LOUIS, MISSOURI — I landed here on a scorching summer day after a long flight from Manila to New York, and then onward to my new Midwest home for the next few years.
Our apartment is nestled in the trendy Central West End neighborhood, which is surrounded by charming local shops, broken frieze, Tudor houses, and small art galleries.
Unlike Manila, it’s quiet here—no bustling traffic, no rushing crowds, no nearby malls within a stone’s throw from our place. And unlike anywhere else I’ve lived, there isn’t a Filipino restaurant anywhere around the corner.
Food is my secret antidote to homesickness, a tether to my roots, my people, and the rhythms of life I’ve known since birth. As long as I can savor the familiar flavors of home every now and then, I know I’ll be alright.
As my husband and I settled into our cozy apartment, the kitchen caught my attention. I’ll confess, cooking and I have a complex relationship. Before moving here to the US, I hadn’t spent enough time in any kitchen to find ease.
In Duma, Mama—my grandmother—reigned over our meals with strict orders not to disturb her while she crafted sumptuous dishes that became family traditions. The kitchen was her domain, and when the Queen was at court, it was off-limits to all but her.
When we moved, Daddy took over the kitchen. He learned from the best: his father, a master of Ilocano dishes, and his three aunts whose sari-sari, callos, and lengua estofada were legendary.
Cooking came intuitively for Daddy. Whenever we dined out and found a dish he liked, he could replicate it at home flawlessly, knowing just the right amounts of each ingredient.
That instinct eluded me.
For the cooks in our family, blending flavors, knowing when to add a pinch of salt or pepper was second nature. They were flavor alchemists, always conjuring culinary gold.
I, on the other hand, never seemed to inherit this gift.
In high school, Home Economics cooking class was a series of unfortunate events: the longganisa was too salty, my boneless bangus looked, erm, deconstructed, and the mango jam was harder than a rock.
Don’t even get me started on the time when I nearly blew up the kitchen by throwing a couple of matches into the oven, and turning the dial to maximum heat. It was an ancient contraption, and I seriously wasn’t able to pay enough attention to know how to turn it on.
“What’s a pinch, exactly?” I asked Dad while making chowam, a light soup with poached eggs, tomatoes, and green onions.
“I don’t measure, Dai. I trust my instincts,” he grinned, adding a dash of black pepper and a bit of salt.
This baffled me. I craved precision and stability in the kitchen, lost without detailed instructions.
Trivial worries plagued me: Would I cut my finger? What if I sliced the meat wrong? What do I do if I tear up from chopping onions? Burns? Too salty? Could I just marry a chef?
I remembered Dad’s words to my then fiancé during our engagement: “My daughter isn’t much of a cook; be ready for canned goods and instant ramen for the rest of your life. And remember, once you marry her, it’s strictly a no return-no exchange policy.”
These were the same words his father-in-law, Mommy’s dad, told him when he was in the same position many, many years ago.
Despite a plethora of dining options and a long list of restaurants to try, nothing beats savoring the dishes you grew up with, especially when these dishes were prepared at home.
So I challenged myself to cook again, to maybe even fall in love with it. Every day, I’d make a dish that reminded me of family and home. The idea of cooking from scratch made me nervous yet excited.
Would I do Mama and Daddy proud? When should I flip the fish without overcooking?
Obsessing, I took a deep breath. I exhaled and reminded myself: cooking is an art, no need for overthinking.
“Relax, Taki, dear,” Dad used to say. “Dishes rarely turn out right on your first attempt. Keep cooking through doubts and mistakes. You’ll be fine.”
Sound advice for both kitchen and life. And with that, I took the plunge.
First on my list: Mama’s signature dish, nilagang baka, a light beef broth simmered for hours until the meat falls off the bone. She made it for weekend family lunches, so it was fitting for our Sunday lunch in our new home.
Mama never shared her recipe, so I asked my aunt and uncle, who sometimes assisted her, to help me recreate this dish. They jotted down basic ingredients, and the steps from memory, advising me to just figure it out in the end.
For a sumptuously hearty dish, you don’t need much to put it together: just beef shanks, peppercorn, onions, cabbage, and salt. Nilagang baka was a dish you needed to babysit but was always worth the wait. “Kapag may tiyaga, may nilaga,” as the saying goes. Patience and perseverance bring rewards. The peppercorns cracked, onions softened, releasing rich flavors. A familiar aroma filled our kitchen as the delicate broth formed.
I took a sip, added a pinch of salt, and gave it a good stir before throwing in the cabbages, and allowing them to cook in the steam.
As the familiar flavors hit my tongue, I’m instantly back in Duma. Home cooking always feels like listening to a song that takes you back to a time and place. I take another sip of the soup and feel six years old again.
My husband loved the nilaga (at least that’s what he told me!) But the real test was my own judgment. I enjoyed it. We enjoyed it, drenching rice with soup, just as we did as children. St. Louis was starting to taste like home.
