A Rainy Tamale Type of Day

It's overcast and it occasionally rains. Stops and starts and enough to keep me from mowing the lawn.

The first thing I did this morning was to get everything ready to make tamales. I had to make a late night run to the store to get the corn husks last night and I thought I was ready to start early this morning. Not so. The masa I had here was old and it developed an odor after I added liquids to it so I pitched it out and got dressed to go to the store. Even before I was ready to go, my friend Peg called to tell me her daughter had crashed. Crashed as in "passed out" while in the hospital. This is the second time she has done this post surgery so I told Peg I would go to the hospital to check on her.

I spend a couple of hours there with her then stopped at the store on the way home and picked up a bag of masa and for the past hour I have been smearing masa on corn husks, slopping the meat mixture on that and wrapping and putting them in the steamer to cook for a hour. I have the steamer full right now so I get to take a break. Have I mentioned how I feel about making tamales? I really don't like to do it. I put it off as long as possible but the price of a pork roast inspired this tamale adventure. The pork was on sale. What a perfect  time to make them so I bought and cooked the pork and shredded it. There I stalled out for a few days; yesterday I decided that today would be the day that I finished what I started before I let the meat spoil. A few more hours and I will be done with this task and I promise not to do it again till Christmas if then. Christmas is the usual time for tamale making but usuallly you have a group of people helping make them. I'm alone here and there won't be anyone showing up to help. Magically as soon as they are done everyone shows up. Funny how it works that way huh?