By Louie-An Pilapil

I recently had my first home-cooked Chinese meal, courtesy of a former colleague’s mother. It was a pleasant departure from the canned fare I usually have on weekends and an opportunity to really get to know this young Chinese girl, whom I’ve added to my list of friends. The number of dishes alone (I counted five, including dessert) made me realize how special this meal was, as all meals are supposed to be, and how elaborate the preparations were.

Some of my Filipino friends and I have created this once-a-week ritual of having dinner together at somebody’s apartment. I look forward to it because I’m a no-cook parasite who’s feeding off of someone else’s table and I love the evolving conversations we have while feasting on sinigang sa miso or adobo.

When I was a young girl, I used to hang around the kitchen while my grandmother cooked. She was the Iron Chef of our clan whose dishes our relatives from abroad came home for. There was something magical in the accuracy of her measurements for spices, the confident manner she held cooking implements, the way she just knew the pork was done without spearing it with a fork. Hers was intuitive cooking, and seeing her work her magic with a cauldron remains my fondest childhood memory.

Only one of her children, the youngest, would inherit this wizardry in the kitchen. The others are competent cooks, but my uncle, whose love for food is evident in his build, is the only one who imbibed my grandmother’s culinary instincts. However, with his haphazard slicing and dicing, basting and frying, I regret to say that his kitchen demeanor is not as pleasant to watch. My grandmother had elegance and grace even while plucking feathers off of a chicken or skinning live frogs.

I think one of the reasons I never had any interest in cooking was because she didn’t want my help. She was stubborn about a lot of things and, in the kitchen, it’s her way or the highway. She was also scared that I might cut off my finger with a peeler or burn my hand while stirring the pot. So I just sat there and watched and, on occasion, was asked if the soup was salty enough. Many times I got bored and ran to the living room to watch cartoons or whatever was on. I would sometimes be surprised with a bowl of pastillas de leche, which I would devour in less than an hour, or sweetened ube (purple yam).

The years would catch up with her, of course, and she had to pay a neighbor’s son, a boy named Mario, to do the stirring for her when she made biko (sweet sticky rice dessert with bits of squash) or maja blanca. And every time, she would quadruple the servings so she could give to the neighbors.

My grandmother was so great at taking care of others that she neglected her own health. She suffered two strokes, is now wheelchair-bound, and can only move her right arm. She may have lost control of her limbs and her household, but her stubborn refusal to be defeated by paralysis makes her far stronger than any human being I’ve ever encountered. Not once did we hear her whine, and when it became apparent that no amount of physical therapy could make her walk or cook again, she accepted her condition with dignity and class.

Now that I’m away from home, I’ve come to appreciate the ritual that is mealtime. I never cared about it before, and it meant nothing more than putting food in your mouth so you won’t die. I’m so thankful now each time a friend invites me over to his or her house for dinner or lunch.

I know now more than ever that, whether in the Philippines or anywhere else in the world, cooking is somebody’s way of loving.

Photo by Lito Ibanez