A Bucket Full of Tenderness

We have had for over a year now a mutually beneficial arrangement with a kindly neighbor woman, Señora S and her teenaged daughter, Ms M. Their family unit also counts the Abuelita, Doña J, the spirited octo-nonagenarian matriarch of the multibranched family tree.

The mother and daughter clean our house with near endless cheerfulness that lifts our spirits as well. (They turn the house inside out, clean it thoroughly, then reassemble it to an approximation of what it was. This weekly process has given us a great flexibility of attitude). In turn, we help them with rides in our van from time to time. Sometimes they bring us wonderful tortillas, made on the comal from nixtamal and other times caldos, corundas y moles. We, in turn, give them some of my specialties. This usually happens on Saturdays, when they come to do la limpieza.

Corundas y Uchepos

A greater part of the informal arrangement comes when we are requested upon to ferry them to Morelia for various matters. Last spring it was a nearly once a week trip to obtain their Mexican passports. Their persistence won over the sluggish bureaucracy until they got what they came for. I will confess that these trips were often stressful and always tiring for us. But we were glad to help.

The most recent van lifts to Morelia are in order to visit a very sick relative in the Hospital Civil. We also stopped along the country road some kilometers from our village to pick up Tía L and her four daughters, ranging in age from four to 18. They crammed themselves into the rear cargo space of our van and the back seat.

We then spent over 6 hours outside the Hospital Civil, mostly people watching, which can fascinating in that context, while they visited the sick uncle and comforted his wife, Tía R. 

We felt good about having helped our neighbors. We were generously rewarded on the last leg of the drive home by a glorious, pre-sunset vista of the mountains, veiled in a skein of cloud, and a foreground of pink cosmos festooning the valley fields. We stopped at the aunt and cousins' house to let them off, when Tía L's husband, Tío R came out with a costal of elotes to load in our van.

Archive photo

Once back in our village, we stopped at el molino to pick up a couple of large pails of nixtamal  that Ms M had dropped off as we departed earlier.

We had more rewards awaiting us.

The next evening, Ms M came up our street after sunset bearing a small plastic bucket covered with an embroidered towel. In it were a number of freshly cooked, still steaming, elotes tiernos; boiled ears of tender young corn.

These are not the elotes described above, but charcoal grilled.
They were too beautiful not to display.

In anticipation, I'd bought a small container of Crema “Eugenia”. We ate four elotes each, dressing them with crema, limon, Salsa Valentina, y queso añejo y sal. They were delicious, and even more satisfying knowing that they came from Sra. S’ kitchen.

We returned with them to Morelia on Monday and once again brought them home. On this trip we carried only our three neighbors and not the aunt and her daughters children.

On the following Thursday, as darkness descended, as I considered scrambling eggs for supper, there again was Ms M calling at our gate. In one hand she carried a pot of caldo de pollo, and in the other, a clean, embroidered kitchen towel full of freshly made tortillas del comal.

Caldo de Pollo con verduras

We have had her Mamá S's caldo  before, but this one was the richest, most flavorsome ever. Besides the broth and a piece of chicken, it had potato, carrot and chayote and a piece of elote rojo. I cut an avocado, and diced red onion and cilantro to garnish the soup. A lime half for each of us was a given. The tortillas were earthy as always and redolent of maíz y cal. I ate four, more than my usual amount. I can't imagine a more timely and satisfying supper, one that nourished spirit as as well as flesh, made by the hands of our dear neighbor, Sra. S.