In mid-December red chile scents the air. Time for tamales.

Ten pounds of pork roast went into a stock pot with garlic, chile caribe, salt, bay leaves and oregano. Boiled until the meat began to fall off the bones.

The meat then went into a large black iron Dutch oven, shredded, added with ground red chile, comino (cumin), garlic salt and stock until it was a plump mush. Petra gave the filling her blessings. Hojas (dried corn husks) were soaked in hot water until pliable.

Then the hojas are smeared with masa (a corn gruel made with corn flour, corn meal, salt, baking powder, lard and stock from the roast). Lilith did a great job! The meat filling goes on top of the masa and then the whole thing is rolled and folded to make a neat packet.

We stack the tamales on cookie sheets awaiting steaming. It takes about an hour in a steamer to cook.

Unwrapped, covered in more red chile, they are a Christmas tradition, every bit as necessary as gingerbread. These were made with blue corn masa. Yum.

The carrots are from our garden. This has been a very mild winter so far. The cold weather allowed us to use our deck as a freezer up until the 12th, but for the last several days we’ve had overnight temperatures above freezing. Tonight will see 12°.

What this tiny bear has been eating, I don’t know. A neighbor with a trail cam confirmed that the bears were still about as of December 12th.

Rain washed away our snow. The river runs low. It is hard to mourn drought in winter.

My sister Angela sends greetings from places warmer still.