Sweet banana

"Writers are like those good thieves. They take something that is real…and by a trick of magic they transform it into something totally fresh." ~ Isabel Allende I live with some kind of sinusitis that gets going in the morning, especially after I've eaten breakfast. I am assured that my poor sense of smell isn't a COVID-like symptom. But I need to do something about it because this morning, as I was preparing lunch, I didn't notice that the pot where my husband Rolly Fernandez was cooking plaintain bananas in sugar syrup, minatamis na saging, was about to dry. There was steam all over the kitchen. I was so focused on dicing the carrots and slicing the cloves of garlic that were supposed to go into my own pot of chicken with pineapples. My back was turned to the stove. Plus my ears were listening to the CD album of cellist Yo-Yo Ma. I even had a fleeting thought about how peaceful these all felt--the meditative gestures of dicing and slicing. Rolly rushed down the stairs holding the walis tingting and dustpan containing Satchi's poop, shouting that the house was almost on fire. I rose abruptly from my seat and quickly turned off the knob of the gas stove. He got rid of Satchi's leavings first before returning to scold me. We opened the pot and looked inside. The sugar had caramelized to a dark brown around each of the banana slice. I'm a girl who looks at the jug as half full so I told my partner, "We have banana cue for dessert!" Still much shaking of Rolly's head.

Paella bella

My tiredness from preparing and cooking today's lunch has dissipated after my grandchild Kai rated the paella I served a 9.5. Even the other picky eater, Rolly, was so pleased that he asked me to duplicate the dish on his 70th birthday early next month.

Daughter Kimi, who took the picture below, said I should issue a disclaimer saying that I was not responsible for the uneven cutting of the hard-boiled eggs. Kai was. Maybe that's why the dish's rating is point five short of perfect.

I owe the cooking knowledge for this particular paella to Des Bautista's wife Auring. Weeks ago she demonstrated how it was done and even gave me the Paellero seasoning (it's a brand) and saffron threads for the day when I would find the courage to inaugurate our paellera with this well-loved dish. The paellera had idly sat behind our oft-used pots and pans for years waiting for this day.

What went into this one-pot dish? Onions and garlic sauteed in olive oil, Chinese chorizo, bite-size pieces of chicken breast, green peas, green bell pepper and jasmine rice. I made sure there was also burnt rice (tutong) for Rolly to dig into.

Next time, if budget allows, we add prawns, mussels and squids for the truly decadent paella of his dreams. Rolly's message to Ernesto V Enrique: "Sayang hindi tayo magkapitbahay. Otherwise, you get half of this."

With a lot of assist

Today's meal, Sweet and Sour Meatballs, I owe to Chef Mike Tatung of the FB page Simpol and the YouTube video of Panlasang Pinoy with a lot of gut feel and assist. My little kitchen assistant is Kai who can chop and quarter carrots with aplomb and can now slice bell peppers and remove the seeds with ease. She also peels and pounds the cloves of garlic.

Taking the cue from Tats Ernesto V Enrique who advised that I shouldn't cook when I'm tired as the tendency was to end up with a salty dish, I just placed a pinch of salt in the ground beef round but lots of black pepper and liquid seasoning. In went the whole carrot I grated, minced onions and leeks. I formed balls out of the meat, then my daughter Kimi Fernandez placed them in her air fryer but not without first drizzling them in olive oil so they didn't dry out.

The sauce came with sauteed garlic and onions. I threw in the carrots, which Kai chopped into tiny quarters (I still have to teach her to make florettes out of them), and the bell peppers. In went a little soy, a little vinegar, water with flour dissolved in it, two teaspoons of brown sugar and finally, the pineapple chunks with a little of the juice in the can they came in.

Kai gave the dish a rating of 4.5 over 10 which is still not passing. But the adults ate con gusto, and we planned on repeating the making of the sauce, this time to pour over fried lapu-lapu.

Rolly's role in all this? He efficiently washed the dishes.

