In the early 1970s—even in San Antonio, where I lived—Mexican restaurants were not yet to be found on every corner or in every shopping center. At least, that is, among the homogeneity of the mostly-white, middle-class, North-Side world I lived in.

There was, however, a place we’d go to called El Bosque. The menu seems now almost cliché: tacos, enchiladas and chalupas, all of which were accompanied by rafts of iceberg lettuce and a wedge of tasteless tomato adorned with a dab of sour cream. I liked enchiladas the best, possibly because they required only utensils to eat them and not my hands. I’ve never been mad for food that leaves my hands soiled. I make an exception now for chicken wings but do my best to use only one hand while eating them.

I don’t recall eating nachos at El Bosque, at least not like my dad’s nachos. I can’t imagine that what he used to make on Sunday afternoons, because of their simplicity, would go over very well in a restaurant. But I cherish the memory of the care that Daddy used to lavish on his own nachos.

First he’d cut corn tortillas into sixths. He’d fry them in oil, never stepping away from the stove, turning them and turning them and adjusting the heat under the pan as necessary to produce golden, perfectly crisp triangles, which he’d then place, one-by-one with tongs, on paper towels. He’d then dust them with salt.

Chips made, Daddy would arrange them on a cookie sheet. He’d cut inch-by-inch-by-eighth-inch slices of cheddar, place one on a chip, and top it with a slice of pickled jalapeño. Canned pickled jalapeño was something you could get in the supermarket in San Antonio in 1972-ish.

The cookie sheet would spend a couple of minutes under the broiler, remaining long enough for the corners of the chip-triangles to darken seductively. The cheese would by then have softened.

I made some of Daddy’s nachos just now and thought of documenting the process step-by-step. But I think what’s more valuable than pictures of me making nachos is remembering those that Daddy made. That said, here’s what I produced just now.

The memory clear and the nachos delicious, I don’t think I’ll make these nachos again.