Once upon a time, we lived in Pennsylvania. A place where your co-workers don't bring in homemade tamales to sell to you, nor does anyone sell them in front of the grocery store (I know, weird, huh?). A place where when the tortillas are kept in the refrigerated section of the grocery store and if you ask where they are, you are pointed to the tortilla chips. Jordan and I decided that Christmastime just isn't the same without tamales so we set out to find some. Our first stop was a grocery store in downtown Lancaster that we thought might possibly sell some masa and corn husks. No such luck. So we stopped at a small Mexican restaurant to see if maybe they had some we could buy (the easy way out!). No luck there, either. They did however, know where we could pick up the necessary ingredients. Jordan listened intently as the owner game him directions to this store, thinking that we were probably headed to some hole in the wall. Then, the owner says "and you'll see a big sign that says 'Zhe-ahnt'" (think Giant said with a spanish accent, since that's where he was telling us to go - the local big chain grocery store). Alrighty then. Could it really be that easy? On our way to 'Zhe-ahnt', we passed a little Mexican grocery store, where we picked up our masa and corn husks. Oddly enough, the Giant stores in Lancaster city did have masa, though I never saw corn husks. The store in our town did not.
Thus, our tamale tradition was born. Keep in mind that Jordan and I have no idea how to make tamales. They actually don't really taste all that good and we'll need to figure out how to make the masa taste better before next Christmas. But look how fun they are to make!
