The New Tortilla Machine

La Palma has a new tortilla machine, which makes somewhat larger tortillas than the old machine. The new tortillas are marked: "Sin preservativos." The old tortillas didn't have any preservatives either, and you could buy them by the dozen for thirty five cents or 3 packages for a buck. The new tortillas are $1.35 a kilo, or $0.62 per pound. You can still buy the old tortillas, with the green circle, which taste great, but the new ones, with the yellow square, taste even better than the old ones. However, you can't buy them by the dozen. The new packages of new tortillas made by the new machine are available only in plastic bags containing three dozen tortillas.

Now, since the old tortillas cost $1 for three dozen, and the new tortillas cost around $1.40 for three dozen, but the new ones are bigger (and, let us not forget, somewhat tastier), you'd think it would all come out about even.

BUT! The Great Plotnik can't use up three dozen tortillas in one night, and they're nowhere as good the next day. The next day you have to warm them up on the gas burner and they get kinda crisped out. The next day you can use them to throw in old leftover chicken and leftover salsa and leftover guacamole and leftover rice, yum, and leftover beans and leftover cabbage salad, yo, Plotnik is getting hungry now, but they'll never taste as good as when they were warm.

Did we mention warm? The new, larger tortillas in the new, larger bag are steaming hot when you buy them, because the new tortilla machine is no more than five feet away from their box. The lady in the green apron and two long black braids takes the warm tortillas from the hopper of the new tortilla machine, stuffs them into a plastic bag and puts them into the cardboard box on the counter or into your hand. The old tortillas, which used to be available hot, are no longer available hot, because the old tortilla machine has been taken someplace else. The slightly smaller tortillas, made on the somewhat older tortilla machine, now have to be trucked over to La Palma Mexicatessen, and by the time they do that you may as well buy the new ones, which seems to be the point.

The lady in the green apron and two long black braids is the one you want making your order of 'quesadillas a mano con salsa fresca,' except you don't want your quesadillas made with either the tortillas from the old machine or the tortillas from the new machine. You still want the lady in the green apron and two long black braids to walk PAST the tortilla machine and take two fat, hand-made tortillas from the OTHER lady in a green apron and two long, black braids, who looks just like the first lady but is older and perhaps exactly twice the first lady's size, and is patting the masa between her hands and cooking her way-thicker tortillas on a long, flat griddle, and you want the two ladies to pause and exchange a few jokes in Spanish and perhaps a story or two about each other's children, and then you want your lady to take your two tortillas, walk to the smaller griddle on the other side of the room, slap them down so they sizzle, take a spatula and fold them over to encase the cheese, and grill them on both sides until they're the color of light brown sugar. Then, when the griddle has crisped up the quesadillas, she can walk back to the counter, open up the quesadillas with a knife, so the escaping steam practically covers her face, and shovel in fresh salsa and close 'em up again, wrap 'em in foil and bring 'em over.

The lady with the green apron and two long, black braids always puts in lots of salsa. That's why you want her to make your quesadillas, instead of the skinny kid in the yellow shirt and black shoes who acts like salsa is gold and you're the tax collector.

And there you have it, Hanky Girl. Quesadillas a mano con salsa fresca, a new tortilla machine, and less baseball.