Pozole Promises | Promesas de Pozole
"A family recipe brings two broken hearts together during a cold winter night"
Pozole Promises
Promesas de Pozole
The pozole was my grandmother's recipe—the one I made when everything else fell apart.
"Smells amazing," my new neighbor said from the hallway.
"It's just soup."
"That's not just soup. That's a hug in a bowl."
Her name was Adriana. She'd moved in last week, running from something she wouldn't name.
"Want some?" I asked, surprising myself.
"I don't want to impose."
"You're not. I made too much." The truth was I always made too much. Cooking for one was impossible when your grandmother taught you to feed armies.
She smiled—the first smile I'd seen from her—and something in my chest unclenched.
We ate pozole in my tiny kitchen, adding radishes and oregano and all the toppings my grandmother insisted on.
"This is incredible," she said.
"Family recipe."
"Do all your family recipes taste like love?"
"The good ones."
Adriana started coming over whenever I cooked. We'd chop vegetables side by side, compare life stories, build a friendship out of shared meals and comfortable silence.
"Why do you cook when you're sad?" she asked one night.
"Because my grandmother said food is medicine. And I've been sick for a long time."
"Sick how?"
"Heartbreak. The slow kind."
"Me too," she admitted. "That's why I moved. Couldn't be in the apartment where everything happened anymore."
"What happened?"
"I loved someone who couldn't love me back." She stirred the broth. "A woman. My best friend."
"Oh."
"Does that change things?"
"No." I set down my knife. "It just explains some things."
I kissed her over the pozole. Tasted like hominy and chiles and years of wanting something I couldn't name.
"That was unexpected," she breathed.
"Was it?"
"No. I've been hoping for weeks."
"Then I should have done it sooner."
We made love that night with the pozole simmering, filling the apartment with warmth and comfort. Her body was new and familiar all at once, like a recipe I'd known but never tried.
"Stay," I said after.
"In your bed?"
"In my life."
"That's a big ask."
"I'm a big cook. I need someone to help me eat the leftovers."
She stayed. What started as neighbor dinners became something permanent—keys exchanged, closets shared, a life built around kitchen tables and family recipes.
"Teach me the pozole," she said one winter.
"It's a family recipe."
"Am I not family?"
I looked at her—this woman who'd wandered into my kitchen and stayed—and realized she was.
"Come on," I said. "First, you need the right pork..."
My grandmother would have loved her. Would have fed her too much and asked too many questions and smiled knowing smiles.
"To family," we toast every New Year, with bowls of pozole and hearts full of promises kept.
"To healing," she adds.
"To love."
Pozole promises—where soup becomes salvation, and family is whoever shows up hungry.