Photo by Kimi

The irony isn't lost on me

My co-mother (kumare, the godmother of my eldest of two daughters) Mary Ann or Meran Daza Umali emailed me this image, a photo she took while passing through Lantana Street in Cubao, Quezon City. My kids call me Nanay. I told her the irony isn't lost on me mainly because I don't or hardly cook, and I imagine my Lantana Street namesake as a woman as hefty of build as I am, wearing a greasy apron and ladling piping hot arroz caldo into bowls on a rainy day such as today. To my tokaya (namesake) in Cubao, don't work too hard!

Eating away my grief

"In existence, I think one’s mother is, generally speaking, the strangest, most unpredictable and elusive person one meets." — Marguerite Duras

Gliceria Yatco Dula in 1946

Mommy and I didn’t have the most buoyantly cheerful of mother-daughter relationships. But whatever differences we had, things were always patched up by food, especially food prepared and cooked by her.

Since she died last May, I’ve dealt with her absence by filling it with food. Not just any kind of food but the kind that reminded me of what she used to serve the family on regular days and special occasions—humba, menudo, mechado, kare-kare, callos, adobo.

Because I still, by choice, don’t cook, I sought out the food of my childhood and youth in various restaurants in the resto hub that Barangay Kapitolyo in Pasig has become.

What put a halt to my overindulgence (dining alone in restaurants, even enjoying a buffet lunch by my lonesome) was a case of gastroenteritis and severe dehydration that landed me in the hospital.

My creatinine level shot up to the hundreds, my kidneys were doing only 24 percent of their function.

The doctors and medicines were able to turn the numbers around to normal in 24 hours during which I did a thorough examination of conscience. Certain realizations surfaced while I was flat on my back with an IV drip attached to my arm.

“Was it possible that I might be expressing my grief by overeating?” I asked my doctor.

She said it was, citing her own experience. When her own father died, her family made it a Sunday ritual to visit the grave, then go out for lunch every week for a year. Then they noticed they were all putting on weight and they decided to stop and just have monthly reunions.

I envied my sisters who could express their grief through copious tears shed when certain memories of Mommy were triggered—finding Mom’s hairband, preparing her clothes for giving away to charity (I kept her shawls and handkerchiefs for myself), praying for her soul’s repose at the family altar.

Mom’s ashes were inurned in a columbarium four months after her death. Again I watched my sisters cry their eyes out when the day came to say goodbye to the urn holding her remains.

But my tears wouldn’t come. I did look forward to the comida china afterwards where the family gathered around a table while a lazy Susan was swung clockwise and counterclockwise as we helped ourselves to food, food, glorious food—that was all in my mind and rumbling tummy.

I still am the object of fat lady jokes from the family although I’ve made the effort to cut down on binge eating, and do gentle exercises that aren’t hard on my joints.

Mommy Lolarga in a recent photo

“Why did I let myself go on your account?” I’d ask while gazing at Mommy’s picture when she was a slender young adult.

Maybe it was a form of rebellion going as far back as my teens. Mom kept her figure all her life, even after her eighth baby—I didn’t want to be like her.

She cooked like a pro—her morcon is irreplaceable. I never did the dutiful daughter role by learning how her dishes were done. She followed no recipe and relied on her estimates and instinct the way most of her generation did.

Mom was a loyal office worker. Her years of service ran to decades whereas I would leave at the first sign of discontent.

I guess I harbor a vestige of guilt. Her deathbed request to me was to give her a sip of Coca-Cola after a meal of broth and gelatin. I explained to her that because of the scarring in her guts, Coke would only hurt her so I practically forced water on her.

Bad girl! I should’ve, I should’ve given her a few sips of Coke! But I wouldn’t have been able to stand the sight of her cringing in pain from stomach spasms.

After I texted friends and family announcing Mommy’s death, Sr. Perla Macapinlac, ICM, of the House of Prayer in Baguio immediately responded: “My prayers for her and you. She has only gone home to God, but God’s home is everywhere in the universe, including our hearts, so your mother has not gone away. She is right there in your heart.”

And in my gut, I hasten to add, where Mommy, early in my life, left her indelible imprint.-- Elizabeth Lolarga

This article originally was published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer's Lifestyle section on Oct. 30, 2016.