The Friendly Show

S1, E1 - The Tamale Lady

Sara Friendly: Greetings everyone, welcome to the very first episode of The Friendly Show. I am Sara Friendly and this is my co-host — and life partner — Peter Friendly…

Peter Friendly: We are here to bring you a whole new kind of talk show.

Sara Friendly: When our production company, Friendly Productions, asked us what we wanted we told them that we wanted your basic standard talk show set. We wanted a desk for our host (or hosts) to sit behind and a nice comfortable chair or couch for our guests to sit in. We wanted intimacy, we wanted a casual laid-back atmosphere, we wanted the feeling of two (or three) people sitting back and sharing what their world is all about.

Peter Friendly: Yes, the talk show furniture is really nice. I wish you could see it. It turned out that the furniture fully depleted the entire budget for the show so we were unable to buy cameras. So… this will be a talk show without cameras. No sound, either. Just words.

Sara Friendly: I think this could be ground-breaking, Peter. Sure, no one gets to see the exotic headdresses I like to wear, but the important thing about a talk show is the words, right? We are a written talk show. Personally, I think it’s a bold, exciting new concept.

Peter Friendly: Why watch a talk show when you can read one?

Sara Friendly: Exactly!

Peter Friendly: But enough of all that. Let’s jump right into the show. Today we have a very, very special guest.

Sara Friendly: Every single day, Monday through Friday, at exactly eleven-thirty in the morning, the elevator bell goes off up here on the fifteenth floor and out steps the very same person every day. That person is Mary Morales. She is always smiling and she always has a large insulated carry bag with her that is full of the best tamales on the planet.

All the offices quickly empty out as everyone comes to buy tamales from Mary. She sells them for two bucks a pop. Sometimes I’ll get five! Like I said, they are the absolute best tamales on the planet.

(Sara turns to Mary) Mary, I am so pleased and thankful that you agreed to be on our show. You’re one of the brightest parts of my day and I wanted to share that brightness with the world. Thanks for coming.

Mary Morales: Well, thanks for inviting me. I’ve never been on a talk show before. I wasn’t sure what to wear but I guess that doesn’t really matter.

Peter Friendly: No, we could all be in our underwear and no one would know.

Mary Morales: (She looked at Peter with alarm then turned back to Sara.) You know, Rolando, my husband, and I watch a lot of talk shows. Sometimes we’ll have the TV on while we’re making tamales. We’ve seen a million talk shows. I really like The View. I love it when Whoopi speaks her mind.

Sara Friendly: Yes, well, uh, your tamale-making is something that I want to delve into. Is it true that all your tamales are homemade right in your own kitchen?

Mary Morales: Si, yes. Rolondo, my husband, and I wake up at four in the morning each day and make tamales all morning long. We usually make around two hundred. Sitting atop the plant stand at one end of the kitchen is a ceramic statue of the Virgin Mary who looks out over us as we cook.

Sara Friendly: I always said your tamales are simply divine but I didn’t realize just how divine they are.

Mary Morales: Huh? Yeah, well Rolondo, my husband, and I always start the morning with a prayer. And we always try to have good intentions and loving thoughts while we cook. The vibrations of our attitudes are picked up by the food and we only want to spread love. When we’re all done cooking and the tamales are in the bags ready to go we say another prayer, blessing the tamales. All food should be blessed before being served.

Then I drop off Rolondo, my husband, at the construction site where he sells tamales to the construction workers and then I come here to this building to sell tamales. I always start on the 15th floor and work my way down the building. My bag is always empty when I leave.

You know, when I first started selling tamales in this building, years ago, I used to start at the bottom of the building and work upwards. But then Rolondo, my husband, and I went camping one three-day weekend and we went to see a waterfall. And that is when it hit me. I was staring at this beautiful waterfall and I realized that it’s natural for water to fall downward. Going up is always hard but coming down is always easier and more natural. So I began starting at the top and, like the waterfall, I allowed myself to flow naturally down the building, my bag getting lighter with each floor. For some reason I was never as tired flowing downward as I was when I worked upwards.

Peter Friendly: Wow, that is truly fascinating. Not many people put that much thought into their actions.

Mary Morales: It’s all about getting into the flow. Anyway, when I’m done with this building I go pick up Rolondo, my husband, and then we go to the bank and then shopping to get any ingredients we might need for the next batch of tamales. Then we come home and clean the kitchen. Then we cook supper for ourselves and then clean the kitchen again so that it is all ready to go at 4 a.m.

Peter Friendly: Wow, do you ever get tired of cooking tamales? And cleaning?

Mary Morales: Sometimes — usually on Fridays. But the passion for making them is still there, even after so many years. And the money is currently putting our darling daughter, Rosalita, through community college. She wants to be a teacher; a job that involves no cooking.

