What's Cooking?

Owing it to Mamu's electronics and hardware knowledge, our conventional oven is now back to commission. (He is the straightest in our apartment in this area. There was a time when Dan & I were both panicking because our floor lamp wasn't working. He fixed the problem in less than 3 minutes. It turned out, all that was needed was a change of bulb.)



Tonight, as we --- Dan, Verna and I --- decided to stay up late to work on the Christmas video for our show, I thought of utilizing the oven by making Dan & Verna's favorite pick from my "healthy options" menu: roasted whole chicken.



While having dinner, Verna and I somehow got to talk about this certain guy I sort of had an affair with. I asked him once when he first felt he was attracted to me, and he said confidently that he liked me the very first time he saw me; but it was not until he tasted the roasted chicken that he compared me (to my advantage) with his then-boyfriend. That was very flattering.



I'm not sure now how Verna reacted to that story. I sort of drifted after telling her the story and remembered a certain conversation I had with a girl back in 2001. The girl was Lea, a batchmate in PETA (the theater company, not the animal rights advocate), and we were at home that night, having angel hair pasta on pesto with tuyo flakes (the budget version of pesto with anchovies I had put together because I couldn't afford anchovies then). It was her first time to try my cooking.



At her very first bite, she already paid me a compliment. "Rye, nakakaloka sa sarap! (Rye, this is deliriously delicious!)", she exclaimed.



I gave her a broad smile.



"Maswerte ka. (You're lucky.)", she said without looking at me. She was concentrating on her plate. Then after a beat, she added, "Di ka mahihirapan maghanap ng partner. Kasi nga diba... (You won't have difficulty finding a partner. You know what they say...) The way to a man's heart is through his stomach."



"Hindi rin. (I don't think so)", I protested.



"Bakit? (Why?)"



"Because I'm too proud to take the easy way. But I'm also too proud to take the hard way and end up unsuccessful. I will go about my life and wait for his heart to find its way to me."



That was 6 years and dozens of cookbooks ago. I'm not sure I can still say that now without squirming.