last night, my aunt cooked a pot of creamy macaroni soup¹ again after a long, long time.

three years ago, i learned the recipe from my grandmother and cooked it with her once. we had a lot of laughs when we realised that the macaroni had absorbed half the pot of soup by dinnertime (we made it early in the afternoon). i grabbed a box of chicken stock i’d reserved for something else and tried to repair it; my grandma gave me the thumbs up—a small seal of approval.

i haven’t made it since then. on the first christmas we spent without my grandma, my mom asked me to make it for christmas eve, but my aunt–her sister, strongly denied and said it was her task, not mine. i spent that evening unenthused and bothered, for some reason.

i never learned any of her other recipes. the only other dish we made together was ginataang bilo-bilo², a filipino dessert, but i didn’t think she’d pass the year after (or rather, the idea of her not being in my life never crossed my mind), so i never thought to ask for the recipe. i get sad when i think about how the taste i grew up with can no longer be replicated because she never gave anyone her recipes—save for the macaroni soup.

i learned from my parents that my grandma always adjusted dishes to what i liked. anything that had a little bit of sauce was always made with so much more because she knew i liked to douse my rice in sauce. any dish that had potatoes will always be made with an extra one or two because i love potatoes. any soup was made with more broth and made more frequently because, for the longest time, all i ate was soup and rice (and potatoes).

people online say food is the sixth love language and i cannot agree more. how could it not be when every dish i have eaten in my 23 years of living has been tailored to my liking? how could it not be when my mom slices me mangoes for my cereal and my dad brings me home a treat when i'm sad; when my grand uncle chooses restaurants to eat at based on my allergies?

i can’t fully remember the taste of my grandma’s food anymore, but i reckon that when i brave the sea of cooking filipino cuisine, i’ll find that my soul will remember the taste of home once i get the recipe just right.

when that happens, i wonder if she’ll look down from heaven and give me another smile of approval (i hope she does, i miss her so dearly)?

ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻ੈ✩‧₊˚

as always, a song for you to listen to. i listened to paniyolo a lot during the 2020 lockdown. and yes, the image featured in this post is a photo of me and my grandma making ginataang bilo-bilo. she was 93 when she passed away.

✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩

1. the macaroni soup i am talking about here refers to the filipino dish, sopas, something my grandma mostly made for the christmas holidays, but i'd ask for every so often throughout the year.↩

2. ginataang bilo-bilo is a dessert made of sticky rice flour balls and coconut milk (+ other stuff like taro and jackfruit/langka). some people like it cold, i like mine hot ^_^ my family also did not have tapioca pearls/sago in our recipe!↩