That's a Wrap

Taco Bell.  Just the mere mention of the name makes my mouth water.  And come on, yours is doing the same thing, right?  In public we scorn it. It’s not healthy. It’s not low-calorie. It certainly does not fit into Oprah's “Live Your Best Life” and surely has no MUFAs… Who hasn’t sat down in their plastic booths and found lettuce or cheese remnants on the table from the patrons before you (or the ones before them…).  Who hasn’t optimistically taken one of their crispy nacho chips and tried unsuccessfully to dip it with ease into the relatively congealed processed cheese in that tiny little cup? Their drive-through is not always the epitome of fast… or accurate… Despite all of these factors, Taco Bell is a part of our culture.  It’s a part of American life.

I can imagine many of you unwilling to admit your secret longing for this iconic culinary phenomenon.  You’re saying,  “Oh *I* would never eat Taco Bell.  We only shop at Whole Foods, carry our organic groceries home in re-useable cloth bags and cook everything at home from scratch without sugar or dairy.”  Well, my friend, good for you. But if we’re really honest with ourselves, in our own private moments, driving alone in our Civic, our SUV, or heaven forbid our gas-guzzling Clunker, when we motor by one of their many locations, we secretly wonder to ourselves, “Can I eat a Nachos Bell Grande while I drive?”

Taco Bell was my first introduction to Mexican food.  Yes, I know it is far from authentic.  But come on, as a girl who never ate anything “ethnic” ‘til she moved to the other side of the world at the age of 23, Taco Bell was really a stretch. As a young girl standing at the counter wondering how the envied Taco Bell employee learned which buttons to tap on the cash register to formulate my order, I developed my own high maintenance request – no sour cream, no tomatoes on anything… ever… Little did I know that this would be only the beginning of my ever-so-particular ordering habit which today has extended to Starbucks beverages and my 40-step breakfast oatmeal preparation regimen. Watching my order appear on the little monitors over the taco-making station and then seeing the fried corn tortillas slide in that little metal rack from the lettuce to the cheese and into the wrapper, I would think to myself as a 10-year-old, “I wonder if I can work here someday?”

I can remember stopping at the Taco Bell with Mom at 9 Mile and Telegraph in Detroit and helping her balance a tray of drinks, a bag full of beefy burritos, and a precariously perched platter of nachos.  I can also remember that in an effort to stop the drinks from tumbling to the floor of the car before we reached home a mere three miles journey, the nachos met an untimely death and there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth. 

With fondness I recall going to the Taco Bell on 8 Mile Road across the street from the ‘big’ Farmer Jack Supermarket with Dad and Matt every Saturday at 4.30p on the way to our weekends at his house.  Every week Dad would get a burrito supreme and Matt would get nachos. We would sit at the booth by the window and watch the traffic go by, wondering if we’d make it to his apartment in time to go swimming before the pool “closed” at 6.00p and children under the age of 18 were ceremoniously banned.

As a young adult, returning from an overseas trip was never sweeter than when we hopped into my BFF’s Imperial Jade-colored Toyota 4-Runner and before seeing family or friends or pets or… well… Cold Stone… , we maniacally rushed to the nearest Taco Bell we could find, thankful for their now 24-hour a day operating hours and “Fourth Meal” policy.  No matter the time – middle of the day or in the darkest hour of night – nothing tasted better to our familiar-cuisine-starved palates than a Chalupa, a Tostada or a Gordita (…. what the heck is a Gordita?).  With all the yummy noises that subsequently immerged from the depths of our being, you’d think we were eating filet minon or chocolate cake.  Nope, just The Bell.

And now today, as a not-quite-so-young-anymore adult who watches her waistline a little more closely than she did when she was a kid, I wonder, “Just how many Fiesta Soft Taco Supremes can I reasonably eat…  and then, without shame, honestly record in my Food Diary?”

With this ‘rich’ cultural heritage forming my life, my character… my worldview… you can see, therefore, that when I moved to a nation with a conspicuous absence of Taco Bells, how desperate I was to reproduce its deliciously magical menu items in the safety of my own kitchen.

The first thing I had to learn to do?  Make tortillas from scratch.

I have indeed learned to make flour tortillas from scratch.  I can now also turn them into tortilla chips.  I can also make whole wheat tortillas that each have only 50 calories.  And the whole wheat tortillas turn into delightfully innocent baked chips with a little Pam cooking spray and lots of salt.  My world has been enriched and memories preserved by the ability to make Mexican food at home.  My own children can now share in the beloved things of my past.  A blessing… small, but genuine indeed.

So, by request, I offer to you ‘my’ Flour Tortilla recipe… which actually comes from the Wycliffe Cookbook that has been my lifeline over the last 12 years.  May you have the patience to try them and the courage to Think Outside the Bun… it’s worth every tasty bite!

Yo Quiero Taco Bell! 

FLOUR TORTILLAS

Combine: 4 cups flour (white or a mix of white and whole wheat) and 2 teaspoons salt

Cut in: 6 tablespoons butter (‘cut in’ means mix with a fork)

Add: 1 cup water

Form a ball.  Add more water if necessary, until bowl is clear of all dough.  Knead well on floured board and make balls the size of an egg.  Let stand for 15 minutes (if you feel like it…).  Roll thin with a rolling pin to about the size of a salad plate. Place on a hot ungreased skillet/pan and cook for about 2 minutes on one side.  Turn and cook 1 minute longer.  Makes about 2 dozen.

Good luck... and Enjoy!

~lk