brainbox: cool change

Well, since I am already living in a different atmosphere, which means I no longer have the luxury of having the househelp do most of the household things for me, I have to adapt. I have always been told how totally different it is to be living away from home, how one has to learn to do things on your own such as doing your own laundry, cleaning your house, running your own errands and most of all, cooking your own food. I used to really hate it , growing up, when my sister or my mom, would call me from the kitchen while they were cooking, and when i present myself, I was only told to stay put so that I can observe and learn how to cook. I used to bargain with them and tell them I really do not mind if i run errands for them like a kilometer away, or if they let me iron clothes, sweep the floor, etc, as long they do not call me just to teach me to cook because ,really i had no interest whatsoever in cooking. So, it came to be, that the only dish (if one can call this a dish) i know how to do, is cooking rice , not via rice cooker but in a pot! I learned to do that when I was 11 and as far as I can remember, I really had to learn it by force because it was only me and my mother who were left in the house while my other older siblings were already in college studying away from home. My mom, as a teacher , would come home later than me , since when I was in the 5th grade , my morning classes ended by 11am & my mom , as a Grade 2 teacher, usually finishes later than 11am. So rather than wait for my mother to get home and cook for just the both of us , I was forced to do it , so that when she came home, all she had to do was cook the rest, although most of the time she gets the food from a nearby carenderia. I used to get so scared when the fish is being put in the pan for frying and all these oil would just sizzle and pop everywhere like firecrackers & when at times it lands on your arms or face, it would hurt like hell, at least for me, who in the first place, never really liked cooking. When i went to college myself, I never cooked because all i had to do is buy my food from nearby carenderias or school cafeteria and besides , I was not so into eating, I can go for a day with just biscuits. When i finished school and had a job in the hospital, it became even more convenient for me, to just pop in the canteen and order hospital food , and later on, the food would actually come to me , inside the operating room lounge when i have schedules. At home, we had a house help, who did everything , and such was my life before.

Yet now, things have changed for me, and as I was already expecting it to be different, I never found it so hard to accept. As i had said before and as always, I chosed this kind of life, so all I need to do is adjust and adapt to this new environment. And yes, part of my luggage were two cookbooks for starters and boy was i happy i got them and brought them with me.

So anyways, I have been here since February of this year, there are times I really do crave foods that are typically homey, typically Filipino but what can i do , it takes time to drive and go to an Asian restaurant and most of all, it is costly to eat out all the time. So i did try to manage to do a few dishes , the ones that are simple and easy ro cook. People here do no really have pork as their usual diet, much more rice but these are the ones I crave for. So I asked my husband if we can at least get some pork from the market and I will do my best to learn to cook it. ( By the way, he also does not know how to cook, so we're even lol!).

Anyways, these are some of the photos i took of the simple foods I am learning how to cook. I take pride in showing these because, it is indeed such an effort on my part to be able to do this. I do not know how to cook but this, for me, is such a huge achievement!

Who knows, I might bump my head one time and wake up thinking I am a culinary expert!