My Menu

At one point in our lives, we must leave home to be independent. My brother did. But in my and my sister’s case, it was our parents who left us home – forcing us to be independent and to fend for ourselves.

By the time I graduated from college, my parents’ move to their new house by the beach was already complete. In a move that’s aptly described as sneaky, they did it so gradually over my last couple of years in school that I hardly noticed it.

The way some of the furniture and appliances disappeared bit by bit should have sent the bells ringing. But when you have a thesis to think of, most things just fade away.

“Girls, we’ll be transferring the big TV to the new house. We’ll just trade in a new, smaller one, okay?” I now remember mami asking us.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go, go,go,” I mumbled as my eyes remained glued to the PC screen, trying to reconstruct bar graphs and make sense of statistical boink-ilations. “Who has time to watch TV anyway?”

Yeah, up to now I still can’t believe I said that. But my mami swears by it so I can’t argue my way to repossessing the big TV back now that the thesis-tical fog has long cleared. Sneaky is what they are (I love you mom, pops).

And then, bit by bit, some of the kitchen utensils, clocks, linens, and what-else too said bye-bye.

But it never really hit us until one day, my sister and I stood before our ref (thank God it’s too big to move miles away) and discovered all the food was gone!

Resigned to the fact that our mami has defected – yes, I do mean defected -- to another camp, go to the grocery store ourselves, we did.

We tried. My sister and I really tried. But our first attempt at independent domestic survival 101 was a red mark and that, apparently, set a precedent to our other expeditions to grocery land. I dunno, but we always seem to end up with too much junk food and not enough ingredients for a home-cooked meal. Which, let me add, never fails to send yaya luz into one of her looong critical spiels.

Okay, okay. So we’re not too hot on the kitchen department. Good thing for us, there’re still TV, billboards, and friends to clue us in on the Generation X Survival Kit.

Table of Contents: FOOD … turn to page three.

There it was! The subtitles: Instant Cuisine (i.e. pancit canton, canned food, oatmeal, choco/coffee mix, etc.); Take-Out (i.e. KFC, Jollibee!!!! Hehehe); Order-out (i.e. Pizza, pizza, pizza); and Dining Out (i.e Welcome to Ayala Mall… I loooove you more today than yesterdaaaay….).

Along the way, you pick up a few things and then learn to master some. You gain enough confidence to experiment. And that, my dear friends, is how you discover your own tastes and whip up some style – weird, it may be.

Today, I still don’t profess to be some culinary artist. (Well, if you’re prone to think that after tasting my superlicious tuna spaghetti – the only real food I know how to cook for the moment– well, I can’t help that anymore ;)) But for the benefit of those neophytes to independent life, I’d like to share with you a portion of My Menu. Perhaps, it’ll help make your adjustment a little easier.

My Menu is a product of years of research and experimentation. I make no guarantees. But, I tell you, it’s fast and easy (Gen X’s mantra) to put together. Some may be tempted to brand it as weird but I call it simply an exotic mix. As for side effects, all I can say is -- I still don’t have any ulcer and my bowel movement remains relatively fine. Safe enough? So go, be adventurous. Have a taste of My Menu at your own risk.


My Menu

Appetizers

Ripe banana topped with dried bolinao (bulad) (from Fritz)
Black Coffee with flavored French fries (try sour cream, barbecue or cheese)
Milo (powder variety) mixed with cooked white rice (from Maya and Louie)
Ripe banana dipped in yummy peanut butter
Steamed banana with cheez whiz

Entrees

Yakisoba pancit canton with skyflakes
Yakisoba pancit canton with cheese bread
Yakisoba pancit canton with tuna fish
Yakisoba pancit canton with rice and fish stew (inon-onan)
Yakisoba pancit canton with fried/grilled fish

Lucky Me pancit canton with skyflakes
Lucky Me pancit canton with cheese bread
Lucky Me pancit canton with tuna fish
Lucky Me pancit canton with rice and fish stew (inon-onan)
Lucky Me pancit canton with fried/grilled fish

Cold, cold tuna spaghetti with iced mango juice
Century Tuna caldereta (canned) with rice

Dessert

San Mig Strong Ice with semi-frozen Oreo Cheesecake (Cue Café’s the best)
Scotch topped with Hershey’s kisses**
Vodka Ice with DJ Mix (okay, okay, Marlboro will do)
Black coffee with Cadbury chocolates (not to be mixed)

** Pssst, there are some in Berna’s candy containers strategically placed on a couple of sala tables in her apartment. Grab some for you and me, quick! And then, don’t forget the leftover scotch in the ref. She may have already hidden it somewhere else though (her tummy perhaps?). In which case, you have to search for it. Scotch and kisses have to go together!)