Grandma's Kitchen

It was that time of the year again. The sound of the last school bell echoes throughout the halls and the smell of summer air and a three-month vacation hit like a slap in the face as soon you surge through the double doors. But that wasn’t the only pleasantly nostalgic aroma during the heat-filled seasons of my youth.

There was always a great deal of things to be excited about when summer began, and that great feeling of freedom revealed its beautiful face. Although it would be damn near impossible for me to even begin to recite the list in full, there are some yearnings that I will forever remember in vivid detail.

At the immediate exit from the schoolyard and onward to the bus, my friends and I would discuss our plans for the entire summer. Whose house we would spend the night at the first week and which places we were going to ride our bikes to throughout the summer. The new and unfamiliar places that we were going to explore and the plans that we were going to come up with that would make it easier to sneak out of the house and stay out later. While these memories will live with me forever, there is one smell, the smell of my grandmother’s enchiladas, that will continuously bring me back.

When I was much younger the bus would always take me to grandma’s instead of a friend’s house. When I got a little older, I didn’t need the bus because my sister and I were perfectly old enough to walk there. And as soon as we would have our first family get-together, we all knew what to expect. It didn’t matter whose house we decided to gather at, as soon as you walked through the doors you could smell the red chili cooking, giving the entire house that fantastic smell.

I grew up in a very large family and I would put money down that each and every one of them would tell you the same thing. Sometimes the gatherings were big and sometimes small but that only meant one thing and that was how much chili and tortillas needed to be made. I have yet to even mention the tortillas. As soon you began to smell the coupling of the chili and the tortillas, you could be sure that it was nearly time to eat, and by that time you needed to hurry because the rest of the family was also quite aware and gearing up to hop in line for the feast.

First comes the corn tortilla covered in chili and cheese, then another tortilla with the same fixings (and another if you were feeling up to it), followed by lettuce, tomato, and onion, and, finally, a fried egg on top. Just describing the meal and picturing it in my head brings the smell right back. There was never a dull moment at grandma’s, and you could always count on somebody spilling chili all over themselves. If they were lucky, they wouldn’t be wearing white.

We would run through the house afterward and get yelled at for almost breaking things. But there was nothing more complete or together than these gatherings. In a way it had nothing to do with the enchiladas, it was about the love for the family and about grandma. There was never a dull moment at grandma's house and we all knew that. We did everything that we could to get together like this and make a time out of it. It was always grandma's kitchen.