35. The Magic of Filipino Food in Our Home

On cooking, eating, and conjuring

Happy Friday, and welcome back to Ideas Over Drinks! 

Folks who follow me on social media may have seen this already, but I got some work done this week. I did a little something worth raising a glass for: I published my first ever article at Food & Wine. “Nicole Ponseca Won’t Stop Until Everyone Loves Filipino Food” appeared in the magazine’s restaurant industry-focused section called F&W Pro, which highlights great leaders in the industry and shares business best practices. Please check it out if you can. Here, I’ll share a sort of story behind that story, about part of why I was thrilled to be able to interview Nicole. It’s because of the space her work occupies—largely unbeknownst to her—in our very own family. 

In December of 2019, I discovered Nicole Ponseca’s cookbook, I Am a Filipino: And This Is How We Cook, at a bookstore and bought it as a Christmas gift for our family. My wife, Jenny, is Filipina American; her mom, whom we call Lola (Tagalog for grandmother), immigrated to the US from the Philippines in the early 70s. When I found Nicole’s cookbook, we were living with Lola, in the house that Jenny often referred to as her mom and dad’s “American Dream House.” They built it over two decades ago, on the west-facing side of a quiet cul-de-sac in a suburb of Flint, Michigan. Jenny’s dad lived there for half that time, before passing away from cancer in 2010.  

When Jenny and I, after a few years of bouncing around the globe, showed up on Lola’s doorstep with our two loud and wonderful daughters, in search of a stopover before our next move, she was on the cusp of selling the place. Since she put that plan on hold for us, and wouldn’t charge us for rent, we figured the least we could do to earn our keep was to buy and cook all the food. Lola doesn’t cook. “I cook with my wallet!” she often proclaims. Jenny’s dad—whom our girls never met and yet still refer to as Lolo—did all the cooking. Like Jenny, he was a hell of a cook. After he died, Lola put his recipe book in the recycling bin. Though this loss was nothing compared to the loss of the man himself—a guy who could clean the meat off a chicken foot in ten seconds flat—it still stung.  

Which is part of why I was so excited to find Nicole’s cookbook. When I first flipped through it, scanning the vibrant photographs of not just food, but also of markets and streets and people in the Philippines, all of which I first came to know when we took Jenny’s dad’s ashes to rest in Bulacan, north of Manila, I felt a sense of possibility, of learning. And of at least attempting to fill a gap that was never going to be filled. 

A year and a half later, it was our six-year-old, EJ, who made the biggest and most beautiful attempt at filling that gap. It started when she asked Jenny a question.

“Mama, when was Lolo’s birthday?” 

Jenny told her that it was on July 24th.

EJ put on her thinking face. Later that night, she said, “We should have a party for Lolo. And we can cook all of his favorite foods to celebrate.” 

I do not exaggerate: this child stops us in our tracks like this almost every single day.

We agreed that this was a fantastic idea, and that we should definitely invite Lola. EJ FaceTimed Lola to tell her. My mother-in-law is not someone who shows a lot of emotion—she was once quoted as saying, “I don’t have a band-aid for your feelings”—but when EJ told her what she had in mind to honor Lolo, I have to believe she was touched. She got on a train bound for Chicago two weeks later, her first big trip since the pandemic. 

And we cooked. We opened up Nicole’s cookbook again and again and damn, did we cook. Jenny did the bulk of it—she’s the ultimate talent in our kitchen, no doubt—but EJ and Juni and I helped out here and there, with Lola offering input on how certain things should taste, or how Lolo used to make a given dish. We ate kare kare, where the oxtail and the peanut butter flavors were so rich I felt like I was pinned to the earth with each bite. We ate tortang talong, or eggplant omelet, which is one of Lola’s favorites, pairing it with what we all agreed was some of the best fried tilapia I’ve ever pulled from the oil. We ate puto, steamed rice cakes, which Juni and EJ called “Pluto,” because they love space something fierce and are still pissed off that Pluto got downgraded to a dwarf planet. We ate lumpia and pancit and chayote and nilaga and the list goes on and on. 

You may not believe in magic, but I will tell you this: if there is a way to bring someone long dead back to life, it is through the food that they loved to eat. Lolo was smiling down on us during those meals. For him, our bellies were full.  

Thank you to EJ for making it happen. Thank you to Nicole Ponseca and all the makers who teach us about food and people and place. Salamat. I’ll see you on the other side.   

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Alright, that’s it for this week. I appreciate you reading! If you’re new here, this first post of the month is usually ideas-heavy and drink-light. Drink recipes and techniques will follow in next week’s subscriber post, and then again in the free post two weeks from now.

Until then, cheers!

J.