#HAWMC Day 10: Comfort Food

#HAWMC Day 10: Comfort Food

Disclosure: I don’t cook.  I used to cook our simple inexpensive meals back in college to economize, but after that I realize that I am too absent-minded or too preoccupied to pay attention to cooking.  One time I set out to boil an egg, I left it cooking on the stove thinking that it’ll be done in 10 minutes.  So I left to do something else.  When I came back, the kitchen smelled of soot and smoke and burnt egg.  The pan looked like a dry charcoal-grill and I resolved never to cook again, for the safety of my family – both from fire hazards and from carcinogens found in burnt food.

One time I remember joining the summer camp in Badian, Cebu, organized by the Cebu City Taskforce on Street children.  I love soup, so I volunteered to cook one dish – to make Chinese oriental egg drop nido soup from scratch, so that the kids would know what “fine dining” tastes like.  It turned out ok since I put in my full attention so that we don’t waste the ingredients.  It was really good, if I might say so myself – one of my rare culinary achievements!  I proudly scooped up the soup into the kid’s bowls as they lined up for their share of dinner.  To my horror, they crinkled their noses, took a teeny weeny sip then poured the soup into the “lamaw” (left over scraps for pigs) bin… so that’s that.  I vowed never to volunteer to cook for streetkids again.

So we’re supposed to talk about comfort food.  My primary comfort food is sashimi and other Japanese cuisine – it’s healthy and yummy and fresh, and NOT “bawal” (prohibited) according to whatever diet I am on… I don't know technically how to prepare sashimi, but it seems easy to prepare because you can buy a slab of fresh or frozen salmon from your friendly grocery store, bring it home with wasabi and kikoman, cut into strips and enjoy! Good thing that Japanese restaurants abound also so that when I don’t feel like tinkering in the kitchen, I can just order it like fast food…

Helen Madamba, sashimi lover.