas didn't look like what I remembered. Since my dough wasn't quite right I had a hard time rolling out my bolas (and it wasn't just their funny shape). I was feeling a little defeated about my progress and started getting upset. My wonderful husband saw me getting flustered and before I had a full on meltdown, he stepped in and rolled out the rest of my bolas into his own weird shapes and sizes. I gently stretched the bolas into more circular shapes, like my Nana would do for me, and placed them on my small comal to cook. The tortillas we made together were pretty good. No where near what my Nana can do, but I am learning.

I got a phone call this morning from Nana asking how it all went. When I explained what happened, and my disappointment, she reminded me that when she first started making tortillas she cried after the first few attempts. She encouraged me to try again and to just keep going.

I am so very thankful for these moments and memories I have with my Nana.

I am also thankful for my husband to calm my nerves and help me through the process.