Tonight I decided to stay home and organize my house a bit, get a stock of what I have in my cupboards. As I reorganized my pantry (which is about the size of a very small coat closet) I noted that things were not as bad as I originally thought. I've been struggling a bit to feed my sons. That happens sometimes when your the only bread winner of the house and you expect money that just isn't there.

So, my original thought was that we would just continue to get creative with the ramen noodles.. until I went to find some, and we only had six packages left. I thought, well.. that will feed my boys once.. so I turned to the canned goods. I discovered six bags of dried beans, some canned meat substance, canned tomatoes, tomato soup, tomato paste, a can of enchilada sauce, canned peaches, pears and apricots, a huge bag of wheat flour, a comparable bag of white flour, a tub of crisco, some cake mixes and three small jars of salsa. There were a few other odds and ends, corn, peas, baking goods, and beets (of all things). I assess the situation and decide that this is really a good thing. I found a half a bag of potatoes, there's an onion in my fridge, I have some corn meal, salt, and eggs. There was even a bag of powdered milk.

I can do this. I really have a lot of food here.

In the midst of my maddened determination, I call mom. We're chatting along about a bunch of pretty inconsequential stuff, and I ask her if she knows how to make unleavened bread. Because, lets face it, my mother is a bread genius. In my mind anyway.

She says she's never made it, but,"Oh! Wait! I have a recipe here for tortillas that doesn't call for a lot of ingredients!"

I can hear her rummaging through something.

"Just a minute, I'm sorry, my book is a little unorganized. I gave a lesson on oatmeal, AH! Found it, here it is. Now, just wait a minute, let me ..." her voice trails off.

By now I have stood and wandered into the kitchen because I still have a lot to do.

"Okay, NOW, four cups of flour"

"Wait!" I interrupt."I need to go get my pad of paper, I wandered away from it."

"Okay, now I'm ready."

She reads the recipe to me. At one point it calls for me to knead the dough by hand for five minutes.

"That ought to wear out your hands." she absentmindedly comments.

I giggle a bit, and she finishes the instructions.

We talk for a few minutes more, and say our goodbyes.

I take down the slow cooker and pour in some beans, add some tomatoes, some salsa, some beef broth, some spice, and some canned meat substance.

I find my big plastic pink bowl and put four cups of flour, a cup of warm water, a quarter teaspoon of baking powder, a tablespoon and a half of salt, and some oil in the bowl. I begin to knead. I knead and knead. While I'm kneading I think,'that silly mother, doesn't she know I have worked since August on building up the muscles in my hands and arms massaging people..' The thought makes me giggle out-loud and I decide to call her back.

"Um. Mom? This dough looks just like I took a whole loaf of wheat bread and crumbled it into my bowl."

She laughs.

"And what could you possibly mean by kneading for five minutes will hurt my hands.. Don't you know who I am... "

A heartier laugh.

"Well, honey, put a little bit of water in it, about two tablespoons."

I do, and I continue to knead.

"Did you knead it for five minutes?"

"Well I started at nine o' one and now its nine o' six."

"Did you use white or wheat flour?"

"Wheat?!?"

"Okay, well, you have to really beat wheat flour, really stretch the gluten out."

I feel like I'm in one of my massage lectures.

"You have to really pound it and slap it and just really beat it."

I start to drive my fist into the heart of my rock of dough. The boys observe this and think it looks really fun. They wash their hands and beg me for a turn. I let them pound it for a bit,

"Did you let it sit for ten minutes?"

"No. I was trying to get it to stick together."

"Well let it sit."

"Okay, well the boys want to talk to you before they have to go to bed."

I surrender my phone and stand staring at this lump of dough on my counter. She talks to Dylan, to Ben.. the phone dies, so they call her on the other one.. she finishes her conversation with Ben and talks to Jed.

All the while I stand bent over my creation, considering it, never touching it.. Just allowing it to 'stand' for ten minutes.

They finish up, and the phone is turned over to me.

"Well, daughter, what is your dough doing?"

"It just sat there, It didn't do anything!" I cry

She bursts into laughter.

"Should it have done something?"

She's laughing really hard now.

She chokes out,"Well I'm certainly glad it didn't grow legs and walk right off your counter top!"

Now I know why she is laughing.

"Okay, now you need to split it into balls."

I try to tear my lump. It's like ripping through well weaved cloth. I grunt.

