...TER's Day Thursday: Revealing My Kitchen Secrets...

I didn’t know how to cook.

I love eating, but I didn’t really have that urge to learn how to cook as I grew up.

Discovering new flavors are always exciting for me, which made working in the manufacturing industry quite fun for me, because it taught me how to discern flavors (and fragrances) on a different level.

It didn’t make me want to cook though, because I felt like the best part of the cooking process is the payoff – eating.

However, after I proposed to my then-girlfriend, I realized that I was going to be leaving the life of comfort that I grew accustomed to, and I needed to learn how to cook for my would-be wife when we’re living together.

About five years in, and I believe that I’ve cooked enough to say that at least I am no longer a kitchen newbie because a number of people already think I can cook well while quite a few have validated that thought.

First post-marriage cooking post on my feed. I've cut down my prep time over time owing to familiarity.

I think I’m on the level of when I’m part of a group that asks “who here knows how to cook?” I can confidently, but slowly, raise my arm.  

I’m writing to share the secrets I’ve learned along the way, which may or may not help you in your culinary journey:

1. Make Technology Work For You

Before I cook a dish, I usually scour the internet for the appropriate recipe. When before, you only had cook books and family recipes to teach you how to cook, you now have a plethora of recipe sources right at your fingertips, so make use of it!

I think half our spice rack was filled because of the stuff I put on this rub.

“Julienne” was an alien term for me, but it was a common word in recipes, so I’m guessing even if I had a cook book with me, I wouldn’t have been able to do it on my own.

But because I live in the age of YouTube, I was able to learn that technique and a lot of other processes by watching how others did it.

Unfamiliar ingredients are also easily learned with a simple Google search, and if I can’t source it out, finding the appropriate substitute (and even where to buy it) are similarly solved by asking the almighty Google.

Just like there’s no one way to cook Adobo, there’s also a variety of ways to cook any dish, so I usually check out about five or six recipes before deciding on which steps I could replicate with consideration to availability of ingredients, tools, and skill involved.  

I always imagine what the effect of each step does to a dish, so if I think one recipe has a good idea but another has an efficient execution, I would fuse those together to come up with a dish that tastes nice in my imagination.

So far, it’s been helpful.

2. Conditioning Through Description

I enjoy watching cooking shows and anime. I’ve watched most seasons of Masterchef, a Korean series about a pop-up restaurant in Spain (Youn’s Kitchen), followed Cooking Master Boy, Yakitate Japan, and Food Wars to name a few.

Souma from Food Wars cooked this dish with a seemingly legitimate explanation regarding the onions.
Found out it had real-life truth, so I decided to try it.

In all cases, I would imagine that the food they serve are amazing, just based on how they describe it and how they react to it.

Of course I know that some of the anime dishes are probably impossible, while I’m guessing not all of the food served in real-life shows taste as well as they sound, but if left to your imagination, it could stay as an amazing dish.

Over the years, I’ve learned to be confident in anything I cook. After all, if I didn’t like it, how else would others receive it?

From time to time, I build up excitement for my dishes – during the process of cooking or preparing the dish, I would create anticipation by telling those who will eat that I’m about to do something amazing, or that I’ve tasted parts of it, and I feel like I nailed it.

4 out of 5 times, I would get a positive reaction when they actually taste the dish; of the 4, maybe only 2 really liked it, while the other two didn’t dare offer their criticism thinking they might offend me. The one who was not as impressed as the other four would offer a half-hearted praise before stating their criticism.

Personally though, getting someone to take a bite of my cooking is winning half the battle. Seeing them finish their plates is satisfying enough, but getting seconds is really humbling.

Who knew confidence could add such flavor to a dish?

3. The Home Cooking Adventure

I’m not a professional cook, and I didn’t take any cooking classes. That said, I don’t want to teach how I cook my dishes not because I’m selfish, but because I don’t have the proper credentials for it.

Besides, all my dishes only have a list of ingredients, with no defined quantities. See, I’m the guy who would chop half a head of garlic when a recipe asks for two cloves.

Considering I don’t feed paying customers and I really enjoy food, I treat each dish as an adventure – I never know how it will turn out.

I don’t have a specialty dish, because if you asked me to cook you that delicious Paella that I cooked for you once, what I’ll serve you next time will not be the same, but I believe you’d appreciate it differently.

Looked for a Paella recipe because that Christmas' theme was Spanish. This was version 1.0.

It will be a different kind of delicious, because I would take notes from the last time you tried it, and will try to improve the dish based on your taste preference.

I grew up in a family that doesn’t have a heritage recipe, but what my wife and I have in common is that both our fathers rely on the “Pacham” method of cooking – “Pachamba-chamba” or “Luck-based” cooking.

It may not be consistent, but on the bright side, eating Adobo for five straight days won’t be as boring as it sounds because it will seem like it was cooked by five different people.  

4. Presentation Is Everything

Food blogs and food reviews are always a great example of item #2 of this blog. If having an item about TV shows influencing my cooking is not enough to tell you how much of a sucker I am for reviews, then let me share another point.

When How I Met Your Mother had an episode about “The Best Burger in New York,” I tried to hunt down my own “best burger” in Manila, and took food reviews as bible truth.

