COOKING: MY LOVE LANGUAGE

They say, one way of showing your love for the people dear to you is to cook for them. That is why I love cooking for my family, especially during special occasions.

Even though I work far from home and spend each and every day working so hard to suffice the needs of my family, I still love doing household chores when I get home and spend my summer or Christmas vacations in Medellin. And my most favorite chore is cooking.

But believe it or not, I was not good at cooking. I didn't even know how to cook even though I was already in college back then.

I remember my mother told me to cook some "inun-unan" (fish cooked in vinegar) and it became a "ginamos" (a fermented fish, often made from small fish like anchovies) because I put a lot of salt I could ever imagine. I just knew that "inun-unan" is supposed to be salty and it was my first time cooking (I was in second year college back then) and my mother didn't teach me how to cook. She just assumed I already knew. Turned out, it took weeks for it to get spoiled and nobody ate it because it was too salty anyone could die if they'd eat it.

Another instance that proved I was not born to learn how to cook was when I was a graduating student in college and I was student teaching in the city. I lived alone in a boarding house and there was one time I decided I'd cook. So I went to the grocery store near me and bought some veggies for chopsuey and a pack of pineapple tidbits.

I was experimenting. I didn't watch any video on how to cook chopsuey because I was complacent that I knew how to cook it. I knew it has vegetables and I knew that pineapple tidbits makes a food more delicious.

BUT I DIDN'T KNOW THEY WERE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE MIXED TOGETHER.

I cooked my chopsuey in my rice cooker because I didn't have proper cooking equipments since it was a boarding house and there was no kitchen. I also had to cook inside my room.

I sautéd the vegetables and waited for it to smoothen for awhile and then I put the pineapple juice and the pineapple tidbits. At first, I was like "Okay, maybe I'm doing this right" until I realized I wasn't doing it right.

It didn't taste good. Neither did it smell good. It was awful. So awful I ended not eating what I cooked and even though I washed the pot for a lot of times already, the smell of the disastrous chopsuey didn't leave its surface. The smell was there even after a few weeks and it made me not want to eat anything when I opened it and remember the smell.

Since then, I told myself I cannot cook. And never again touched any cooking utensils.

But, a lot of things had changed when I started living independently in the city, when I landed my first job as a call center agent. I lived far and alone from my family.

I learned how to cook, surprisingly. Thanks to Facebook and Youtube University.

I learned that cooking must be performed with love. I learned that a dish may be made special when you cook by heart. And I learned that salt and pepper is enough to make a dish taste so deliciously.

The first ever dish I learned to cook was pansit. I have watched my mother cook pansit since I was a kid and I loved it. So I tried making it on my own, with my own style and own recipe. And guess what? They loved it. Since then, I was motivated to cook more.

I introduced my pansit to my colleagues in school and then I tried cooking garlic buttered shrimp. They loved it, too. And I learned to love my cooking, too.

I continued watching cooking videos and whenever I learned something, I'll apply it especially during the pandemic when I was already assigned here in Santander to teach. I bingewatched cooking videos and then started cooking.

I love cooking for my friends and my family.

One thing I have learned in cooking is that you need to be patient and you need to love what you do. Moreover, you also need to not give up. Because if I gave up when I failed in my first and second attempt in cooking, I couldn't have served what delicious meals I could serve for my loved ones especially during special occasions.

Sharing you pictures of some of the dishes I cooked which I personally loved:

My spaghetti with raisins (I love raisins)