"This... Is... RE-ALLY.... HAARD!"

"Well, honey, just pinch it in half, then in half again, and again and again until you have enough to make 18 little balls!"

"Oh, Pinch it?!? I was just tearing it into pieces.. wow, they look a lot like when you take a whole piece of bread and squish it into a ball... there are these little crevices, almost like cracks..."

My voice trails a little.

"Then add a little water to them."

"I dunno, the recipe says they'll be really dry..." I respond,"Did you say little balls? Because these are about the size and consistency of golf balls.."

Again she breaks out into a hearty laugh. She laughs and laughs and laughs. I can imagine her face turning red, her hands rising up and slapping her legs as she rocks back and forth on her seat.

Its really hard to form the balls, but I finally complete the task.

We talk a little more, because the balls are supposed to sit for another ten minutes.

We are carried away in our conversation.

She asks,"Well, how did they turn out?"

Oh, shoot.

I was making tortillas.

"I haven't rolled them out yet."

"Do you have any PAM or non-stick spray?"

"HECK NO!! That stuff is of the devil. I almost hate it as much as margarine," I chide,"That stuff is one ingredient away from what it's packaged in.. and PAM is mostly alcohol! You may as well just pour a shot of whiskey into your skillet!"

She is laughing really hard now.

She catches her breath,"Pour a little olive oil or canola, or whatever you use onto the counter-top and roll your balls out with that. Just don't use flour."

"Oil?!? Right on my counter-top?!?"

I do as she says, pouring a dollop of olive oil on my counter. I use a paper towel to make my work surface, then grease up my rolling pin. I plop a rock hard ball into the center of the oily spot and try to squish it. Nothing. It doesn't give at all.

I must've been grunting and complaining, because she says,"Pinch it a little, slap it flat, throw it on the counter and hit it until it's flat! Wheat flour is really resistant, you have to work it to make it pliable."

"My kids have gone to bed, I don't want to make too much noise and wake them."

But I do as she says anyway. I roll, it cinches back to its original shape, like a great elastic blob. I roll again, and again, and again. FINALLY. Its somewhat flat, and somewhat thin. I step back and take a look.

"Well. It looks like a great flat blob of excrement. Or, have you ever seen rubber puke.. I would compare it more to that, because its kind of splatted. Its about three inches across, and maybe two hand lengths high, with all these little weird tendrally branches."

I pick off a piece and plop it on my tongue.

"UUUUUGHHHH!!!! It TASTES like PLAYDOUGH! Did you ever eat playdough as a child?!?"

She's laughing so hard she can't really talk.

"Holy cow, you should go to the lady that gave you this recipe and tell her your daughter is pretty robust, tried to make it, and it was really really hard! Tell her its CRAP! No wonder no one makes anything by hand anymore, this is really not worth it!! I can see why the women of old were all muscle and lean, they worked their BUTTS off just making dinner!"

She's still laughing, but manages to say,"Don't try to eat it now, you have to cook it first.. put it in a pan and brown it, then try it."

So I heat up my skillet and carefully place my splat inside.

"Is it bubbling?"

"The edges are curling, I wouldn't call it bubbles, but you can see that air is collecting under it. I wonder what Jed would say about my creation..'OOOH neat! Salty splat shaped tortillas, cooool!!'" I flip the thing over.

"It turned white!"

"It what?!?" "White, its white on the side that was touching the pan!"

She is silent.

"White?"

"Yeah! Completely White!"

She asks if I have some honey or jam or butter to put on it.

"Don't you think I should try it plain before I feed it to my kids?"

"You might want to smother it with something, so you can convince them that its good."

This explains a lot of culinary scenarios in my childhood years.

I pull off a piece. It's really hot on my tongue, and I think for a minute that it might be worth saving the batch.

Then my taste sensors kick in.

"PLEH!! UUUghh... Ohhh man! It started out chewy, but now it just tastes like really HOT playdough! Forget it, I'm not subjecting my kids to this... "

I'm hastily scooping and tossing the remaining, painstakingly created, balls off my counter and into the trash.

She laughs and laughs, then tells me she is going to bed.

"Alright. I think I have enough ingredients to make cornbread, Good Night!"

I stir my bean concoction, thinking to myself... wasn't that what I planned in the first place? Oh well.. It was a fun and rare moment alone with my mom.