In this issue

The Christmas season always makes me look back to my childhood. This may be common to most, as Christmas is said to be for the young ones. As a child, November 1 is when I begin to countdown the days till Christmas. After visiting our departed family members, it only took a few days before I started to see boxes of decorations slowly being opened and dusted off. A week or so more, our Christmas tree would be up. Living in a family compound, I’d often visit the living rooms of the other houses to see how far they were into their preparations. Seeing uncles and aunts would also be an opportunity to remind them what I wanted for Christmas—and I had a way of getting attention to make sure they did ask. A week into December and the trees would start to have presents underneath them. I’d check each box, each gift tag, making sure mine was present in each house. I would try to guess the contents while shaking each box, at the same time making sure the box rattled. I don’t think I ever guessed right but part of checking was making sure my boxes weren’t flat and soft which could mean only one thing—clothes! No kid wants shirts or worse, pants or shorts for Christmas. I can’t help but smile now, but boy, was I a spoiled — but charming, little brat then!

My lolo’s house, the central structure in our compound would be where we’d all gather right after mass on the 24th. At around 10pm, the formal dining table (used only during the holidays and birthdays) would be filled with all sorts of food: from hams to cheeses to seafood. There’d always be native food like puto and some sort of lugaw, normally goto. Sometimes there’d be turkey, other times beef, and a few times there was kalderetang kambing (weird choice for Christmas). What would never be absent were Queso de bola and whole Majestic Ham—a treat for the oldies but stuff I wouldn’t even touch till adulthood.

COOK MAGAZINE Magazine Description:

Being the oldest monthly culinary magazine in the Philippines, Cook Magazine continues to evolve and adapt to the interests and demands of our readers and supporters. We at Cook Magazine pride ourselves with providing our readers and advertisers practical, kitchen-tested recipes from our country’s top chefs and food experts, local and international dining destinations and food-related features and event partnerships. We look forward to leading the way in sharing our love of food for years to come.