Roly-poly, one tooth missing, and all shiny with sweat, pudgy little hands buried in bread dough on Gran’s dining room chair—you’re happy, all of five years old. It’s my favorite snapshot of you in my memory.

Those early days are all flashes and snapshots. Soaking up the essence of anise and molasses and dried squid in your skin, you thrived in that quaint black-and-white kitchen. You watched the fruitcakes baking all October and November, nose scrunched from too much sherry wine and sugar in the air. You crunched on mounds of crisp chicken skin and steamed baby prawns with bowls of white rice. The last Oreo, you stole off my post-homework snack plate.

I was over twice your age at the time, so, of course, I had to let you.

At seven, you hit a short noodle phase. You ate too-sweet spaghetti, dug out the hot dog slices first, then sopped up the sauce with the pasta. You smiled with big carbonara noodle moustaches on purpose. You spooned Sadiq’s corn and carrots over everything squiggly as often as you could. When you discovered instant yakisoba, you fell into a new obsession. I’d never before met anyone who considered the merits of rich beef versus spicy chicken so seriously. Or ate so many “testing” cups every week.

I’m not quite sure who you bribed to get your first stick of street-side barbecue, but that first bite turned you into the incinerator, the food disposal unit, the bottomless, gaping pit. Mom’s half-eaten roast chicken breast with the overflowing gravy boat on the side, the last four bites of my pumpkin ravioli at Puccini’s, maybe a third of Dad’s porterhouse steak—it all disappeared into your gut. Uni and unagi? Yes, please. Balut and laing? Of course! Escargot and frog legs? They slid down your throat before I could blink. You traded a slice of your braised pork loin for a bit of mom’s parchment salmon and a slice of my rainbow quiche in one go. You cajoled us all into ordering different entrées, explicitly to swipe forkfuls of everything. Except the steamed veggies. I’m sure you thought I was insane when I hit my salad phase. Was it you or me who called it rabbit food? It certainly threw a wrench in your dining room barter system.

You were twelve the night I found you searing sea bass in Mom’s new copper-toned kitchen. You said that you needed help with photo documentation for Home Ec and that we had to eat on the good china in the formal dining room. Normally, I hate sea bass, but what you made melted on my tongue. Through your teens, you turned hobby-cooking into an art. First appeared the seafood risotto, all creamy rice with sweet-soft scallop and shrimp in fine-diced little pieces. You did it because you were hungry and stressed, you said, but I didn’t even know what saffron looked like until that afternoon. One night I stumbled home late after a long afternoon at the gym, and Jane told me dinner would be ready at ten. You were making ramen that took six hours to cook, broth included, from scratch. And your truffled mac n’ cheese, that sharp gruyere, Parmigiano-Reggiano shavings, mozzarella, and a sprinkling of pecorino? I asked you for the recipe and you said to Google Giada de Laurentiis. Hers doesn’t taste the same.

You began waxing eloquent about food notes, flavor profiles, and the difference between smokiness and gaminess in meat. One sip and you determined if it was marsala wine or port in the sauce. One whiff and you could tell if the salmon had been cooked in a deglazed pan. One touch and you knew if the foie gras had been left out a bit too long before it was fried. No one believes me when I say, “Migs has never gone to cooking school.”

That all changed, the year of your first prom. Your cheeks hollowed out, your pants slipped off your waist, and you gave ‘dietary restrictions’ an entirely new meaning. You thought you were too fat, so you started eating rabbit food. You stopped cooking. The kitchen, the heart of the home, became a cold, perfunctory place. Visiting friends and family alike swore you’d turned into a skeleton. As for the rest of us in the house? I subsisted on protein shakes and lukewarm café sandwiches, while Mom did what she could with Eating Well recipes. Red cabbage salads, plain grilled chicken, okra in faux jambalaya—running on 1,200 calories a day was insane. Dad was only fine because, well, Dad eats anything (and he probably ate what he wanted at work). The whole house sighed a collective breath of relief when you put the suit and tie away and returned to the stove. For the next prom, you remembered moderation instead.

I learned one thing that year: I absolutely despise okra in every way, shape, and form.

I learned a lot about food from you. It’s best to dig into crab with your hands in Singapore, to suck off the chili juices from your fingers at the table. No steak tastes better than when it is served medium rare. Brussel sprouts taste best with bacon. EVOO is just olive oil, extra virgin. Slurping soup isn’t bad, as long as you do it in a Chinese restaurant, never in a French one. You must hit up every Michelin-starred and Michelin-recommended restaurant in every city you visit.

The world is your oyster, quite literally, I think. Kangaroo stew, spiced a la boeuf bourguignon in London. Fresh xiao long bao after a midnight flight to Hong Kong. A feast of wursts in a Berlin train station. Trdelník sugar highs in Prague. That unpronounceable seafood spread in that Yucatan restaurant in Cancun. Seven courses of fugu in Tokyo—does the danger of the poison make the fish sweeter? Tom-yum in a roll from that experimental place, Gaggan, in Bangkok. Real Roman pizza, one whole pie per person—you pulled me into hamster-cheeking alongside you. Can you ever forget the fresh sambal from Made’s wife—or was the babi guling your best meal in Bali? I can’t remember the name of that vegetable soup in Florence. Can you?

There was a five-foot-nine hole missing in my life when I moved to Vancouver. I heard you whispering in my ear that the mjadra at Nuba was too cold, but the salmon in that city was the freshest you’d ever had. That you-toned voice in my head prompted food lists of each city quarter, including pulled noodles, baby back ribs, poutine, and Nero’s Belgian waffles. You never got to visit me there, but the list is in my old notebook whenever you want it.

I’m now in Manhattan, full of tiny bodegas with goat meat burritos and speakeasies with five dollar-signs on Yelp. We’ve been continents away for years, so I’ve learned to cook for myself. Our Viber and Facebook chats are full of shared food pics.

You’ve come a long way from the giggly boy with snow-milk and cereal on his chin, but you’ll always be my favorite chef. You’re 21 this year, so I’m raising a bottle of Stella Artois for you.


Maikie Paje is currently earning her MFA in Fiction at the New School. She is a former English teacher and her work has been published in the Philippine Star, Home Lifestyle and Interiors, and BLush Anthology.

Featured Image via Pixabay.

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