Greetings, dear readers
It's been about 10 days since we were told Covid-19 had officially landed in Venezuela and even though people have not been able to abide by the quarantine, our lives and routines have considerably been altered. My wife can't go to school to teach; our daughter can't go to class or to choir rehearsals. As for my mother-in-law, well, she chose her room over the streets and socializing years ago. Thus, not much have changed for her, except that now she has us all, all the time.

To be honest, I like it this way. I've never been much of a street person. I am content staying home, reading, writing, translating, or watching movies. I am not much of a cook, but after 10 days and zero snacks for the boring afternoons, I had to improvise. I decided to prepare one snack that is very popular in my part of the country: Torrejas (some people call them hojuelas or flakes)

The recipe is pretty simple, more so when you learn it from your mother, who learned it from her grandmother, who never kept measures or any of those "uppity ways." We do it al ojo porciento (eye percentage). In the old good days we could use a lot of ingredients. Now, we just need wheat flour, water, salt, oil, and sugar. I stole an egg to pretend I was doing somethign fancy.

I put some water in a bowl (enough for enough flour for four people), add salt (just enough for that amount of flour) and started adding flour. Most people start with the flour and add water. That's the smart thing to do. You should go ahead and do that.

When the dough is ready (stops sticking to your fingers) you let it "rest" for some (undetermined by my ancestors) time (eye percent, remember) and then cut it in small pieces/balls that will become individual torrejas.

You put plenty of oil in a pan and when it is hot enough you start frying them. They will take all kinds of funny shapes. Since the dough is spread thin there will be lots of "bubbles" in the surface of the dough. That's good. It will provide the crunchiness we want.

When it is brown enough, you take them out of the pan, spread sugar (as much as your blood pressure can stand) and they are ready to eat.

You serve them hot to a bunch of bored and hungry ladies and they'll think they are eating something really exotic and nutritious.

My daughter liked them. I made two for each one. The first one was the snack; on the second ones I put cheese on and they became dinner. That's what my mother meant by improvising. Under the present circumstances, it was a glorious snack-dinner.

Thanks for your visit