I CLOSE MY EYES... and using my tongue, roll a heaping tablespoon of short, curved, hallow pasta generously smothered in mayonnaise, hint of pickles, bits of pineapple, nata de coco, sultanas, tiny cubed cheddar and strands of boiled chicken breast in my mouth. I completely ignore the starch and sugar contained in this dish as I start chewing it, alfresco, like having an amnesia— forgetting everything about that low-carb diet I’ve been following, after savouring this sort of a plat du jour from my own kitchen.
Sitting on this outdoor timber bench, I then sip some flat white, feel the, thankfully, cool January morning breeze as I watch my pet cat Snoffles sniffing and stalking around the garden on this quiet and bright new year’s day. The potted succulent sitting on the matching timber table in front of me simply appear to be ignoring the cuts and scratches on its leaves as it raises its younger blades positively upward as if welcoming 2020 with much hope and delight!
I do look forward to the new year, praying for both mental and physical health as well as complete healing from the wounds of 2019, in short hoping for a happy and healthy days ahead but this macaroni-chicken salad I’m having for breakfast instantly take me back to how our family would celebrate the New Year in my childhood days.
HAVING SOME CHILLED MACARONI salad for breakfast would be a typical first day of the new year for me and my younger brother (I have a sister who’s seven years younger than me, could be the reason why she’s not present on this particular memory). Unlike me who’s born in August— budget wise, the most challenging month for a rice farmer in Mlang, Cotabato, I’d think as a child that he was much luckier than I was. He was born on a New Year’s Eve so he hadn’t had a birthday without a celebration, well, at least for me that was a ‘celebration’.
I’d say that New Year’s Eve was more exciting for us than Christmas Eve, especially at dusk, set off by a faint audible sound of a motorcycle gradually becoming louder, heralding the arrival of our (now deceased) father from the town centre. As children, my brother and I didn’t really care how and where would the resources come from, what was important for us was that our father had brought us a banquet for his birthday celebration! There’s this roasted pig head along with its pleasant, distinct smoky aroma, the fluffy chiffon cake, the sliced white bread that would come with peanut butter contained in disposable cups covered with foil, and a box of sparklers which we would eagerly light at Media Noche.
Unlike most of the Filipino families, we seldom have a traditional collection of thirteen ‘round’ fruits at home. If we’d have some, like calamansi or guava from our orchard, we’d arrange them in a tray and proudly place it on our modest, rickety dining table; sometimes, it’s not even a dozen. Sadly incomplete! Perhaps my mother was not a believer of such fortune these fruits would bring to the family who gathers these or most likely, we just couldn’t afford to buy that much variety of fruits on New Years Eve. So what I could recall was a mom who couldn’t be bothered collecting colourful fruits but someone who’d try to put together the ‘cheapest’ ingredients so we could have our favourite macaroni salad as we welcome the new year.
I’d usually avoid using the word ‘cheap’, would prefer using ‘affordable’ instead, as the word cheap doesn’t only mean inexpensive but also inferior quality. Something that is substandard.
But this time, ‘cheapest’ would be the most suited word to describe the ingredients our salad was made of as I could remember those curved, hollow, dried pasta packed in transparent plastic bags that didn’t cook and taste as great as Royal® Elbow Macaroni. What our family could afford was something inferior than del Monte’s® macaroni, even cheaper than Fiesta® macaroni. It was a macaroni without a brand, boiled and cooked as gracefully as we could under the canopy of banana leaves in our backyard using our big, old kaldero.
There were New Year’s Eve when we wouldn’t have enough cream and mayonnaise, obviously due to lack of finances even if my parents would choose not to purchase the first class Lady’s Choice®. But as long as there were red and green kaong, some bits of pineapples, unbranded raisins, a small box of Eden® cheese—patiently cubed, and heaps of condensed milk, it was still called macaroni salad, wasn’t it?
BACK TO THIS FIRST MORNING of 2020, while enjoying my macaroni, alfresco, I start thinking. Which is better: a not so great macaroni salad prepared and shared with my family or a perfectly creamy macaroni cooked al dente yet eaten quietly and alone on a new year’s day?
Sitting on this outdoor timber bench, I then sip some flat white, feel the, thankfully, cool January morning breeze as I watch my pet cat Snoffles sniffing and stalking around the garden on this quiet and bright new year’s day. The potted succulent sitting on the matching timber table in front of me simply appear to be ignoring the cuts and scratches on its leaves as it raises its younger blades positively upward as if welcoming 2020 with much hope and delight!
I do look forward to the new year, praying for both mental and physical health as well as complete healing from the wounds of 2019, in short hoping for a happy and healthy days ahead but this macaroni-chicken salad I’m having for breakfast instantly take me back to how our family would celebrate the New Year in my childhood days.
HAVING SOME CHILLED MACARONI salad for breakfast would be a typical first day of the new year for me and my younger brother (I have a sister who’s seven years younger than me, could be the reason why she’s not present on this particular memory). Unlike me who’s born in August— budget wise, the most challenging month for a rice farmer in Mlang, Cotabato, I’d think as a child that he was much luckier than I was. He was born on a New Year’s Eve so he hadn’t had a birthday without a celebration, well, at least for me that was a ‘celebration’.
I’d say that New Year’s Eve was more exciting for us than Christmas Eve, especially at dusk, set off by a faint audible sound of a motorcycle gradually becoming louder, heralding the arrival of our (now deceased) father from the town centre. As children, my brother and I didn’t really care how and where would the resources come from, what was important for us was that our father had brought us a banquet for his birthday celebration! There’s this roasted pig head along with its pleasant, distinct smoky aroma, the fluffy chiffon cake, the sliced white bread that would come with peanut butter contained in disposable cups covered with foil, and a box of sparklers which we would eagerly light at Media Noche.
Unlike most of the Filipino families, we seldom have a traditional collection of thirteen ‘round’ fruits at home. If we’d have some, like calamansi or guava from our orchard, we’d arrange them in a tray and proudly place it on our modest, rickety dining table; sometimes, it’s not even a dozen. Sadly incomplete! Perhaps my mother was not a believer of such fortune these fruits would bring to the family who gathers these or most likely, we just couldn’t afford to buy that much variety of fruits on New Years Eve. So what I could recall was a mom who couldn’t be bothered collecting colourful fruits but someone who’d try to put together the ‘cheapest’ ingredients so we could have our favourite macaroni salad as we welcome the new year.
I’d usually avoid using the word ‘cheap’, would prefer using ‘affordable’ instead, as the word cheap doesn’t only mean inexpensive but also inferior quality. Something that is substandard.
But this time, ‘cheapest’ would be the most suited word to describe the ingredients our salad was made of as I could remember those curved, hollow, dried pasta packed in transparent plastic bags that didn’t cook and taste as great as Royal® Elbow Macaroni. What our family could afford was something inferior than del Monte’s® macaroni, even cheaper than Fiesta® macaroni. It was a macaroni without a brand, boiled and cooked as gracefully as we could under the canopy of banana leaves in our backyard using our big, old kaldero.
There were New Year’s Eve when we wouldn’t have enough cream and mayonnaise, obviously due to lack of finances even if my parents would choose not to purchase the first class Lady’s Choice®. But as long as there were red and green kaong, some bits of pineapples, unbranded raisins, a small box of Eden® cheese—patiently cubed, and heaps of condensed milk, it was still called macaroni salad, wasn’t it?
BACK TO THIS FIRST MORNING of 2020, while enjoying my macaroni, alfresco, I start thinking. Which is better: a not so great macaroni salad prepared and shared with my family or a perfectly creamy macaroni cooked al dente yet eaten quietly and alone on a new year’s day?
