Bahay Kubo

Just another boring vacation day. After watching me waste away in front of the portable DVD player watching reruns of “Ugly Betty” while my brain turned to goo, my well-meaning nutritionist mother finally decided to perform emergency intervention.

Which, in motherhood world, spells “teach-your-lazy-child-how-to-cook.”

With the threats of having the DVD player confiscated from my hands and our internet connection being cut off for the entire remainder of the vacation looming over me, I accepted. Me + Kitchen is usually a recipe for disaster but my mom probably knew what she was getting herself into, right?

I was told to wash this whole stash of vegetables for our lunch. I had no idea what recipe involved sitaw, ampalaya, kamatis, luya, and just about every other vegetable in the “Bahay Kubo” song, but I washed everything anyway (Given, the only recipe I know is fried eggs, but don’t tell anyone). I got through that task without offending any vegetables, so yey for me. Off to the next, more complicated task – cutting and chopping them up.

And so I did. Following the instructions my mother left me, I chopped the spinach into three parts – the stump, the stem and the leaves. I spent ten minutes painstakingly peeling the skin off a single, three-inch long ginger.I chopped up the kamatis into cute little pieces. I broke up the long sitaws into shortened strips. Lastly, I cut the ampalaya into these tiny, itty-bitty slices, because who in their right mind would eat big chunks of bitter ampalaya right? Wow, I’m actually good at this. I should just shift to culinary arts next semester.

With the ominous task behind me, I called out to my mother and proudly presented to her my masterpiece, the fruits of my labor, the sweat of my brow. She took one look at my work: an assortment of large spinach pieces, tiny ampalaya bits, mushed up kamatis, uneven ginger slices, long and short sitaw parts, and said, “Masyadong maliit yung ampalaya… Haysh… Bakit ko ba naisipang ipagawa to sayo?”

Exactly! I could have told her that mid-Betty-marathon. I was about to agree, but her next words shut me up.

“Hindi ka pa talaga pwedeng magsweetheart. Wahaha.”

Oh no. Oh no no no no. Someone teach me how to cook, quick.

But seriously? Is there even a single person out there who would eat chunks of ampalaya that big?

Labels: cooking

6:17 AM ·