A little Doña Tere pozole warms the mood
It was cold outside, with a stiff breeze, 41 degrees, according to my phone’s weather app.
An older gentleman who walked with a slight stoop, wearing a mask and a well-fitted pair of goggles, paused at the front door of Doña Tere Mexican Restaurant & Tamales, the new East End edition of the small local chain.
He looked at me questioningly, gesturing in a courtly fashion in case I wanted to enter ahead of him. I shook my head and gave him a weak grin. Probably he wondered what I was doing there out on the sidewalk, shivering, with my nose pressed to the glass.
The saga — and it was beginning to feel like one — had started over a half hour back, when I added a 20 percent tip to my Google Pay online order and hit “send,” feeling as if luck was smiling upon me.
She wasn’t. A text had appeared immediately, informing me that my food would be ready for pickup in 15 minutes. That seemed awfully fast, so I took my time to make the five-block journey, arriving 25 minutes after my order had been received.
I peered inside to see if any to-go bags rested on the back service counter in the modest, high-ceilinged room, with its muted tilework and bright festoons of plastic papel picado. Nope. And none sat on any of the empty front tables where various instructions appeared on a table tent, together with a jug of hand sanitizer.
I’d have to go in and ask. I dug in my pocket for an extra mask, pulled my coat sleeve down to snag open the door and approached the counter, where a small group was ordering at the register. They were the only other customers, besides a trio seated at a far table.
I waited a bit, but I saw no to-go boxes, none in progress, and none of the three staffers caught my eye. After a few minutes, I decided to retreat again to the sidewalk, where the man caught me shivering. I thought of calling the restaurant on my phone, but finally I just plunged inside again, keeping the requested 6 feet from him as he ordered his tamales dulce.
A staffer met my gaze, finally. I inquired about my order, gave him the number. He consulted with another staffer, and they bent heads over a long printed ticket — mine, I realized with a sinking feeling — then told me it would be another few minutes. I retreated to the sidewalk once more and watched them put it all together, piece by piece by piece.
Thirty-six minutes after I had been alerted that it would be ready, he beckoned me back inside. No ferrying it up to the front door for me, although there were now four staffers at work for a total of seven customers at two tables.
For the first time in 11-plus months of ordering carryout, I felt cranky and displeased as I juggled my plastic bags and wrestled them into my car. I grew even more irked in my own
kitchen, when I discovered that the jamaica and champurrado beverages I had paid for were nowhere to be found.
Even some green chicken enchiladas Suizas did not have their usual soothing effect on me. The shredded chicken filling was ropy and tough. The green salsa whisked up with melted cheese was kind of meh, in my jaundiced opinion. I ate the enchiladas with ill grace and no particular gratitude.
My attitude softened and warmed over the next couple of days, as the thermometer plunged further, as our civic mothers and fathers implored us to stay put. Sleet fell, ice formed, and by the time snow had frosted the lawns and streets of my neighborhood, I was feeling kindly toward Doña Tere.
I heated up the homely pozole, with its fat pale hominy kernels and gnarly nubs of pork. I broke open the small containers of chopped onion, sliced radish, shredded iceberg (oops, that got brown on top); I sliced up the somewhat dispirited half lime I’d been given; and I got to work customizing the bowl of soup.
Maybe a little of this dangerous-looking chile oil in this little plastic thimble, I thought. And yowza: A couple of soup-spoonfuls in, the pozole had opened my sinuses, my chest and my cold, cold heart.
Even the pozole’s rich red made me feel comforted and cared for as I sat by my kitchen window, watching my bundledup neighbors trudge by in the cold.
I had already made my peace with a sprawling Oaxacan tamal, as big as an expensive trade paperback, that nested inside its glossy, dark banana-leaf wrapper. Its shreddy pork filling wore a green salsa that came on with a quick, fierce green-chile heat.
I found its fragrance of sweet corn masa and tannic, vegetal banana leaf intoxicating. OK, the masa tasted a lot saltier than I remembered from the days when I frequented a Doña Tere farther down the Gulf Freeway (had consistency slid as more units opened?), but the overall effect struck a nice balance between fluffy and substantial.
This was food that felt deeply warming.
So did a fat pambazo, the torta-like sandwich that is dipped in salsa to complicate its flavors and textures. This one was tinted guajillo-red, stuffed with spicy chorizo and mild potato, layered with big curds of queso fresco and lavished with lettuce shreds. It’s the kind of dish best eaten the minute you get it home, but I discovered I could reheat it by pan-toasting each side in a skillet or even by zapping it for 30 seconds in the microwave.
I plan to purchase this sandwich again as I zip by Doña Tere on my way home. Maybe next time I will actually acquire some of that champurrado, the hot masa-and-chocolate drink spiced with cinnamon that would have been so perfect for this Arctic cold snap.
I’ll live to fight another day. So will my beleaguered city. So will feisty little Doña Tere — each of us imperfect, each of us getting on with it anyway. A little pozole always helps.