On the third day of chili grinding (see Making Mole Sauce and Making Mole in the Modern World) the chili-nut-fruit mixture was still not ground to Liz’s satisfaction and so I kidnapped every grinding machine I could find in Joel’s well equipped kitchen and brought them to her house.

Then we got an assembly line going – using one grinder until it started to overheat and then switching to another.  BTW – the best grinder in our assortment was the small white one on the right (a Grup).  I’m happy to say that no grinders were permanently damaged.  Finally we had a Costco-size pretzel jar full of perfectly ground mole powder!

Above is pork mole with sourdough bread and my share of the mole powder. It should last a year.

Liz then added a cup of the mole powder to 8 ounces of tomato sauce and sauteed the mixture with a cup…

Liz and I on another of our adventures – coaching softball, something about which we knew NOTHING!

When my friend Liz announced she was going to make mole (pronounced mole-lay) I offered to help. The process of making mole takes at least a day, even in Mexico where there are special mills for chili grinding so I saw this as a chance for us to spend some time together. You see, her life is in constant flux and I’m always writing, blogging or taking care of my elderly mother so mole-making would force us each to take a day off just for ourselves. In fact, Liz is so busy I half expected something to come up which would postpone our adventure, maybe forever.  But, miracle of miracles, it did not.

Here’s what a commercially made mole looks like:

It’s actually a powder which, before serving, is mixed with crushed tomatoes and freshly…

As I write there is a dirty sheet being placed over the body of a child.

She is no more.  What shall we do?

She was playing in the sand, even though her family had told her to stay inside.  A piece of shrapnel killed her.  It left only an inch gash in her chest, tore through her heart, and then ripped her shoulder blade and part of her spine away from her body.  Flesh and blood splattered a wall and spelled a word by the freak of nature: H and I.  She flopped around a bit before she died, alone there on the broken earth.  Only a few knew her and fewer still will remember the circles she drew in the dust.  HI she died.

Later they will bury the girl in a rocky field and the hands of a bare tree will sprinkle bark and brown straw upon…