Friday, August 31, 2012

Roots and Recipes 2nd Draft

As I talked to my mom about leche flan, a memory went through my mind. Suddenly, I was walking through the front door of my childhood home. Picture this: the cool, night air surrounding us, and a bright light, enabling us to see our Christmas tree, which was beautifully decorated with silver and blue trinkets, my parent's favorite colors. My brother and I played and laughed until our stomaches ached, and my older cousins locked themselves in a room because they didn't want us to peek at our gifts. It was the perfect scene for Christmas Eve.

When I stepped into the kitchen, I couldn't help but smile. It smelled amazing. My grandmother placed the honey glazed ham into the oven, my uncle put rich, creamy butter onto slices of garlic bread, my dad stirred the pot of boiling spaghetti sauce, and my mom mixed condensed milk and egg, which was to be used for leche flan. That was when I decided to help my mom. I watched as she melted sugar in a pot. It took a lot of patience, but my mom didn't seem to mind. I asked her why she didn't mind making such a time consuming dessert. "It brings back memories of my childhood," she told me.

I was playing a game with my cousins and brother, until I heard, "DINNER'S READY!" I ran down, and the smell of sweet and slightly spiced ham, garlic, and spaghetti sauce wafted up my nose. When dinner arrived, a smile lit up on everyone's faces, followed by an exasperated shout of, "Finally!" And then, my family and I dug in. We talked, we laughed, and of course, we all ate. That was probably the closest my family was in a very long time. Although when dessert arrived, everyone was even more excited. We had a chocolate cake, decorated with my grandmother's frosting, buko pandan, which is a mixture of coconut meat, pandan flavored jello, tapioca pearls, condensed milk, and cream; which act as fillers. We had a few more desserts come in, and finally, the leche flan came in. It was in it's usual oval shaped pan, which was then turned over a plate, revealing the melted sugar over it. It looked gorgeous.

I placed some onto my plate, and took a bite of it. the milky, creamy, taste ran over my mouth, followed by the caramel-like taste of the sugar. More memories flashed into my head. I remember the first time I tried it. When I was 4, my family visited my aunt's house,  and at first, I didn't like it, but as more family gatherings and parties passed, I grew to like the wibbly, wobbly, jelly-like dessert. "Mom, how did you learn how to make this?" I asked. "When I was a kid, I watched my uncle make leche flan, and I wanted to make this for my future family and friends, so I asked him to teach me," she replied. And then I realized that I'd finished my slice. I immediately took a second.


Reality all of a sudden snapped back to me, and I thought, why not learn the recipe now? I asked my mom to teach me how to make it, and even though my first time making it wasn't as good as my mom's, I'm going to continue to work at my leche-flan-making skills, and hopefully someday, I could make it as well as my mom does it.

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