Adobo and me

We take for granted what food can actually contribute in our lives aside from nourishment. I just realized this recently, what you call the merits of making your own comfort food. Aside from gaining a sense of accomplishment, one is whisked to a different era, usually one's youth, when such dish was a centerpiece. 

Adobo had always been a family staple. My mom often cooked it as ingredients were cheap and it lasted long. It was the frequent baon for traveling (aside from that scrambled egg sandwich) from Baguio to Manila. But it has only been in the last decade that I fully appreciated it. From 2001 to 2005, it was our go to frozen meal in Cubao. Contained in a big plastic tub, my brother and I scooped chunks of frozen pieces and then reheated them in pans. Fast forward to 2007. I transferred to Singapore and it's the only Filipino dish that I attempt to make using Nora Daza's famous cookbook. I ended up eating an entire lot of bland adobo. When I returned to Manila in 2010, adobo was stilll being brought down from Baguio in small plastic containers. These I shared with my UBS officemates for lunch. Most often, it ended up being one full meal only, a very appetizing one at that given the amount of rice that we ate with it.

So now here in London I have mustered enough courage to roadtest my mother's recipe. It took 3 hours from midnight to finish. The finished product looks good though. The verdict's still out there.

With this new found obsession for anything culinary, slowly I find myself being okay. Whatever hope I had left was simmering underneath. Twas' a slow fire but it was cooking nonetheless. Indeed, in God's own time.