I am feeling so emotional on my birthday so I remember how I celebrated my birthday with my family especially with my mother as the cook. I miss my mother’s cooking every time there’s a birthday celebration, Christmas and New Year.
My mom’s specialty were Filipino style spaghetti, fried chicken which is more delicious than Jollibee, chicken-macaroni salad, fruit salad and lumpia. These were our all-time favorites. I was her assistant. I was the taster-agent. I have the perfect palette to judge her cooking if something was lacking of the taste either it needs more cream, more onions, more condensed milk and something else.
When I was younger, I invite some 2-3 friends on my birthday. They love my mom’s spaghetti. I can have it as my breakfast, lunch, and dinner with bread. Carb on carbs. The second favorite is the fried chicken. Indeed, it’s more delicious than Jollibee.
I have some other friends love to request my mom’s spaghetti and fried chicken in some occasions at school or some few gatherings like a Christmas party. And even today, they would remember how they missed it so much that my mother is gone.
Chicken-macaroni salad is expensive so I don’t request it that much. But if my mother decided to prepare it, I was very much excited. Even though it was not finished yet to put in the fridge, I was already eating the salad while she was preparing it. It was very delicious while it wasn’t yet chilled in the fridge. But after few hours in the fridge, the taste was bomb and I couldn’t stop to eat more.
I never talk so much about my mom but I was proud to say that the lumpia was my mom’s recipe. It’s very meaty and more superior quality than what we buy in the grocery here in France.
In the Philippines, we don’t buy cake as we don’t have a fridge. It’s a luxury. In case we buy and could not finish it to eat, we need to ask our neighbor aunt to keep it in the fridge. With the spaghetti, we can share it our relatives.
My celebration in France is very simple but I am very happy that I spent it with my new family and my 2 kids in my arms. My heart is full.
Most of all, I really missed my mother. I know I cannot replicate her style of cooking. I am not even sure if I can get the same taste. I actually missed the chicken-macaroni salad. The cream, the condensed milk. I am not sure if I can do it here as my husband doesn’t like condensed milk.
I am really starting to love cooking here in France just to replicate some Filipino cuisine. But to be honest, cooking takes lots of time. Sooner or later I really want that air fryer.
Belated Birthday wishes friend. Something's can never be forgotten.