Abuela's Cookbook

Rico grew up in the kitchen cooking with his abuela. She used to make the most amazing dishes. Steaming tamales, chilaquiles, mole, enchiladas. Tacos with the most succulent of beefs and chickens; she always made it so juicy and robust in flavor. To this day he still had no clue how she did it. When she passed away a part of him died with her; he only thought it right to honor her memory and encourage his passion of cooking by going into the culinary field. The plan was to get enough additional cooking skills that he could start his own food truck and travel, spreading the joys of Abuela's cooking.

He was first hired in as a dishwasher, but all of his little remarks on how his abuela would have made a dish instead quickly had him apprenticing under some of the greatest chiefs in town. He followed them step for step, their hands became his hands. But their food did not become his food. Something would inevitably burn or be undercooked. The flavors were wrong, over salted or bland. It didn't matter how many times they showed him or even watched him make a dish exactly how they would make it. It always came out awful.

"Sorry Rico." His boss said, handing him his last paycheck as Rico stood in the doorway with his belongings. "I just can't afford to lose the business or the money with the food you waste."

With a heavy sigh, Rico only nodded. He knew it would only be a matter of time when he got hired in here. This was his fourth restaurant in as many months. Nobody could fix him. They all claimed he was unteachable. One chief even called him cursed. Rico wasn't sure what he did to piss off his ancestors, but he was sure that that had to be the reasoning. But on Abuela's behalf, he refused to give up.

On the walk home, a drizzle began, soft and gentle but soaked him to his core. A chill crept into his bones as his clothes hung heavy and low. He shivered, waiting for the bus in the dwindling day light.

Headlights rushed past, the car crashed through a muddy puddle near the curb from taking the turn too quickly. A wave of murky and questionable water splashed up onto Rico, drenching any part of him that had managed to stay dry. "Come on!" He yelled after the headlights.

Thankfully, it wasn't much longer before the bus pulled up, it's light illuminating the street. Where the puddle, that he was now wearing, used to be there was something small and box-like in the road. Without thinking, he bent down to pick up the object, nearly being hit by the bus. The bus driver honked at him, glaring through the windshield.

Waving an apology to the bus driver and giving an audible one once on the bus, he quickly paid and took a seat. The object turned out to be a small black notebook or at least, Rico assumed it was supposed to be black. The pages were water logged and stuck together as he tried to open it, but something said to take it home.

After warming himself with a scolding hot shower, he carefully peeled open the book and placed it by the heater to hopefully help it dry.

Morning came too quickly. The rain still fell steadily. Tripping, he caught himself before falling on top of the notebook. The pages were now crisp, the black writing on the pages clear as day. They were recipes. Mexican recipes. These were things he used to make with Abuela. The exact same things. Down to her secret ingredients, of which she didn't know he sneaked a peak to see what they were.

A disturbing gurgle erupted from his starved stomach. He flipped a couple pages until he found a recipe for chilequiles. Finding questionable tomatoes, a jalapeno, and onions in his fridge, he set out on making the salsa roja being sure to season it with plenty of garlic and a dash of salt. He followed the recipe verbatim. Within a half hour, he had a steaming plate of chilequiles. It smelled like home. This was Saturday mornings. Abuela humming a song from the radio.

Mouth watering, he sat down and hesitantly took a bite. This...this was perfect. This was Abuela's cooking.

Not sure if he wanted to laugh or cry that he'd finally made something that Abuela would be proud of, a knock came from the door.

With a sniffle, Rico opened the door to find a postal worker. "I need your signature sir." She said, holding out a pen and clipboard. "Here ya' go." She handed him a small box before going on her way.

The postage was from San Jose. From home. Using the same knife he used for his breakfast, he sliced open the tape. Inside the box was a letter on yellowing stationary and a thick envelope.

To mi nieto Ricardo, may all of your dreams come true. Was written in Abuela's slanted handwriting. Rico pulled out the envelope to find a large pile of cash, all hundred dollar bills. Carefully counting it out on the table, he recounted three times to make sure he wasn't mistaken, but Abuela had left him $20,000.

This would be enough to get a food truck. To start his business. To live his dream. The only problem was the cooking. Sure breakfast that morning had been phenomenal, but that had to have been a fluke. He'd never personally made anything delicious in his life. He found himself staring back at the notebook he'd found last night. Could this little notebook be the answer?

Two weeks later

"Get your homemade Mexican here!" Rico shouted out the side of the food truck where "Abuela's Cookin'" was written in bright red lettering. Today would be his first day on the streets after getting the truck set up. Mama and Rosa were hesitant, but supportive and the first ones in line. They'd driven all the way from San Jose to Los Angeles to be there for his opening day. Mama ordered a beef tamale and Rose a tostada pilled with beans, beef, pico de gallo, queso blanco and guacamole. The joy and surprise evident upon their faces after the first bites.

"Did Abuela come back?" Rosa teased.

Mama even started crying, saying it tasted like her childhood.

They weren't the only pleased customers. Rico had underestimated how popular his truck would be, how in love the people would be with the food and nearly sold out of everything.

That night, he browsed through the notebook for new recipes, things that he could add to the menu when he noticed that the most popular recipes from that day--the tamales and carne tacos--were slightly faded as if the words were vanishing from the page. But that was impossible, probably just a trick of the light.

Rico thought nothing of it and went to bed happy.

Day after day, people came to his truck. A longer line with rush time. Mostly by word of mouth, even more drawn in from the curiosity of the delicious scents.

Rico went to make another batch of the carne for the tacos, but the recipe was gone. The page completely blank. Flipping through the book to make sure he hadn't misplaced his spot, he couldn't find it. The only place it could have been was the blank page. He knew the recipe well enough from memory and attempted to make it, but it began to burn.

The following day, the tamales recipe disappeared and his came out bland and crunchy.

He didn't understand. When the recipes were followed from the book, they came out perfectly, but when he made them they were disgusting, just like his cooking before he had found the notebook. All of the recipes that he had made over and over again had faded. And those he made every day, were gone.

Panicked, Rico knew he had a decision to make: did he continue on with the food truck, his lifelong dream, and try to make as much money as he could before all of the recipes in the book disappeared? or did he close shop and savor the recipes, making this last little piece of his abuela last the rest of a lifetime?

In the end, Rico chose the race against the clock. The more he made each recipe, the more he committed it to memory before they could vanish. He even wrote some of his favorites down so he could continue to try to perfect them, but each attempt seemed as futile as the first. It only took him three years to burn out the notebook.

He wrote the memorized recipes onto the blank pages of where they once were. These recipes he would one day make with his own grandchildren, those who would hopefully be blessed with his abuela's gift and the love of cooking so she may one day live again.