Cooking and my Grandparents

I started to cook at fourteen. Back then, my mother, my two siblings and I, live at my grandfather’s house together with my mother’s younger siblings. My grandmother was a very good cook. She doesn’t follow any recipes, she just knew it. In the afternoons, coming home from school, I would catch her make dinner. Instead of doing my homework, I would seat by the kitchen table and watch her sauté, mix, pour, and every other thing which makes a good meal. I come close near the stove so fascinated at how the raw ingredients turn into delicious dishes.

My grandma doesn’t taste what she cooks, so she would ask me to taste it for her and tell her what I think so even if I don’t know a thing about mixtures, I just give her my feedback based on my taste buds, and excellent buds I have, I could tell her if it lacks salt, pepper, etc. Later I realized, my grandmother brought out the natural cook in me through this very good exercise, tasting the meals as it is being prepared. So, not long enough, I told my grandma, I’d like to cook and our roles were reversed she is now tasting the food I make. But like what I said, she was a very good cook, so it is harder to please her, than please me when I was the critic. Thanks to my grandfather who encouraged me to continue and would argue with my grandma on my behalf to be just thankful that someone is taking over her chore. True enough, if not for my taking over, my grandma would keep on cooking for up to forever because no one in the family did, not my mother, or her other siblings who can’t even fry a fish.

So then, beginning at my sophomore year in high school, and up to the time I turned 21, the year my grandmother passed away, also the year we moved out of my grandfather’s house, I was designated the official cook of the family.

I am passionate about cooking; it brings out my creativity, weird that I find it entertaining. I am so grateful for having such wonderful grandparents who awakened the love for cooking in me. One taught me, one encouraged me.