How To Make Tortillas

For years I've tried to make my own tortillas using the Mexican corn flour found in most grocery stores, masa harina (you don't pronounce the 'h') and was never pleased with the results. Forget masa harina. Instead, visit your local Mexican grocer (they're in every city large or small) and purchase these ingredients: masa (you'll find it in bags in the refrigerated section), a tortilla press, and a comal (it's a thin metal flat wok). You can use a griddle or heavy frying pan but a comal works best.

Step 1. Heat the comal (the correct setting on my gas stove is just a tad higher than medium. Don't add oil.

Step 2.
a) While the comal is heating, prepare your first tortilla. I don't use wax paper in my press because it often sticks to the tortilla. Rather, I save those thin plastic bags from the grocery store's produce section.
b) Cut two sides of the plastic bag, open and lay it onto the tortilla press leaving a large overhang all the way around.
c) Scoop out 1/3 C. masa and form into a small patty and place it onto the plastic near the middle of the press (a tad toward the back) and press the lid down with your hand until the handle catches. Press down lightly.
d) Open, turn the tortilla (which may not be evenly thin) until the thinnest side overhangs a bit. Then press again a little harder.
e) Lift the lid and slide the plastic onto your flat right hand, then flip the tortilla onto your left hand and gently remove the plastic (do the opposite of course, if you're left handed like my granddaughter and step daughter).
f) Slide the tortilla from your left hand onto the hot comal (don't flip it over and slap it down).

Step 3.
a) While the first tortilla is cooking, make another but don't let the first one burn.
b) When the tortilla on the comal starts to puff, flip it over with a metal spatula. It should be lightly browned (you can always flip it back if it's not sufficiently cooked but that's not too cool).
c) Next, use a square wooden spatula and press down lightly near and around the center of the tortilla to help it puff.
d) When the tortilla has puffed in places and is lightly browned on both sides, you can transfer it onto a dish towel and cover it to keep warm. The new popular tortilla warmers, which you can also find in the Mexican markets in the U.S., are straw with a styrofoam liner. Line it with a dish towel and it keeps tortillas warm for a very long time.

Step 4. Repeat the procedure and enjoy those tortillas plain or in enchiladas, fried and cut in strips for tortilla soup, etc.....they're GREAT!

The Mexican Cooking School

My husband and I returned last weekend from our week at The Mexican Cooking School in Atlahapa, Tlaxcala, which exceeded our expectations in every way. Estela Silvas is a lot of fun. She began her cooking career at the age of seven working in her family's restaurant in Puebla and she is a brilliant cook. The secret of central Mexican cuisine we learned, is in the sauce. There's a different sauce for every dish. We were amazed at how many variations existed from the same basic set of ingredients: chiles, tomatoes, tomatillos, onion, garlic, and of course, tortillas. I'll post a 'how to' for tortillas because whether you make an occasional Tex-Mex meal at home or you're into some serious authentic Mexican cooking, making your own tortillas dramatically changes the taste of the dish.

how to get a short story published

The latest issue of a respected literary magazine to which i subscribe arrived by email today, and by respected i mean a magazine that publishes the likes of joyce carol oates and t. coraghessan boyle, and i downloaded the first short story anxious to confront the literary touchstones to which i might aspire in my own writing journey and as i read i was struck by the style and a light kindled in my brain, igniting the most blatant realization that oh my god, this is how you have to write in order to get published, word after word, sentences running into each other wildly, never ending, consuming the page, leaving you breathless as you read them wondering what in the hell the writer is thinking and doesn't he have a clue about periods and capital letters and how to parse a paragraph in ways that make sense or maybe it all makes sense to him even if it doesn't to some narrowly focused reader like myself who enjoys knowing when one thought ends and another thought begins but to him the eminent writer, the published writer, the writer published in an eminent literary magazine, all thoughts are amorphous, integrated one into another like waves into the sea crashing and blending and melding in a never ending . . . . you get the idea. Or maybe you just have to know somebody.

Google Street View

If you haven't used Google Street View yet, take a look. To check it out, click on Maps on Google's main page, then click Street View. You will see a map of the U.S. covered in cameras. Everywhere you see a camera you'll find Street Views available for those cities. The streets photographed are outlined in blue.

You can drive up and down the streets and click around for a 360 degree view. It's a terrific writing aid. Right now, I'm working on a novella that's set in West Hollywood. I visited there numerous times when my son lived there, but that doesn't mean I remember street names or where the nearest LAPD station is located (it's on Wilcox) or where there's a Money Mart, for example, but between Google's search engine and the street views, everything is easy to find (and thus describe).

Thank you Google!

About Writer's Contests

In the course of researching pressess, I've run across a number of contests for writers. Short story contests, first novel contests, best novel contests. I'll start a list here of those that do NOT require a fee. If you know of others, post a comment and I'll add those to the list.

1. The Nero Wolfe novella contest (ends May 31): http://www.nerowolfe.org/htm/neroaward/black_orchid_award/BO_award_proc.htm
2. Idaho magazine fiction writing contest (current contest ended Jan. 31)
http://idahomagazine.com/news_fiction.asp

Short Stories

Today I decided to post three of my short stories on my website. You can view them by going to: http://www.harolmarshall.com/new.html

They're all 'firsts'--my first short story, my first 'flash' story, and the first chapter of a 'noir' (or sort of noir) novella. The protagonist is a female private investigator by the name of Pauline (Polly) Isabel Berger. Yeah, she goes by P.I. Berger. Oh well, she's fun...we'll see how it goes. I'm still busy with Anna and Commander Cortez in book three of the Mexico series.

Small Presses, Agents, and Salt Lake City

Whew!! I dedicated most of this week to researching small presses (with occasional lapses given over to viewing Salt Lake City houses for my daughter who is moving there this summer). Oh yes, and I researched an agent or two.

Researching small presses has been a HOOT. Of course, there are the mystery presses, some of which are receptive to a little romance with their mystery, others want only hard-boiled detectives. Some love cozies others hate cozies, etc., and that was just the tip of the iceberg. There are the Christian romance publishers who allow nothing more than hand holding and kissing (even by implication) and their opposites the Erotica presses which made me blush just to read their submission guidelines. And the lesbian presses, the gay/lesbian presses, the presses with special requirements such as the 'big girl' heroine (she canNOT lose weight to please a man, for goodness sakes), and the horror, sci-fi publishers with their own weird set of requirements.

So, I'm thinking that maybe I should go back into my novels and add a few pounds to Anna, take away her penchant for fitness, eliminate the scene (though no details are provided) where she spends an overnight with (oh gosh) one of the male characters. Or maybe I should add a (chaste) lesbian, a ghost, a spaceship and some Bible verses. Voila! Publishing success.

Something to consider. . .