Portobello Tacos

Forty-five. Valentine's Day. Born February 14, 1979, which my mother considered a sign and my father considered a coincidence and which I have spent forty-five years explaining to teachers, coaches, drill sergeants in the recruiter's office that I never ended up sitting in front of, and also to anyone who finds out my birthday and says, "Wait, that is Valentine's Day." Yes, ma'am. Valentine's Day. No, I do not think it is romantic. Yes, I will eat the heart-shaped cookie my daughter made me.

Lisa made carne adovada. She has been making it on my birthday for twenty years. The first time she made it, in 2005, when we had been married four months, it was inedible — she had used too much red chile and not enough vinegar and the pork was tough and the whole thing tasted like punishment for a crime I had not committed. I ate it. I ate two helpings. I told her it was perfect. She knew it was not perfect. She has been refining the recipe since. Twenty years later, her carne adovada is, I will say it on the record, very nearly as good as Mamá's. I will not say "as good as Mamá's" because Mamá would feel that in her bones from a thousand miles away and call me to discuss it. But Lisa's carne adovada is a Lisa carne adovada now — slightly more tender than Mamá's, slightly more vinegar, with a hint of orange zest that nobody in New Mexico would tolerate but that I find I look forward to all year. This is the food version of marriage. You make a thing together that is neither of you and is both of you, and over time it becomes its own thing, and the original recipes are just ancestors.

The kids made cards. Diego's card was a piece of notebook paper folded in half with a football drawn in the middle in pen. The football said HAPPY BIRTHDAY COACH on one panel and DAD on the other. He has been making me variations of that card for ten years. I have all of them in a folder in the desk drawer. He does not know that. He will know someday, when I die, and Lisa hands him the folder, and he sees what every kid wants to see — that his dad kept everything, that none of it was nothing, that the bad drawings of footballs were the most important objects in the house. I am not planning to die soon. But you keep the folder anyway. You keep the folder.

Sofia's card was very neatly written and four paragraphs long. Sofia's cards are essays. She wrote about a memory from when she was eight and we went to a bookstore in Albuquerque and I bought her a book about the desert, which she still has, which she said is in her room right now and which she still reads sometimes. She wrote that she did not always tell me she loved me but she loved me, and she hoped I was having a good birthday, and that she was glad I was her dad. I read it twice. I had to put it down for a minute. Sofia is fourteen. She does not say things like that out loud. She writes them in cards and she hands the card to her father and she walks out of the room without watching him read it, because if she watched him read it she would have to deal with what he looked like reading it, and Sofia does not deal with the visible emotions of others very well, and neither do I, and we are protecting each other.

Marco and Elena made matching drawings of footballs. Of course they did. Marco's was crooked and aggressive. Elena's was neat and color-coded. They had a fight about whose was better. I told them they were both better than Diego's, which was a lie, but they enjoyed it.

I called Mamá at noon. The conversation has not changed in forty-five years. She said, "M'ijo, today is a sign." I said, "Mamá, today is a coincidence." She said, "It is a sign. Your father knows it is a sign. He just will not say it." I said, "Papá, are you on the phone." Papá said, "I am on the phone. It is a coincidence." Mamá said, "He is contradicting me on your birthday, m'ijo. This is the kind of thing I have to live with." I said, "I am sorry, Mamá." Papá laughed. Papá laughs more now than he used to. Diabetes has taken some things from him but it has also slowed him down in ways that have made him lighter. I do not know what to do with that observation other than to write it down and to be grateful that my father, at seventy-three, is laughing more than he laughed at sixty-three. The metformin and the kidney function and the blood sugar logs and the dietitian visits — those are the cost. The laughter is what we got back. I will take it.

Mamá asked about the kids. She asked about Lisa. She asked about the chile in the freezer, which is dwindling, and she promised to send a care package next week with the rest of the September batch she had saved for emergencies. She said, "M'ijo, are you happy." I said, "I am happy, Mamá." She said, "Forty-five. Halfway there. You have a job to do." I said, "I know I do." She said, "Win that championship. Then come home." I said, "Yes, ma'am." She said, "I love you, m'ijo." I said, "I love you, Mamá." Papá said, "Happy birthday, son." I said, "Thank you, Papá."

Lisa and I went to bed at ten-thirty, which is a wild night for a man my age. I lay there in the dark, and I thought about the year ahead, and I thought about Diego and the team, and I thought about Ruben, and I thought about what Mamá said: come home. Not yet. Not for a long time. But the road bends in that direction now. I felt the bend tonight. Forty-five. The road bends.

The carne adovada is Lisa’s, and it belongs to February 14th the way the football cards belong to the desk drawer — I would not move it. But there are the other nights, the ordinary Saturdays when the kids are loud and the kitchen is already a mess and nobody wants to wait two hours for braised pork, and those nights belong to tacos. We started making these Portobello Tacos a few years ago when Lisa was trying to stretch the grocery budget and discovered that a well-seasoned portobello, roasted until it goes dark and silky, can hold its own against almost anything. Diego called them “the mushroom ones” the first time and asked if there was “real food” coming after, and now he requests them. That is the whole story. That is how a recipe earns a place in a house.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

4 large portobello mushroom caps, stems removed, sliced 1/2-inch thick
1 red bell pepper, seeded and sliced thin
1 medium yellow onion, halved and sliced thin
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or to taste)
Salt and black pepper to taste
8 small corn tortillas
1 ripe avocado, sliced
1/2 cup fresh salsa or pico de gallo
1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves
2 limes, cut into wedges
1/4 cup sour cream or plain Greek yogurt (optional)

Instructions

Heat the oven. Preheat your oven to 425°F. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with foil or parchment.
Season the vegetables. In a large bowl, combine the sliced portobellos, bell pepper, and onion. Drizzle with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and toss to coat. Add the garlic, cumin, chili powder, smoked paprika, oregano, cayenne, salt, and black pepper. Toss again until everything is evenly coated.
Roast until dark and tender. Spread the seasoned vegetables in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet — don’t crowd them or they’ll steam instead of roast. Roast for 18–22 minutes, flipping once halfway through, until the mushrooms are dark, slightly caramelized at the edges, and the peppers have softened. They should look a little collapsed and silky.
Warm the tortillas. While the vegetables finish roasting, warm the corn tortillas directly over a gas flame or in a dry cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat, about 30 seconds per side, until they have a few char spots and are pliable. Wrap in a clean towel to keep warm.
Assemble the tacos. Lay two tortillas per person on a plate. Divide the roasted portobello mixture evenly among all eight tortillas. Top each with a few slices of avocado, a spoonful of salsa, and a small handful of cilantro. Add a dollop of sour cream if using.
Finish with lime. Squeeze a lime wedge generously over each taco before serving. Serve immediately with extra salsa and lime on the side.

Nutrition (per serving)

Portobello Tacos — The Table That Holds Everything