Now a lousy cook

It’s almost 4 p.m. Have been sitting at my computer for the past hour playing Solitaire, trying to get my energy up enough to cook Arroz a la Cubana for my husband. When we got married five years ago I knew what he liked to eat. He liked Filipino food and callos from To Die For (TDF), the singular Filipino deli. He wasn’t fond of my favorites — linguini with vongole or Bolognese or puttanesca. He liked sinigang, hamburger sandwiches, hotdog sandwiches, which he would eat plain while I liked mine with mustard, ketchup and pickles.

What can I tell you? I like to eat anything and experiment with everything. I can live on leftovers. I mix them all up, season them with this and that to get rid of almost-empty sauce bottles. These dishes are delicious but I cannot ever repeat them. My children will most likely remember my cooking because I was a fairly good cook. But now I am old. I spent decades of my life not cooking for myself. Except steaks. I cook good steaks for myself still. But someone sent me a list of things you’re not supposed to eat and drink when you are old. It includes steak and soft drinks. So I erased that page.

That’s one thing I don’t like about doctors. I don’t like being told what I can or cannot eat as I grow older. Why do I like to eat steaks? When I was around 14 my mother and I lived together in an apartment. Although my mother could cook — she made a memorable jambalaya — she no longer enjoyed doing it. We were just two at home. But when I hit 14 I was discovering cooking. I bought recipe books, followed them, then created my own style. I made good steaks then. They were not a la pobre but they had a lot of garlic, fried in olive oil, and tasted wonderful.

To this day I occasionally buy myself some good New York-cut steaks and cook one for myself because my husband doesn’t like steaks. Why do I love steaks? Is it the flavor? The way it is cooked? All those, yes; but for me mostly it’s the memory. I love steaks because they bring me back to when I was young, when I would go to Acme supermarket to buy our steaks, and then I would cook them. My mother and I agreed they were delicious.

We had small kitchens then, just as I have a small kitchen in the condo now. It came with a big old range. I taught myself to bake angel cakes and cookies. I even made bread, learned how to mix the yeast with the right water temperature so the dough would rise. I learned how to knead the dough until it was elastic enough. I remember one Christmas when we lived in the US. I was craving ensaimada. May I say at this point that ensaimada is the original Spanish spelling. I don’t know where ensaymada came from. It could be young people’s spelling but it is not exactly correct. They write it as they hear it.

I decided to try and make ensaimadas. But Christmas is winter in the United States and I didn’t know how to create a warm spot so the buttery dough would rise. They came out like little stones. I ate them anyway. I had captured the taste but not the texture. Nevertheless they satisfied me.

I don’t claim to be a good cook anymore but at least I still try. I’ve resigned myself to a husband who doesn’t like my cooking so I go out and buy food that sometimes he likes and other times he hates. He now likes Hainanese chicken, a dish he did not much like then. I am so grateful to a friend who sent us Hainanese chicken from Café Naci in White Plains. It was delicious together with their grilled mahi-mahi, Caesar’s salad and various delicious cakes. I used to live on Nathan Road in White Plains. Just can’t remember the house number. Anyway, they are now on top of my food list. You can check them out at cafenaci@gmail.com. Especially if you’re a White Plains resident. There are so many restaurants with good food there.

We now live on Shaw Boulevard across from Cherry Foodarama. There are also so many good restaurants in our area. They are the familiar ones like Aristocrat, Max’s, Pancake House, Wendy’s, Jollibee, McDonald’s, and most recently Burger King. But you always need a long list of places that deliver food. I also have rediscovered Salcedo Market. It has expanded so much. You can buy anything and everything there and it’s international. It has everything from Filipino to Spanish to Moroccan to French and Italian!

So now I have a list of food sources. But why do I still feel so de-energized when my husband doesn’t like my cooking?

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