Tamales are the ultimate comfort food, and one of the reasons they are so comforting is how difficult they are to make right.
Fortunately for us here in Williston, Christina Jimenez DeLeon has opened her new food truck Nico’s Tamales, and the reviews are coming in raving.
DeLeon started off in the oilfield as an invoicer for Wolla Trucking, but when she was laid off, her very supportive husband told her to go open her restaurant.
But getting a building, professional kitchen and employees takes a lot of capital, and with the food truck craze making waves across the U.S. right now, Nico’s Tamale Truck was born — and customers say the food that comes out of it is to die for.
Levi Bemetz, a customer who happened to be enjoying the tamales at that moment said “These are the best tamales I’ve had since I got out of the Navy.”
The tamales recipe is a true success story. When she met her husband Sergio 26 years ago, DeLeon was admittedly not much of a cook. Her mother was from northern Mexico and the style of cooking there is vastly different from where her husband was from in inland Mexico. DeLeon learned her skills from her favourite tamale maker in Idaho, then combined it with an old recipe from her uncle and mother-in-law to create a combination all her own; and the oilfield gobbles them up.
Now DeLeon is known as the Tamale Lady, and her reputation is spreading fast. She has branched out to nachos and other tex-mex foods, but the tamales is where the real magic is.
She only asks that when she dies the words “Tamale Lady” are left off her tombstone.
