When I Learned to Make Tortillas

My friend Ximena's grandmother, Doña Lupe, offered to teach me to make tortillas when I mentioned I'd never made them. I showed up at her kitchen on a Saturday morning expecting a quick lesson.

Four hours later, I had flour on my eyebrows and had made about sixty tortillas, most of them shaped like countries. Doña Lupe made two hundred, each one perfectly round, while also cooking beans, telling stories about her childhood in Puebla, and correcting my posture.

"Not with your arms," she said. "With your heart." I didn't know what she meant until the fifty-eighth tortilla, when I stopped trying so hard and it came out perfectly round. She clapped and yelled for the whole family to come see.

We ate them warm, with butter and salt, at a crowded kitchen table. Ximena's uncle made a toast to "the gringo tortilla master." I've never been so proud of a piece of bread.