That’s when I realized that some bloggers would exaggerate their experience because they are paid or they got free food. (for closure on this story – Sweet Ecstasy is legit, quality of Charlies’ went down a bit for some time but I’m not sure if it picked back up again. Shake Shack was nice when we visited last year.)

Still, they got the job done when it comes to having at least one person try out their place.

Given this, while I’m no influencer, I understand that social media allows me to extend my food experience with my circle of friends.

Missed Shakey's Manager's Choice Pizza and tried to make my own. Looked close enough, I thought.

While my dish could only feed three and a half people, maybe thirty more can experience it through the pictures I post on my feed or story.

As such, I make always make it a point to make my dish look pretty.

Even if you can’t taste it, at least I was able to share my dish to your imagination and make you wonder how good of a cook I am.

...Let Me Tell You About My Mom...

My mom is an example of a genuinely nice person who is always misunderstood – as in no one really understands her.

Rare solo pic of my mom, and only because I got married in 2015

I have endless stories of how she drives my dad, my sister, my brother and me crazy with her comments, complaints, and decisions that I feel like if Jokoy and I switched moms, he’d be a bigger star than he is.

Here’s a quick conversation my sister had with her recently:

Sis: I’ll just send this package to my friend because I can’t deliver it personally.

Mom: Why? The delivery might be more expensive than the package! You have so much cash now that you’d rather just spend money on having it delivered than go by yourself?

Sis: My son is being difficult right now, and besides, she’s the one paying for the delivery fee.

Mom: Isn’t it embarrassing to your friend? What if I just pay for it?

Like a typical mom, there is no right or wrong answer to any of her questions – she will have a comment on just about anything you would say.

She would often complain about having no money, but she’ll insist on buying (and actually buying) an irrationally expensive version of what you are looking for.

My mom cares too much about what people think. She will never admit to it, but she does.

However, she can be a bit tactless at times, speaking thoughtlessly with what she presumes are light-natured jokes, but may actually be a little bit offensive to someone, thus creating an uncomfortable atmosphere.  

Case in point: at my brother’s wedding, his would-be-bride was a bit late, something that would not be so surprising considering she was hands-on about everything, opting not to get a wedding coordinator.

After five minutes past the invitation time, my mom kept joking to the bride’s parents that it seems she’s going to be a runaway bride because she isn’t there yet. (I called her out after blurting out the same joke three times, and she was wondering why I did.)

At times, she will care too much that it will make you uncomfortable to the point of irritation.

She makes a fuss about the smallest things and will hold a grudge forever – she has never once joined her high school reunion particularly because she didn’t like this one person from her batch, so believe me when I say that if you did something against her at some point in your life, she may not have forgiven you just yet.

She is not perfect, but I do love her, which led me to write this.

See, my mom, for all her quirks, is really just a genuinely nice person.

She’s the type to make sure that we have clothes that fit right even if she will update her own wardrobe once every decade, extend our allowances in the middle of the week if we run out of money so that we can eat properly despite not doing the same for herself, and makes sure that there is always food on the table for whatever time anyone wakes up or goes home.

Outside of our own family, she would volunteer herself to help someone who needs something done, at times even if it’s out of the way. She would always thought of the well-being of others before she thought about herself.

She raised us up with the goal of making us turn out to be good people. Some of the things she instilled in us are the habit of not borrowing money so that we won’t be a bother to anyone, the mindset of making sure to bring something over when we’re invited to someone else’s home, and never trampling on any person to gain an advantage in life.

And yet, despite her good nature, all she gets is self-pity.

At 66 years old, this woman still travels at least two hours from Cainta to Binondo to work in the office that she has gone to for over 40 years now, and endures the evening rush to go back home from Monday to Saturday.

She can’t retire because she worries too much about what happens when she’s no longer working, and she has no concept of relaxing or taking a break, so it would be a nightmare for her to wake up one day and not have to do what she has been doing for more than two decades.

She has no social life, no hobbies, and spends her free time either playing games on her tablet or watching Tulfo.

Her one actual friend is one of the few people (apart from family) who I sincerely believe cares for her with no ulterior motives.

It’s easy to ridicule and laugh at her missteps, but not a lot of people really know what she has gone through, and I’m taking the chance to write this.

I have this uncle who everyone also laughed at because of his amazingly unlucky hand in gambling, but he can’t stop doing it. Earlier in the millennium, we lost him because of an unbelievably stupid case of mistaken identity.

At his wake, people came and shared how much of a good person my uncle was.

I don’t want that to happen to my mom.

I want her to know that she is loved while she is with us. I can’t change what she is, and if she can’t love herself as much as I’d want to, I at least want to make her feel that she is loved, like really loved – not loved because she’s going to buy you stuff in Divisoria, or because she’s going to pay the tab when you dine out, or because she’s going to lend you money you probably won’t pay back, or because she will do you a favor no one else would.

I don’t want people telling me how much they appreciate my mom “when she lived” because no one seems to appreciate her now that she is living.

For most of her life, she has worried about others that she would forget about taking care of herself.

This is woman is genuinely a gift to mankind despite her imperfections, and she deserves better than self-pity.  

So when all these lockdowns are over and you get a chance to meet her, I hope that you could give her a genuine smile or do something nice for her so that she would feel that love could extend beyond her family.