At Last! Freedom From Corporate Amerika

I have a new possession. Those of you who know me know that I really have little use for most STUFF. Once in a while, though, I really, really, really want something. That happened earlier this year with the Aerogarden, which is really cool.


That was a sort of major thing. I know $250 isn't a lot of money to most people, but our finances are such that is is a true extravagance to us. Having a lot of money has never been a priority in my life. (Truthfully, though, having enough for a good computer and a high-speed connection would be nice.) As I said, STUFF really is mostly an annoyance to me.

What I wanted this time is a whole lot smaller. Smaller than a bread box.

It happened like this.

My husband absolutely must have rice with his meals. I prefer to have bread of some sort, saving rice as something for special occasions. I love the fragrance of basmati rice

filling the house on holidays; I would like to keep that aroma associated with specialness. (Is it my imagination, or has something happened to basmati rice? GMO, maybe? The smell just doesn't permeate the whole house as it used to, and our current house isn't very large.) So, he has his ordinary, long-grain rice - I do manage to save the basmati for celebrations - and I usually eat flour tortillas.

I know I should make roti, chapattis,

but they really should be round and it just takes too much effort with my one good hand.

One day, the tortillas turned out to be moldy! Yeach! What to do?

With the miracle of the Internet, I found several thousand recipes for flour tortillas, all pretty much the same, actually. I mixed the whole wheat flour, baking powder, oil (I don't use hydrogenated shortening and I most certainly don't use the more traditional lard.), salt and water. Then I kneaded it as instructed, formed into balls, placed each ball between two plastic sheets and pressed down with a cutting board. Next I cooked them. An easy enough process, but not very satisfying. Oh, the result was delicious, much better than that processed junk from the store, but there was something about the process I used that I just didn't like. Making these using this method each day was time-consuming and tedious.

I decided I needed a tortilla press.

Now the purchase of anything in our home is always a negotiation. (Yawn.) I first found a suitable press at a store nearby, cheap, too, at $8.99. They run about $20.00 on line. So I made my case and eventually prevailed. Now I am the proud owner of a genuine 'Hecho en Mexico' (it says so right on the top!) tortilla press. This is a very simple machine: two metal discs hinged together with a handle that acts as a lever to flatten the dough. It cuts the working time into about a third. Of course, unlike chapattis, flour tortillas don't need to be perfectly round; in fact, even the commercial ones are always a bit odd shaped. And I feel myself the latest in a centuries old tradition of tortilla making. I see thousands of Mayan women doing it just like I do, well, not exactly, I guess.

I cheat. I dump all the ingredients into my electric bread machine (purchased at Goodwill, of course - reduce, re-use, re-cycle and cheap!),

set it on 'dough,' and let it go for about ten minutes. Then I roll the dough into a rope and snip it with my kitchen scissors. Then I use my tortilla press.

Sometimes I make corn tortillas, too. They usually come out closer to round.

And I have achieved another small measure of freedom from corporate America.

(I am so effing sick of politics. And the economy. Lehman Bros., Merrill-Lynch, AIG, and locally, WaMu. Still... )

BLAME BUSH! BLAME THE REPUBLICANS! VOTE OBAMA! (Do I really believe that'll change things? Stay tuned for my answer.)