Wings Press

Get the Tamales, Comadres, and the Meaning of Civilization ebook at
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ePub ISBN: 978-1-60940-132-0
Kindle ISBN: 978-1-60940-133-7
Library PDF ISBN: 978-1-60940-134-4

SIGNING SCHEDULE -- SEE BELOW

NOTE: Available locally in November 2010. Orders will ship around Nov. 7.

Also available as ebooks (check with your reading device's provider):
ePub ISBN 978-1-60940-132-0 *** Kindle ISBN 978-1-60940-133-7 *** Library PDF ISBN 978-1-60940-134-4

Affirming the fun, the flavor, and the 7,000 years of tamalada history throughout the Americas, Tamales, Comadres, and the Meaning of Civilization is a delightful collection of folk sayings, personal anecdotes, hints, recipes, a tamale corrido, humor, a blog duel, and the philosophy of women's collaborations. Professor Ellen Riojas Clark and award-winning author Carmen Tafolla team up in this woman-led project to create a beautiful gift that wraps the culture of the community like a steaming tamal!

Introducing ... Civilization!

So what do tamales and comadres have to do with civilization? Everything! Unwrap a delicious, steaming tamale from its corn shucks and you are unwrapping one of the keys to the survival of humans for the last 7,000 years in the Americas. Tamales have outlasted nations, flags, even languages. Our history and our stories are wrapped in those shucks.

This book can best be described as a collaborative labor of love, which, just like a tamalada, requires laughter, tears, chisme, an intense amount of work, and a sense of wanting to feed a whole pueblo hungry to read about their culinary and historical hojas. It is a symbol of the giving our mothers and grandmothers did to feed us physically and spiritually. And if you wonder how this book came about, it was, very fittingly, out of that same sense of crazy comadrazgo and caring for the comunidad.

Noted UTSA Professor of Bicultural Bilingual Studies, Ellen Riojas Clark, and award-winning author Carmen Tafolla combined their own experiences and family stories with the memories, recipes and artwork of many San Antonio writers, artists, historians, journalists, business people and other public figures to create a work that will delight tamale aficionados and introduce others to the cultura of this most basic element of the cuisine of the Americas.

Contributors to Tamales, Comadres and the Meaning of Civilization include Valerie Gonzales (CEO of Delicious Tamales), Rolando Briseño (artist), Olga Garza Kauffman (community affairs consultant), Robert Flynn (writer), Antonia Castañeda (historian), Cary Clack (columnist), Vicky Carr (performer), El Curro (musician), Sandra Cisneros (writer), Heloise (the one, the only...), and dozens of others.

SIGNING SCHEDULE for Carmen Tafolla and Ellen Riojas Clark:

Nov. 20, Saturday, Noon to 2 p.m. at Twig Books

Dec. 3, Friday, 7 p.m. at the Hecho a Mano opening, Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center

Dec. 4, Saturday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at HEB # 39, 1150 NW Loop 1604 @ Blanco

Dec. 5, Sunday, 2 to 4 p.m. at HEB# 108, 20935 HWY 281 North

Dec. 9, Thursday, 6 to 9 p.m. at Tres Rebeccas on S. St. Marys St. (Benefiting Hispanas Unidas)

Dec. 11, Saturday, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at La Gran Tamalada, Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center

Dec. 11, Saturday, 5 to 7 p.m. at Twig Books during the Pearl Tamalada

Dec. 12, Sunday, 2 to 4 p.m. at HEB #102, 8503 NW Military

Dec. 13, Monday, 5 to 7 p.m. at HEB# 26, 4100 South New Braunfels Ave(McCreless)

Dec. 15, Wednesday, 5 to 7 p.m. at HEB# 613, 8219 Marbach Rd

Dec. 17, Friday, 5 to 7 p.m. at HEB# 85, 10718 Potranco Rd @ 1604

Dec. 18, Saturday, 2 to 4 p.m. at HEB# 95, 1911 NE BOB BULLOCK LOOP (LAREDO)

Dec. 19, Sunday, time to be determined at Neiman Marcus (Benefiting San Antonio Public Library Foundation)