It’s that time of year again, when I find myself staring at my phone, willing it to ring, hoping to hear, “Beauty! Nasa Pilipinas ka ba? Happy birthday!” What I would give to hear my father’s voice again.
He passed away 13 years ago, yet every time my birthday comes around, waves of grief and longing wash over me, as if we had just lost him yesterday.
My father lived large. He was a sculptor, an avid reader, a writer, and a gardener — a true Renaissance man. He was boisterous, sometimes bordering on obnoxious, the Robert Jaworski of the art world in his time. You either adored him or loathed him with a passion, but no one ever denied his brilliance.
To his family, however, he was not always an easy father to have. He was demanding and mercurial, liberal in thought but not in deed — especially when it came to his daughters. Growing up with him was both a privilege and a challenge.
He loved to cook and entertain. His birthday and New Year’s Day parties in his Antipolo garden were legendary, with nearly 200 guests and an entirely home-cooked feast. Fabada, pancit molo, mechado, patatim — these were his signature dishes. But my favorite was always his kinilaw.
He would start with a kilo of fresh fish — tanguigue was his favorite — meticulously skinned, trimmed of gristle and dark flesh, then cut into cubes. He’d douse it in vinegar for a quick rinse, draining it before adding salt, finely chopped green chili, and ginger. A final touch of calamansi and coconut milk brought it all together. His kinilaw was an exercise in restraint, pared down to the essentials — elegant, simple, and divine.
This week, in his memory, I am making his kinilaw for my birthday. But I am adding a step I learned in my travels: grating tabon-tabon into the vinegar, a technique from Northern Mindanao that dates back to precolonial times. It removes the lansa, the fishy aftertaste, refining the dish even further. In making this small change, I claim his recipe as my own — stepping out of his shadow and into my own light.
I am turning 53. My life, much like a dish slowly simmering, has reduced over time into something richer and more potent. Bitter disappointments have softened into wisdom’s slow caramelization; struggles have been salted, but joy has been measured out with a generous hand.
At this age, I am neither at the beginning nor the end. I am in the thick of things, elbows deep in life’s great kitchen — seasoning, stirring, tasting, discarding, refining. I have burned. I have wept over broken sauces and broken dreams. But I have also learned that some things — like love, like hope — only deepen with time.
So, here’s to the years behind and the years ahead. To the people who have sat at my table, and to those yet to come. To the hunger that remains — not just for food, but for meaning, for justice, for a world where everyone eats and no one is forgotten.
