By Izabell Mendez

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This piece started as many little stories about my grandmother’s cooking and evolved into a story about my grandmother herself and the moments when we drink hot chocolate together.

As I step out of the elevator I can smell it.

My grandmother is making Chocolate Cortés, which I  fondly called bloque (brick) before I knew the name for it. Bubbling on the stove, the smell of cocoa and boiling water fully hits me as I open the door to my aunt’s house. Mami Rosa’s face lights up as she pokes her head out of the kitchen. She never smiles in photos, self-conscious about not having teeth and believing that a closed-lip smile is fake. But alone with me at my Titi’s house she doesn’t hold back. 

She fills the biggest mug she can find with the chocolate and a splash of milk, and pours the rest into a small cup for herself. We sit down at the dining table. “Mami Rosa is the best, right?” She refers to herself in the third person as we dip galletas de soda into our steaming mugs. I nod and tell her about my day in my broken Spanish before she finishes her drink, removes a cigarette and lighter from an Altoids tin, and steps out on the balcony to smoke.

When she comes back in, we move to the couch and she taps away at a game on her IPad. The comfortable silence is interrupted only by Mami Rosa’s exasperated sighs as she loses another round of her game. 

I don’t know how long we’ve been sitting there, but I suddenly realize it’s late. As I get up to leave, Mami Rosa stops me. 

Grabbing an orange juice bottle she cleaned out earlier that day, she rinses it again with water and a bit of coffee. Gently, she pours in coffee saved from each pot she made throughout the day. This is fitting: usually coffee and orange juice are the only things she drinks. She loves her Cafe El Dorado so much that she insists on stuffing everyone’s suitcases with coffee bricks whenever a family member travels to Puerto Rico to visit our relatives. Anyone can get the same coffee in Puerto Rico – but it’s cheaper in New York.

She holds the full bottle up proudly. “Yo guardé esto pa’ ti. Usa un Sharpie y escribe ‘IZA’S CAFÉ’ so your mommy doesn’t throw it out. You know she loves to throw away everything.” And I nod with a laugh as I accept her offering. Little does she know I am trying to wean off coffee and a 52 oz bottle full of a strong, dark brew is not going to help. But this was her gift to me, a thank-you for visiting. 

She watches me walk to the elevator. Mami Rosa never says a simple goodbye.  “Adiós, cuídate, hablamos, nos vemos, te quiero mucho, Dios te bendiga. You know your mommy never makes hot chocolate like Mami Rosa does.”

Process

I was inspired to write this story based on a community studio focused on food writing that Victoria and I attended. What started out as a quick little writing exercise turned into something longer when we realized that my original paragraph could become something more. A lot of my food-inspired anecdotes involved my grandmother, a key figure when it comes to my relationship with both food and Puerto Rican culture. Writing this encouraged me to cherish the routines I share with my grandmother, especially in times when I am overwhelmed with everything else going on in life. It’s funny now, when everything I wrote on the page plays out exactly the same way in real life. I had a feeling my piece was done when I went over to my aunt’s house, talked with my grandmother over mugs of hot chocolate, and walked away with a smile and two bottles of coffee.