Play with your food
MANILA, Philippines - My days have always been fractioned into breakfast, lunch and dinner, as opposed to morning, noon and night. At age five, those times of the day became the reason for my being. Never mind Barbie dolls and playing dress-up; each moment at the dinner table was my night at the theater, with meals coming out of the kitchen being the start of every act. I nurtured affection for steaming hills of scrambled eggs, and developed fervent veneration for the blush that escapes a medium rare brick of steak. While the story sculpted itself at the tips of my fork and spoon, their existence backstage was foreign to me.
My childhood paranoia of bad things that could happen to you had “fingers chopped off by kitchen knife†and “burned alive by stovetop fire†at the very top of the tabloidial list. The idea of cooking was intimidating. Several trips into the kitchen in my younger years consisted of scooping ice cream, microwaving popcorn and cracking eggs for mom unsuccessfully. I steered clear of a stove as best I could, until hunger and a can of Campbell’s mushroom soup cried out. With the help of my grouch of a cook, the mass of mushroom soup jelly — still maintaining the perfect shape of its tin — went into a pot, with a splash of milk and a smidgen of salt. As the lump of white went from gelatinous to downright creamy, it momentarily felt like the world was on my side.
Almost two decades since, I’m now some semblance of an adult, attempting to start where mini-me of yesteryear left off.
Fashioning my own meals is slowly consuming me; my nose tickles at the smell of onions frying in a bath of sizzling brown butter, and I smile at the sound of bacon that crackles after a bite. So I don’t eat out as much anymore, nor am I particularly up-to-date with the latest Taguig-rooted emporium. I’m currently smitten by the satisfaction that has come with making things on my own; recent triumphs being Gruyere hamburgers, Buffalo chicken tenders, and the formula for a perfectly boiled egg, which renders a bouncy outer skin, with a buttery inner core. (Conveniently, familiarizing myself with serving up my own meals has also been deliciously kind on my bank account.)
Where time at the dinner table roused my fascination with food, reacquainting myself with the kitchen now allows it to blossom — all fingers intact, no second degree burns, and a couple of cans of Campbell’s mushroom soup shining at me from the corner cupboard just in case.
