A RECIPE WITH A PINCH

The kitchen is neat; fat-bellied copper pots glisten on hooks, dishes are stacked on a rack, an old-fashioned toaster for refreshing corn tortillas is scrubbed of all residues and shiny, and amidst them all, is she -  the Queen of Lard Cakes, the Princess of Preserving Jars, the Gravy Goddess, Doña Flor. Her apron is stained with the remnants of countless culinary conquests, while her hands tell the tale of years spent crafting exquisite masterpieces.

"Chop the onions into small pieces,” she whispers to herself.

The white bulb of the onion feels slippery between her fingers as she cuts it into halves. Then, with swift, expert movements, she slices them across, chop-chopping loudly into the tiniest pieces.

Despite knowing the recipe by heart, she reads the instructions attentively: "Fry the onion in a hot frying pan coated with the highest-grade olive oil."

She smoothes a brush with her fingers, dips it into a can of  Valle de Cholula, and paints the bottom of the pan like a Renaissance maestro completing his canvas.

“Keep cooking until golden brown, and the texture is tender. Remove any dark pieces; they may taint the flavor of your stuffed chilies with an unpleasant bitterness.”

The sizzling onions hitting the pan release a fragrant aroma. She gently lowers the flame and stirs the onion with a wooden spoon.

She adores cooking and her sparkling kitchen with pelargonium clay pots, dark green myrtle (fantastic for a relaxing foot bath), liquid-filled stapelia, and spiky aloe, each with a little white card with the plant's name stenciled in black letters. She lovingly scans the kitchen table filled with silver-rimmed plates full of nachos, bowls of mashed avocado, sour cream sprinkled with fresh coriander, grated cheddar, sliced tomatoes in garlic sauce, a jug of sangria with spicy cloves, and lemon crescents floating on top.

The onions sizzle and leap noisily in the pan, and she turns off the gas.

“Combine the sultanas and boiled rice in a mixing bowl. Incorporate a crushed clove of garlic, followed by a pinch of caraway seeds, black pepper, and ground chili for an added kick. Allow to cool, then fill the peppers, using a spoon to gently press down and eliminate any air bubbles. Arrange the peppers on a baking tray and let them bake for 15 minutes.”

She sets the oven clock and walks to the dining room to check that everything is in order. The room smells of furniture polish and potpourri. She wipes invisible specks of dust on the sideboard over which hangs a huge Mariachi hat - the first possession she bought in Guadalajara on her honeymoon. She regularly steams the felt and cleans the golden tassels with vinegar.

She remembers how she brought it back to Chiapas on a crowded bus where babies in wet nappies, Indigenous women in black, sweeping skirts, and tired-faced old men smiled wise, toothless smiles—newlyweds! The oversized hat was as out of place on the bus as young Doña Flor and her husband in the classy hotel with ankle-deep carpets and heated towel racks.

When the oven bell rings, she heads to the kitchen to remove the peppers. There is barely time to get dressed. It is already nine o’clock.

The bathroom mirror reflects an aging woman who used to be pretty. She was startlingly pretty, as her husband used to say. She still retains some girlishness, but her hands are reddened from ajaxing the kitchen furniture and the sinks and roughened by chopping onions and herbs. Mexican cooking can’t do without them. She is round-hipped, and her breasts, like feather cushions, strain the fabric of her woolen dress. Too much corn flour and fat, but eating is one of her few pleasures, and life is too short to give it up.

She sprays a floral scent on her neck and behind her ears. Her husband favors old-fashioned perfume: lavender, Lily of the Valley, and musk. Overall, he prefers the old ways—the ways of his parents and their parents before that. She'd like to rebel sometimes, choose something bold and modern, but she knows that the familiar perfume brings him comfort and nostalgia.

The party will start at half past nine, but she knows that no one will break the Mexican habit of arriving at least an hour late. Just as she knows, if one promises to do something tomorrow, it might mean a week or a fortnight later, but under no circumstances what it literally means.

In the dining room, an orderly stack of records awaits their turn: boleros, paso-dobles, fandangos, Argentine tangos, and habaneras. She wouldn't mind some more hi-tech equipment—CDs, as they call them now—but again, her husband's old ways prevail.

The first one to arrive is Doña Polina, her next-door neighbor for the last twenty years.

“Don Carlos? Not in yet." She chirps in a sparrowy voice.

"Still in the shop, but he’ll be here soon. After all, not every day one celebrates his thirtieth wedding anniversary.”

"Really, Doña Flor, thirty years! And the two of you still in love, just like the day you met.” Polina moves a few scattered cushions and sits down on the couch.

Doña Flor smiles.

