"Eat with tortilla so you'll get full!"

One of the many things my mom told me as I was growing up in our cash-strapped family of five was to eat with a tortilla so we would get full. It seemed as thought we were always eating beans, rice and tortillas.

This tortillacentric culture spilled out into the neighborhood. My childhood friends would gather in the kitchen, a small army of latchkey kids, placing their orders for bean burritos or tortillas with butter. While my mom was at work, my live-in grandma would don the role of short order cook, making handmade flour tortillas, mashing refried beans with cheese, and slathering butter on tortillas for my hungry, appreciative friends.

This gravy train continued for years until one day, my grandma got her own place and moved out. The tortilla "machine" sputtered and stalled. One day, about the time I turned 18, my mom announced she was no longer making tortillas. This news struck me to my core. I felt like one of those juvenile bear cubs, who are abandoned by their mother and forced to forage and fend for themselves. I remember eating a lot of Mexican fast food at this time.

There's talk of tortilla-making workshops with my mom, myself and anyone else who wants to join in and learn this skill, but I don't even have a rolling pin and decent counter space in my cramped one bedroom apartment.

I fear the days of homemade tortillas are gone for good.