DeCoNsTrucTeD tAcoS

Tacos are a favorite family meal. Work intensive, but worth it in the end. Everyone has a job. Emma is in charge of the guacamole. She has the recipe perfected: sprinkle of garlic, touch of salt, squeeze of lime, loads of fresh cilantro and a few chopped tomatoes.  Tori makes the meat. Sometimes chicken, sometimes beef. It depends on who defrosted the meat this morning. Maddie chops the vegetables. I make the refried beans, and Patrick runs to the store to get the forgotten shells…as we always forget to buy the shells. 

Black olives in thin slices, juicy red tomatoes chopped, romaine lettuce shredded, and diced cilantro are set in neat piles on the large cutting board. 

“No, don’t! Ew, the tomato juice is running into everything else. Why do we need tomatoes?” Maddie hates tomatoes. “Can’t you just use salsa?”

“Does this need more lime juice?” Emma has us taste test the guacamole. “It might need more garlic or something.”

When we first learned how to make guacamole we were all seated around the crowded restaurant. Dark brown walls contrasted with the lime green, neon pink, fluorescent yellow trimmed sombreros decorations. Festive music made us think of conga lines and birthday parties. 

“That’s a handy tool,” my husband told the waiter. The young man stood beside our table to slice the avocados in half, pit, and scoop in a few flicks of the wrist. He just smiled a lazy sort of half grin at us. He added a splash of lime, a scoop of cilantro, a few dashes of garlic powder and mashed it all together. We eagerly dipped our homemade nacho chips into the dip all to be the first one to take a taste. It quickly became a family favorite recipe. Repeated often. 

“Chicken is ready!” Tori tells us. “Now we just need dad with the shells.”

As if on cue, he walks in with the shells. He also has vanilla ice cream. “I thought you girls could whip up some brownies to go with the ice cream. We have a brownie mix, right?”

“We have a mix, but do we have eggs?” I ask opening the fridge door. “Perfect, we have two eggs! Turn the oven on 350 please.” 

“Emma made the guacamole in the mixing bowl. Where is another bowl?” She asks as if she doesn’t know where the bowls are kept. Is this stalling? A tactic for me to pull the bowl out instead? Or a pointed remark that her sister used the preferred bowl? 

“We can use the metal bowl; it’s right here,” I say, pulling it out and placing it on the counter. 

“Can we eat now?” Emma asks. “Is it okay if we start making our tacos?”

“Grab a drink before heading to the table,” I say. “Sadly, we are all out of straws.”

Again we are back in a Mexican restaurant. This time out west, maybe Arizona? Utah? We were excited to find a place that promised authentic food. The chips and salsa that were served with our waters were an indication that we had made a good choice. Emma played with her straw as we chattered on about our vacation adventures: sand dunes, caves, mule rides. She was to start kindergarten that fall. We laughed at how she squatted down just like the rest of us to duck in the caves. She loved doing the “cave walk” even though she was the tiniest of our group. 

It was in this restaurant, at this moment, that Emma discovered she could stick her straw in her nose, take a deep breath, and take a drink. “Look! I can drink with my nose!” We laughed, Maddie thought about trying it until one of us mentioned goobers being mixed in with her water. We were glad that the restaurant was not that crowded as we were making quite a scene. Water and straws. We should have known then that Emma would grow up a swimmer. 

Now everyone is standing around the kitchen island with their plates in their hands. We rotate around as we load up with the beans, meat, vegetables, and inevitably, “Oh, I forgot to pull out the shredded cheese! Can someone grab that from the fridge?”

Always followed by, “Do we want the sour cream too?” 

“Do we have to send Dad back to the store for sour cream?” Maddie jokes. I pull a container out of the back of the fridge and check the expiration date. I open it and give it the sniff test. We are safe. 

“We have sour cream!” 

Our plates will be made by eyes bigger than our stomachs. Mountains made bigger by the guacamole, sour cream, and cheese. All topped with a bit of cilantro. 

We carry our plates to the table to eat while the sweet scent of brownies fills the room. “Great job with dinner, ladies,” my husband says with a mouthful of food. 

We eat, we laugh, we joke. 

Those were the days.

Now we are all in different places and spaces. 

No longer can dad run to the store to pick up forgotten items or bring home surprise ice cream.

Maddie has her own house and kitchen to make (or not make?) tacos. I’m sure she skips the tomatoes either way.

Emma will refuse to make the guacamole. “The avocados are too hard; they aren’t even close to ripe, mom.”

We will have forgotten to defrost the chicken. “I like beef tacos better anyway,” Emma will state. It doesn’t matter, as we don’t have either meat available to make the tacos.

The shells grow stale in the pantry. 

A new taco place for us to try. Four of us sit around the table instead of five. We hold our shot glasses filled with tequila to the center of the table. We aren’t sure what we are toasting or supposed to say. “To adventures ahead!” I say and we clink and drink. My husband and I always toasted one another. Always. Beer mugs or moscow mules, and in the end, coffee cups. But he isn’t here to say the toast. It is up to me. 

Life moves on. We keep moving forward, even when we leave some behind. We deconstruct.