Sara Friendly: She’s not going to follow in mama’s footsteps?

Mary Morales: Oh gosh no! She hates the kitchen. I pray to God that she someday meets a man who likes to cook. Otherwise she might starve to death — or go broke eating out.

Sara Friendly: Okay, I want to talk about the ingredients…

Mary Morales: First, let me say that all of our tamales are 100% vegetarian. Rolondo, my husband, and I have been vegetarians for almost 30 years. (Mary laughed.) Rolondo always says, “Animals are for loving, not for eating.”

All of our ingredients are organic and non-gmo. We are very picky and careful about everything we buy. Luckily, we are dear friends with a farmer and his wife who grow certified organic, non-gmo corn. True non-gmo corn is not easy to find in America anymore. Over 90% of the corn grown in America is genetically engineered and full of toxic pesticides and herbicides. We don’t want any of that.

I should also say that most of our ingredients are locally sourced. But a couple of times a year we drive to Hatch, New Mexico to stock up on organic green chile. It’s the best green chile on the planet.

Peter Friendly: Don’t I know!

Sara Friendly: (She points her thumb at Peter.) This guy’s idea of a fun weekend is going to the Hatch Green Chile Festival.

Mary Morales: (She looks at Peter with newfound admiration.) You go? Rolondo, my husband, and I go every year. We never miss it. Hey, maybe we walked passed each other at the festival once and didn’t even know it.

Peter Friendly: Oh my.

Mary Morales: (She turns to address Sara.) Seriously, the Hatch Green Chile Festival is a whole lot of fun.

Peter Friendly: Certainly more fun than going to a weekend bed and breakfast murder mystery re-enactment.

(Sara gives Peter a cold, steely stare.)

Peter Friendly: So, Mary, have you and Rolondo ever considered opening up a restaurant to serve your wonderful food? And I have to say that the green chile tamale I tried earlier was probably the best tamale I’ve ever had in my life.

Mary Morales: Thank you. Running a restaurant is the last thing we would ever want to do. It’s just way too much work. Running a restaurant is like having a ball and chain tied to one’s ankle. You can never get away. It is all-consuming. I’m so glad we never decided to do that. Now, if we want to take a day off and go to the lake, we can. And we can spend our evenings at home with family and on weekends we don’t have to work at all.

Peter Friendly: Well, it’s the community’s loss. Those unfortunate people who don’t work in this office building don’t know what they’re missing.

Sara Friendly: Mary, you sell tamales to office workers. That may sound mundane and unimportant but I want you to know that you bring great joy to many people on a daily basis. What you do and the way you do it is very special. It’s not just the healthy, nutritious and delicious food but also your presence and the love you exude. You are truly an inspiration.

Mary Morales: Uh, thank you. I… uh… never really thought of myself or what I do as special — certainly not special enough to be invited to a talk show.

Sara Friendly: Oh, we’re not just about celebrities here on The Friendly Show. We like to talk to regular people who make a difference in the world.

Mary Morales: Oh… uh… okay.

Sara Friendly: (Sara looks at a blank wall that has no clock on it.) Well, I see that’s all the time we have for today but before we sign off I want to address all the many office workers in this office building. I hear you. I hear you say things like, “I’m starving. I can’t wait for the Tamale Lady to show up,” and I hear you call out to the back offices, “The Tamale Lady’s here!”

Well, the Tamale Lady has a name. It’s Mary Morales. I want everyone to start calling her Mary instead of ‘The Tamale Lady.’ She’s a person. The term, ‘Tamale Lady’ is demeaning to women and probably also to Mexicans, as well. So everyone, can we please all start calling her Mary?

Mary Morales: Actually, Rolondo, my husband, had an apron made for me that reads, “Tamale Lady.” I wear that apron every day when I’m making tamales. And look here… (Mary picks up the insulated carry bag that was sitting empty on the floor beside her. She turned it to reveal some lettering on the side of the bag that read, “Tamale Lady.”) So really, it’s perfectly okay if people call me Tamale Lady. I like it. Oh, and I’m not Mexican. My family moved here from Guatemala over a hundred years ago. Rolondo, my husband, is a Mexican, though, and I assure you that he is not offended. You know, he and I are officially a licensed business. We pay taxes and on the checks we write out to the government is the official name of our business, The Tamale Lady.

Sara Friendly: Oh… uh… I see. I didn’t know that. Uh…

Peter Friendly: Well, thank you so much for being our very first guest, Mary. I’m fascinated by what you do and hopefully you can come back some day.

Mary Morales: Thank you.

Peter Friendly: (Peter turns to face an imaginary audience.) Not only do we thank Mary but we’d also like to thank everyone who tuned in today. You won’t want to miss our next show. We’ll have a very, very special guest.

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