By the time you read this post the pirate-talk filter should be off, hopefully…and mercifully. And if it’s off, you can have a look at the necktie rebellion post without my narration coming off as sounding like an inebriated Jack Sparrow knock off. Yarrr!

Like I mentioned a while back, I’m now cooking meals basically every night. Eating out is the exception. That’s great, isn’t it? Thing is, I’m starting to miss my mother’s cooking. It’s not because I don’t like putting the effort into making a meal. And it’s not that my cooking sucks either. It’s just that what I cook tends to be very far from being Filipino in style. As a result, I guess I’m missing out on the spice and flavour combos that I used to have more regularly. To me, I find it amusing when I say this, because, really, I have no bloody clue how to characterize what a Filipino flavour is. I suppose if I was forced to generalize, it’d have something to do with soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, onions, and black pepper…but I suppose that’s essentially just describing adobo. Yeah, see, no clue. I do know though that flavours aren’t subtle. They need to pack a punch or else you’ll hear complaints of “walang lasa!” or “there’s no flavour!”

Anyway, having missed the tastes, I decided to do something about it this week. After work one day I ventured to the Asian grocery stores on Spadina in search of some stew mixes. After visiting a few places I finally found a shelf that had packets of Mama Sita brand mixes. God, I swear I was really quite psyched upon finding them. I remember that the mixes were extremely useful in university when I wanted to put together food that was far removed from instant ramen or scrambled eggs. Anyway, I bought two packets of the caldereta (spicy stew mix), and one of the Filipino style barbecue marinade mix. Oooh, those are going to be some good eats. With the mixes in hand, I declared that this week I’d do the spicy stew. I mean, I had stewing beef on hand in the freezer as well as a few handfuls of frozen veggies. It would be dead simple!

So, I made the stew this evening. Indeed, it was pretty simple (for me). I had enough time to listen to music and prep a honeydew melon while it was all on the stove. The result was awesome. I have enough leftovers for a few more meals in the next few days. It totally took me back to university–and not in a negative way. Ultimately, having food like this is just comforting for me.

What I made is good enough; I can’t knock Mama Sita. Thing is though…it still doesn’t match the caldereta that my mom makes. She doesn’t use sauce mixes (as far as I know); she does it from scratch. Really, it can’t be that difficult to do it from scratch–I just haven’t done it before. I guess one day in the next few months I’ll have a go at doing it without a stew mix and see if I can get the flavouring right.

Or…I can just visit my parents more often.

(Hmm…)