Recipes & Remedies

At Home in the Kitchen

If I were to summarize my mother's 90 years of living, I would use two words:  recipes and remedies.  She was known for both.


Her best dishes included:  rice and pigeon peas (gandules), rice and red beans with calabaza (pumpkin), garbanzos with calabaza over rice, thin steaks smothered with onions, veggie meatballs, lasagna, chicken fricassee with potatoes, tostones, pasteles, corn beef with fries, coleslaw, turkey, tilapia, asopao, bacalao, flan, corn fritters, corn bread, corn pudding, tembleque de coco, coconut candy, rice pudding, bread pudding, fruit juices...  My mother knew exactly what were the favorite foods of each of her children, her husband, and friends.  By the way, we had to eat everything on our plate for fear of tuberculosis.  (You heard right.)

Mom's Hand

Mother was also a healer and shaman.  What she couldn't heal with over the counter medication, she would  reach out to her spiritual medicine cabinet and insert a liberal dosage of prayer.  Among her favorite medications she included:  Vicks Vapor Rub, rubbing alcohol, BenGay, Heat, AsperCreme or Sports Creme, herbal teas with lemon and honey, chicken soup, Pepto Bismol, prune juice, Milk of Magnesia, Epson Salts, Iodine, and Tylenol.  After liberal dosages of each she spent quite a bit of time on her knees and supplemented all medication with prayer.


It wont be long now, Mom will finally get to rest from her grueling work of cooking and healing.  She must have done a great job, we are all alive and well nourished and relatively healthy.  I think it's okay to let her rest now for a bit.