Cooking with Lucy

When I began thinking of people I wanted to spend time with as I continue to work on Spanish, Lucy was at the top of my list. She is an excellent cook, and I wanted to learn about Mexican cooking. Charles and I saw her at the market a few days before we left for the US in July so we asked if I could cook with her sometime. She responded that I could join her every Tuesday at 11:00 when she cooks for the week. I have been doing exactly that since the beginning of September.

Besides being an excellent cook Lucy has a sense of style and presentation. Her apron covers stylish clothes. She gets out a placemat before serving me food and will put a bowl of soup on a plate. She’s the kind of lady who brings her own tablecloths to church when it is her turn to bring food because she doesn’t think the ones there are very pretty. She loves to talk and tells stories about her life, her grandson, her kids, people at church, and others she knows. She has strong opinions and answers unknown numbers loudly and firmly, “so they won’t think I’m someone who can be taken in by a scam.” She is generous, kind, and an all-around delightful woman to spend time with.

Lucy and her son-in-law, Gerardo, following his graduation with a master’s degree from seminary.

Lucy has 2 married daughters and one grandson. They both work, and Lucy demonstrates her generosity by cooking at least two soups and three main dishes (one chicken or pork, one fish, and one beef) for both families. They eat together every Sunday afternoon and decide on the menu together, which can be a challenge with different preferences and dietary restrictions. Lucy will grumble about how it is hard to please everyone, but she also readily says it is a pleasure to help them in this way.

I’m learning methods rather than recipes since I’ve only seen Lucy look at a recipe a few times. It’s all in her head, beginning when she took a cooking class when she was 15 (She references this class almost every week.) Creamed soups are made by cooking various vegetables, browning some onion and garlic, and blending it all together before putting it all back into the pot with some oil and seasoning it to taste. I’ve learned that using raw onion and garlic causes stomach troubles. These soups are typically green because the 4 year-old grandson loves green soups, no matter what is in it. Other soups begin with a tomato base (boiled tomatoes blended with garlic and onion and passed through a strainer) and various vegetables. One week, the soup included carrots, cabbage, 2 kinds of greens, and grated chayotes.

The two soups of the week.

One of the main dishes is usually something to put in tortillas. It might be chicken or pork that is pulled into small pieces and then added to an adobe sauce or mole. Below is a picture of the mole which is made with lots of different ingredients. On this particular day she included ground walnuts and sunflower seeds among other things. She decided it was sweet enough so she didn’t add any chocolate.

Rice is a staple. If I understood correctly, rice was the first thing Lucy learned to make in the cooking class. The teacher said that if they didn’t know how to make rice, they didn’t know how to cook anything. Lucy scoffed at her at the time, but now she agrees. Soak and rinse the rice, cook it in oil until it is golden (red rice requires it being more golden so the red sauce will stick to the individual grains), and then add water. At some point onion, and pre-cooked finely chopped carrots and peas are added in as well.

The pot of green stuff behind the rice in the picture above is a salsa she made. There is often a conversation between Lucy and the woman who helps her with all this cooking regarding how many chilies to include in sauces. They smell them as they decide. This week was the first time the salsa was declared to be too spicy. There isn’t much that can be done to change that other than using it sparingly.

Lucy fulfills special requests. Her grandson often gets food prepared differently than the rest either to make it less spicy or because he doesn’t like some things combined together. Last week she made her version of chicken nuggets for him. But she also cooks up some chorizo for the son-in-law whose wife won’t eat it, and she makes plain vegetables for one of her daughters. In the end, everything gets put into containers that were left with Lucy on Sunday. The two families pick everything up that evening. I am sent home with food as well, which Charles and I very much enjoy.

Besides learning some cooking methods, I’m learning to follow a steady stream of fast Spanish for 4 to 5 hours. As the weeks have gone on, I’m understanding more. I’m also interjecting more. Last week another friend commented that I am speaking much more fluidly than I was a few months ago. I’m grateful, though at times progress still seems to be slow.