The Little Helper

I love food, and I love to eat. I always remember in my childhood, no matter what the event it may be happy or sad, food has been part of it. To those who knew me, I grew up chubby or can we call it "healthy" to be less mean? But what others would say "pinasagdan sa kusina" which means a kitchen brat.  Believe me, I was an active little girl, one of the boys. My brother and my cousins were always my playmates in a sort of a jungle in our backyard.

In our playland, there were countless of playhouses we built, abandoned, destroyed and rebuilt all over again in different locations. We were like illegal settlers, building a house under the coconut tree, in the attic or just anywhere within the compound. One of our household chores that we always did in our play is cooking. At first we used to gather different kinds of flowers, leaves, seeds and fruits in our pretend cooking but later on we decided to cook using edible ingredients after we got ideas from the adults.  In fact, one of my beloved toys I received in childhood were the clay cooking toys from my Auntie where I got a clay pot, a claypan, and a clay stove.

But my childhood wasn't just all play, there were a lot of times when my mom asked me to stay home and assist her in the kitchen. I've always remembered those activities that she wants me to do like gathering the ingredients, holding the cloth while filtering the flour, mixing the ingredients and the unending beating. Gosh, that was tiring! Struggling with the splashing cooking oil while frying, burnt rice and other kitchen disasters. But there's more! Washing the baking utensils or dishes, not my favorite! In the end, after all the hard work I get to taste first the freshly baked pastry or the delicious dish then share it, and these were my favorites! As a child, I wasn't interested in her cooking because what was on my mind was to play or watch TV. Mama did not formally taught me how to cook but as her little helper I was able to grasp and get ideas until I finally learned and found it interesting.

Later in life when I started to live on my own, I realized those cooking sessions with Mama was a valuable lesson. I am proud of that experience and thankful to Mama for letting me discover my passion in cooking.  It was after all a preparation for me to be independent and be wiser in life. Shhh... it's our secret; I still don't like the aftercare part -- washing the baking utensils or dishes.

So to my bashers, I think it's fine to be called "pinasagdan sa kusina" because I can mess around in the kitchen,  I can do something good and can make people's tummy happy. Hahaha! Bashers.. really? And this will be my song for you: "Haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate. I'm just gonna bake, bake, bake, bake.  Bake it off, bake it off!" Have a wonderful day everyone!