Wednesday, October 11, 2006
It's all about la familia
Food writer Lindsey Nair
- lindsey.nair@roanoke.com | (540) 981-3343
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When Estela Rufino refers to her tienda/restaurant on Williamson Road as a family-run business, she isn’t kidding.
Her five daughters, ages 5 to 13, all help out after school: The eldest, Sofia, cooks while Mom takes care of grocery-item orders. Maria, 8, and Karina, 11, help with cleaning and supervise the baby, George, who’s 1.
“He used to eat the pepitas, and you had to really watch him, but we’ve trained him not to do that,” Maria said, of the spiced pumpkin seeds.
They all translate for their mother (except for George, who doesn’t talk yet) when English speakers come into the store.
This week marks the tail end of National Hispanic Heritage Month, which seemed reason enough to spend a few hours at La Herradura de Oro last week.
I went there with the goal of extracting Estela’s recipe for posole, a traditional Mexican stew of meat and hominy served on birthdays and special occasions; I’d heard people rave about her version after sampling it at the Mexican Independence Day celebration held outside the store Sept. 15.
I came away with a renewed respect for families such as Rufino’s, where everyone works toward the common good of the family, and even baby George has a job to do — keeping his drooling gums away from the pepitas.
The family migrated to Texas in 1992 from Guanajuato, Mexico, shortly after Sofia was born. Following better job opportunities in construction, their father moved the family to Georgia for three years.
They came to Roanoke in 2001 because a relative was running a store in Lynchburg and knew of a house here they could buy cheap. While husband George found another construction job, Estela set up shop selling fruits and vegetables outside Happy’s Flea Market before expanding the business to an indoor spot at Happy’s and then, two years ago, to nearby Lamplighter Mall.
They’re now in an even bigger spot at Lamplighter, in the back left-hand corner, wedged between a staffing agency and a Cuban-run hair salon.
Fliers promoting Hispanic events, other businesses and Alcoholic Anonymous meetings hang on the door. Workers at both the staffing agency and hair salon frequent each other’s shops and refer customers back and forth.
As in many Hispanic communities, Roanoke’s tiendas (small stores) are mini-community centers where immigrants come to wire money home, ask questions about jobs and housing, and buy everything from dried peppers and canned hominy to cowboy boots and rosary beads.
The growth of the family business directly correlates to Roanoke’s Hispanic growth, the Rufinos said. “When we came here in ’01, we would go to Wal-Mart and feel weird; we were the only Hispanic people there,” said Sofia, who’d just returned from soccer practice at William Ruffner Middle School, where she’s an eighth-grade honor student.
“Now when we go, it’s like half of the people there are speaking Spanish.”
At Herradura, traditional foods such as tamales and posole are nothing like chain-restaurant Mexican fare. “Hispanics know to come here for tamales on Sunday, but they’ve been sad lately,” Maria said. The restaurant side of Herradura has been closed since the stove broke a few weeks ago, though Estela says it’ll reopen by the end of the month.
I put out the call a few weeks back for Mexican-food recipes, and readers answered with some mouth-watering recipes, one of which I’ll include below.
If you’re into more adventurous Mex food of the non-El Rodeo variety, give Rufino’s authentic posole a try. The hard-to-find ingredients are available in her store as well as — you guessed it — Wal-Mart.
Posole
(Serves 6)
1 3-ounce bag of dried chile guajillos (dried ancho chiles work, too)
1 29-ounce can of hominy
1 pound of meat (pork roast and/or beef roast or chicken breast; “ You can use pork and beef combined, but chicken is usually used by itself,” Estela says)
2 tsp. salt, or to taste
1 tsp. oregano (or more to taste)
1 head garlic, whole
12 onion, chopped
1 head iceberg lettuce, chopped
3-4 scallions, green part only, chopped
4-6 radishes, cut into cubes
2 limes, sliced
Bag of tostados (smallish cripsy corn tortillas)
Cut dried peppers in half and remove seeds and stem. Soak peppers in a bowl of hot water to soften.
Put the meat in a Dutch oven or soup pot, add just enough water to cover the me at , salt, a whole head of garlic (unpeeled) and boil over medium heat for 45 minutes. When meat is cooked through, turn off burner and throw out the garlic. Leaving the meat in the pot with the broth, shred it with a fork.
Drain and wash hominy, and add to meat in pot.
Put soaked peppers in a blender, add a little hot water (14 to 13 cup or so), the oregano and blend into a sauce.
Holding a strainer above the soup pot, pour the sauce through the strainer and into the pot. Press the peppers down in the strainer to get out all the sauce. Boil 15 minutes. “It should be the consistency of tomato soup, only more like a stew,” Estela said.
As the posole is finishing, cut up the garnishes: lettuce, radishes and scallions.
Spoon out cooked posole into wide bowls. Dust with more oregano (to taste), then layer lettuce pieces, chopped onion and scallions. Serve with sliced limes and a radish on the side. Serve with tostados. Posole is traditionally eaten both with a spoon and by dipping the tostados into the soup.
I made the dish last weekend, and it was great both as a soup and served as leftovers, sans broth, inside warm flour tortillas with cheese, lettuce and avocado.
— Estela Rufino
Vegetarian Tortilla Stew
Reader Joan Bugbee sent in this recipe: “As a Texan, I’ve got a stack of Mexican recipes. But since our vegetarian younger son, now closing in on a doctorate at UVa, gets here occasionally, I’ve lately focused on veggie Mexican.
“Here’s a good, simple one, a snap to make. Non-vegetarians could throw in some cooked chicken if they wished.”
19 oz. can green enchilada sauce (Kroger sells 10-oz cans, so use two)
l and l/2 cups water
1 vegeta rian bouillon cube
l/2 tsp. garlic powder
l/4 tsp. chili powder
l/4 tsp. ground cumin
l 15-oz can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
l/2 of a 16-oz can diced tomatoes
l cup frozen corn
4 corn tortillas, torn into strips (the 6-inch tortillas)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro (“I use lots more than this, being a cilantro freak,” Bugbee says)
Mix enchilada sauce and water in big pot on top of stove. Dump in bouillon cube. Add garlic powder, chili powder and cumin.
Bring to a boil and reduce heat to low. Mix in beans, tomatoes and corn. Simmer until heated through. Mix in tortillas (and chicken, if you’re using it) and cook until heated through.
Stir in cilantro. Season lightly with pepper and top with any cheese you fancy. Serves 4. “With a salad and some crusty bread, you’ve got it (dinner) made.”
— Joan Bugbee