"That's what I tell that old man of mine. Just take a look at them... my, my... Thirty years, and they still cherish one another like two sweet turtledoves."

“Nachos, Doña Polina? With cream or cheese?” Doña Flor points to the table in an inviting gesture.

"We'll wait for the others with the chilies."

Polina takes a nacho and dips it in the avocado mash.

"I bet you made them yourself. Mine are never crispy.”

"I'll give you the recipe before you go. My grandmother’s. Please remind me.”

The bell comes alive with a brassy clang, and two more women with disturbingly similar-looking men enter—Doña Clara and Doña Sofia with their twin husbands. They exchange quick pecks, and the melancholy men sit stiff-backed on the sofa by the window.

"I was just saying to Doña Flor what a lovely marriage she has. You know, dear, I say to him, she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth—that's what I often tell that husband of mine. With a silver spoon, dear."

“Sangria?” Doña Flor indicates the jar.

“Fresh as a bull’s blood.”

Everyone laughs obediently at the old joke. Sangria, a dose of courage in a glass before a corrida, is toreros' favorite drink.

They sip their drinks and chat; even the morose twins relax, their mood diluted by the alcohol in the sangria.

“Started without me, have you?” A fat, bald man booms from the threshold.

The twins rise in unison.

"Don Carlos, happy anniversary and many more to come." Doña Polina tweets.

After nearly a quarter of a century of being next-door neighbors and having seen each other hundreds of times, they are still not on a first-name basis, a sign of respect in their friendship.

The fat man looks around, satisfied.

“Have you been taken care of? Has my flower looked after you?”

"Your flower, what a lovely way to call your wife after thirty years!” Dona Sofia says, her voice tinted by envy.

Doña Flor solicitously offers her husband nachos and sour cream, but he waves her away.

“Not now, Flor, not now. But I could do with a drop of sangria.”

They eat just after eleven, and everybody praises the stuffed chilis. They are perfect—not too hot, and with the right quantity of sultanas to remove the spicy bite.

Then, one by one, Flor’s husband puts on the records, and they dance jumpy habaneras, sensual paso-dobles, and gentle boleros.

Don Carlos’s wobbly stomach presses against his wife’s belly as he twirls her in a poor imitation of Gardel, the king of the Argentine tango. The clock ticks away the evening, and it is after one in the morning when everyone agrees it’s time to go.

"Lovely party,” Doña Polina chirps as she gathers the dishes and sangria-stained glasses and ferries them to the kitchen.

"Yes, it was,” Doña Flor agrees, squirting a jet of Soft Touch washing-up liquid into the sink.

Doña Polina tilts her head and regards her friend with half-closed eyes.

“Tell me, Doña Flor. How do you do it? What’s the secret to keeping the old flame blazing? After all, and that’s between us, women, Don Carlos, how should I put it? He is not so young anymore, and...”

"Just between us, women put it directly. Carlos is fat, bald, loud-mouthed, and sometimes downright rude.”

Polina blushes at Flor’s correct guess.

"Well, it’s you who’s said it, not me. So, how come you seem so content?”

Doña Flor scrubs the frying pan with an abrasive pad and soapy water. She looks at Polina and winks.

“Just like in cooking. I use my grandmother’s recipe and add a pinch.”

“A pinch of what?”

“A pinch of imagination.”

After they leave, Doña Flor sprays the room with Alpine room freshener to expel the tobacco smell and the pungent aroma of chilies. She replaces the crocheted tablecloth and plumps up the cushions on the couch. Because it is already Tuesday, her pelargonium day, she measures precisely half a cup of water with a soluble aspirin tablet and waters the plants.

In the bedroom, her husband snores, and powerful air jets escape through his hairy nostrils. The sheets rise on the hill of his stomach and tremble with his breathing. She slips in, pulling the sheets to her side.

She isn’t sleepy yet—a good, eventful day. Carlos was not at all grumpy. He even managed to keep a smile on his face throughout the entire evening, making jokes and keeping the mood light.

She closes her eyes, and dreams float and flutter in her mind. Her sleeping husband's bulky mass sails away, leaving the orbit of her make-believe world. She imagines another man asleep by her side. Every night, it is someone different. Sometimes, it is Pierce Brosnan, the King of Charmers. Other times, Johnny Depp, with a pencil-thin mustache and a Jack Sparrow beard, tickles her ear as he kisses her goodnight. Or Elvis, in his ‘Viva Las Vegas’ days, trim and lean, puts his arm around her. With each embrace, she sheds years and wrinkles. Every night, she constructs stardust romances while listening to the grinding sounds of the man lying beside her.

And all it takes is a pinch of imagination, just like in her grandmother's recipe.