Holiday Tamales!

I went to Fanny’s house today for the annual holiday tamale making. I love tamales and have always wanted to see how they are traditionally made. They vary all over Latin America and the Columbians do a great job I must say, or at least Fanny's family does! She makes them with chicken or beef and capers, bell peppers, garbanzo beans, cilantro, onions and raisins soaked in red wine. Yumm! Also, they wrap them in plantain leaves instead of corn husks. Her whole family is really nice. Her sister, daughter, nephew and nephew’s girlfriend were all helping. I got assigned the same job Fanny was doing – the hardest job – which was forming the masa around the filling and wrapping the finished product up in the leaves. Orion was pretty good. I did a few with him still in the car seat, but of course that didn’t last long. Then I fed him for a bit and put him in his sling. He settled down in there so I got to make quite a few more. They cook for a long time, so I had to hang out awhile to wait for some chicken ones to be done. (They had started the beef ones first - yuck). Fanny was nice enough to give me 6 chicken ones and a couple beef for Ron and Sarah as well. Lunch for a week!