Around the Table: Enchiladas Bring People Together
I made it my goal to cook through Bread and Wine this summer. Well, here we are halfway through September and I’m a whopping 3 recipes in. I attribute this failure to two things:
A lot of the recipes are for wintery things, like soup.
I ate too much Chick-fil-A this summer.
And I got stuck on the enchiladas.
Y’all, I made the freaking enchilada recipe three times in a month. They are so good. I have the recipe memorized. At this point, if there is a need for food for any event and you ask me to fill that need, I will show up with enchiladas. Without question.
The first time I made them was for a friend who had recently had a baby (side note: as I get older and a lot of my friends are popping out infants, I stand more and more in awe of the whole event. They are all my heroes. Babies are hard.)
Incidentally, in Bread and Wine Shauna suggests this recipe as a perfect meal for new mamas. I followed her advice, and also invited myself over for dinner because...duh.
Let me tell you, there is no greater joy in this world than holding a sleeping newborn baby in one arm and eating spicy enchiladas with the other. No.greater.joy.
Enchilada Night No. 2 was one of my favorite nights of the whole summer. My family drove through town on a Thursday night, so I gathered them and seven of my dearest friends in the kitchen and we ate enchiladas and chips and watched the International Space Station fly over our heads at exactly 8:13 p.m.
This is the super high-quality, artfully-posed photograph I took to commemorate the sweetest evening ever.
Add this to the list of No Greater Joys: watching all my people hang together. I don’t want to be overly sappy (yes I do) but I LOVE IT when a bunch of people I really like sit around a table and enjoy each other and their dinner. My feelings explode. All of the heart eyes.
The third enchilada experience was maybe the most magical, though.
A few weeks ago, my mom, my sister, and some of our growing up friends spent the weekend in a beach house in Connecticut. And, yes, it was EVERY SINGLE BIT as lovely as it sounds.
There is something untouchably sweet about being around people who have known you for a long time. Friendships that last through awkward growing up, shared joys, and seasons of disconnection and tragedy shape us in ways that can’t quite be put into words. Know what I mean?
On our last night we all put on our bathing suits and made dinner together in our little beach house while listening to the waves and the soundtrack of “Little Women”. Then we ate chips and guac and enchiladas and margaritas on the beach, basking in the sunset.
I did not make this guacamole, and I did not take this picture. But the enchiladas were in the oven at this point so that has to count for something.
Enchiladas bring people together. Enchiladas are for celebrating new life, old friends, and family, both blood-related and otherwise.
It's easy to lose sight of in our transient twenties--that despite feeling unstable and topsy-turvy A LOT of the time, there are roots there, holding us down. Community, history, family...whatever those things look like for you, they are a sacred part of who you are.
A month of making enchiladas reminded me that I am not as all by myself as I sometimes feel. And, boy, am I thankful for the people who will eat enchiladas with me.