One of Dad’s specialties was a sweet yet savory pork dish from the Visayas region: Humba.
Humba brings me back to lazy, summer afternoons at our ancestral home in Tanjay, my dad’s hometown, where we would stroll around the narrow streets flanked by old Filipino-Spanish homes. My dad grew up in Tanjay, raised by his aunts who taught him how to prepare the dishes that would also define our childhood.
I loved watching Daddy make humba although I never dared try to make one from scratch. The dish was sacred; I didn’t want to ruin it.
Here in St. Louis, I shed my inhibitions, and decided to try my hand at recreating this quintessential Visayan dish.
Humba is pork is braised to perfection with just the right proportions of the Holy Trinity of Filipino ingredients: sugar, soy sauce, and vinegar. Yet, compared to adobo, its more famous cousin, humba leans on the sweeter side, just the way we Visayans love our partners and our dishes.
The magic happens when clear soda like Sprite or 7Up is added to the mixture while it boils in low fire, the sweetness sufficiently seeping into the meat. I add a finishing touch of banana blossoms, and some salted black beans – optional but never required.
Watching Dad, I bombarded him with questions: How much soda? When’s the pork tender enough? What’s the best recipe? What’s the right way to do this?
Like adobo, and perhaps any other iconic regional dish, there are about as many different takes on humba as there are households, and everyone claims they’ve got the best recipe.
“There’s no single way,” he’d say. “I do it my way, what works for me. Trust your instincts, you’ll find your way.”
My parents would give me similar advice when I was figuring things out after graduating from university: “Success means differently to different people. Life isn’t a race to the top. Stop comparing yourself to others, and listening to others’ standards. Just find your way, the one that works best for you.”
I found my way to different cities around the world wherever the winds of career blew me. I often lived alone, and always yearned to reconnect with family and friends especially in the years before FaceTime, Messenger, and Zoom. Whenever I sought a sense of stability and familiarity, I turned to food.
Over time, I gained confidence to prepare a variety of dishes, all of them paying homage to the beautifully messy days of growing up in the islands.
During a visit to Salt Lake City, my aunt and I went back and forth cooking adobong sitaw but swapping the pork for beef asado, which made the dish more flavorful. Tita and I are like close friends who have this chemistry between us that works whether we’re shopping or cooking.
“It needs a bit more garlic,” she says.
“I added enough,” I’d reply. “Maybe a little bit more salt.”
Tita scoops up some sauce, tastes it, and adds a little bit more salt. We keep going back and forth. We’re not following a recipe, we’re just vibing like two old friends. We adjust, we recalibrate, we adapt until it tastes just right.
We pay close attention as the soy sauce, the vinegar, the spices, and flavors slowly come together, unfolding into a dish that is both familiar and comforting.
Tita jokes that she hopes the string bean dish would still turn out edible given the many adjustments we’ve made.
She laughs, and says, “It always comes out great, if you’re really hungry.”
It’s Mama’s, Daddy’s and Tita’s ability to taste what’s in front of them, and adjust that steers any dish to perfection.
This reflection takes me back to my life in the Foreign Service, working with my dedicated team in Manila.
Before embarking on my journey to pursue graduate studies here in the US, I collaborated with colleagues to prepare briefing papers, organize meetings, and special events, and spearhead projects to further the cause our country champions in the United Nations.
In my role as the leader of one of our office’s divisions, I focus on fostering a safe space where my team members feel comfortable expressing themselves, taking calculated risks, and working with a true spirit of collaboration. I urge them to take heart, and embrace what lies ahead, and to build upon each other’s ideas.
Much like the kitchen experiences with Mama, Daddy, and Tita, our work dynamic is a constant process of adjustment and adaptation. We are always navigating new challenges, brainstorming innovative solutions, and figuring things out together.
I carefully slice a thumb of ginger as sunlight streams into the kitchen of our new apartment. The sound of water cascading over a dozen or so little neck clams fills the air as they begin to open up.
Today’s dish is tinolang halaan, a clam soup that strikes the perfect balance between soothing and refreshing. It’s a dish my husband’s Lola, his grandmother, used to lovingly prepare for him when he was a little boy.
As the clams gracefully join the bubbling water, a wave of realization washes over me. I’ve traveled a long way to find comfort in this kitchen, to feel at home in St. Louis. It’s not about mastering recipes; it’s about embracing the process.
Recipes, at their core, are mere lists of ingredients and steps. What my family has taught me goes beyond that. It’s about the art of adaptation – constantly tasting, adjusting, and savoring each moment.
Cooking isn’t just a series of steps; it’s a way of life, a philosophy that extends beyond the boundaries of the kitchen. It is about being adaptable, embracing change, and innovation in pursuit of something profoundly beautiful.
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Author’s email: [email protected]
