Hot Tamales

I've been thinking lately about some of the good places I've been to eat. Not necessarily around here, just places I've been. I think the trip to New York got me down the path, and I've been wandering down it in the back of my mind once in a while.

Atlanta - The 755 club (Braves stadium), Pitty Pat's Porch, and some little place on the side of the road in Northern Georgia.

Chicago - A little hole in the wall steak and potatoes place downtown, that other place around the corner from it. (Incredibly helpful, isn't it?)

San Fernando, CA - Uncle Mikes, that little diner Lori GoDown used to work at, the Cuban place by the temple, the Toluka Lake Country Club, lots and lots of others. When I was in North Hollywood, we had some of the best street food of my whole mission.

Every day I followed the same basic meal plan. There was a lady who went around getting bread from stores that they couldn't sell, and took it to the homeless shelter. She would always bring stuff to us about 8am. We would always have bread and a pie in the apartment. She heard that I liked chips and salsa, from that time on she would bring at least 1 bag of chips and a big thing of fresh local made salsa. This is what I ate for breakfast, or sometimes for lunch, but usually for breakfast. We occasionally (maybe more than occasionally, now that I think about it) had someone who wanted to feed us lunch. Sometimes this was at the Toluka Lake Country Club, where the food was always good, but the place was very expensive. (Someone who was independently wealthy) Sometimes it was just beans and tortillas with someone we were teaching. We definitely didn't go hungry. We always had a dinner appointment in that area.

Every night at around 9pm, we would have 1 of 3 different types of street vendors. They were the Ice Cream truck (Soft serve - very large cones), a random food truck (not that great), or a little old latino guy selling tamales in his steamer cart. We were always disappointed when we thought we heard the rumble of the ice cream truck, and it ended up being the food truck. We were never disappointed when we heard the ringing for the tamale guy. Those tamales were wonderful. It didn't matter how full I had been from dinner, I was always ready for a tamale at night time.

Now that I write this, I wonder how I came home from my mission under 200 pounds. (Or 300 pounds.) I guess it was because I was busy the rest of the day. My first companion in that area definitely shared the love of food, but I don't really remember him joining in on the chips and salsa early in the morning. He also wouldn't try the egg nog in a can I found back in the cupboards... After he left, there was definitely less excitement in the apartment when the ice cream truck came.

Anyhow, I've been thinking about tamales lately. Last night I decided to make my own to have for dinner tonight. It ended up being more work than I bargained for when I started, but they were pretty good.
I found a recipe on the internet for cornmeal tamales, which was good because I didn't know where to go at 9:30 at night to find masa. I liked the stuff I ended up making, there was mixed reviews in the rest of the house.I cooked up a beef top sirloin roast and added a bunch of stuff to it until it tasted really good, and added the stuff to the tamales. I don't think it's the way they really make them traditionally, but I liked it.
Last night I made 2 dozen of them and put them into the fridge for tonight.
Only Drew and Anson made it over, everyone else missed out, except I wrapped a couple up for KayLynn to have. Here they are steaming away in the pot. (It was a good thing we had the canning steamer, it's perfect for tamales.)

Anyway, it was a lot of work to get it done, but I liked them. I think they took that craving away, except I might have accidentally started one now for deep fried chicken. (Like they made at Pitty Pat's Porch...)