My Humble Beginning

My childhood was not as playful and carefree like you'd imagine a kid should be. I’m the eldest of four and the only girl in the family. When I was growing up, my parents were not always around, they were both out working to make sure we had food on the table, roof over our heads, and had the means to send us to school. At an early age, I learned to take over our home while my parents were away. Before I could even go outside to play, I had to make sure that I’ve done all choirs and boys were all taken cared of. On top of that, I also had to make sure that I was home by 5pm to wash the dishes on the sink and prepare dinner for everybody.

My mom would give me a budget of about 1-2 dollars every day for our food. The amount varied every time depending on how much money they had left or how much they made the day before. So, each day I had to buy fresh vegetables, meat, and rice. If money was tight and I only got $1 to spend, more often than not I had to opt to canned goods. Even though the cost of food were significantly inexpensive back in those days, it was still tremendously difficult to come up with a balance meal but somehow every so often I managed to do just that.

My selection usually starts with the cheapest vegetable available, and then the meat which was usually fish or chicken. Then I’d buy few kilos of rice for our carbohydrates. Because rice was and still is our staple food, it’s actually advisable to buy a whole sack of rice (50 kilos) than buy a little bit at a time. Although, it’s logical to buy large quantity of rice, not a lot of families could afford that. So, families like us were forced to buy few kilos just enough for a day or two.

One thing that helped us a little bit was we lived next door to my grandparents' house. My grandpa always had chickens roaming around the backyard. Well, technically, it’s really not a backyard; it was just a small space around the property. My grandma sometimes raised pigs—mostly for resale purposes. So, every now and then my grandpa would let us cook one of his chix and collect their freshly laid eggs. If you’re wondering, no, I never killed a chicken! Okay, maybe I tried once.  But I mostly let somebody else do the killing and I’d do the cleaning and chopping. Hey, what can I say? It’s survival of the fittest.

The cooking process was also not as easy as it is today. We didn’t always have a stove or electric cookers. Our options were chopped woods, coal, or woods shavings—shaped like a cylinder with an opening in the middle and little one at the bottom. The pot basically goes on top and you start the fire by lighting it from the bottom. Did that sound primitive or what? Oh yeah, we were allowed to use a lighter or match sticks to start the fire. Yeah, I know, that was a relief, right?
Cooking when I was growing up, I only knew and learned how to use of few spices, the basics like onion, garlic, ginger, salt, pepper, and bay leaves. Now, there’s thyme, rosemary, marjoram, basil, cilantro, coriander, cumin, tarragon, turmeric and the list goes on and on. Sometimes, I can’t even pronounce some of them. I tell you; at times I don’t even know how to correctly incorporate them into my cooking. That’s how confusing they are to me. However, over the years I learned to expand my ingredients/food selection or dishes for that matter. I have truly evolved from my humble beginning. Thanks to the experience, travels, and new discoveries I am a little better every day than the day before.