a glutton's tale

Two days ago, Ate Eva (my aunt who lived next to us) offered me some buko pandan salad. Not just some, but three overloaded dishfuls of it! There were only two of us in the house - I and my grandmother (who had diabetes) - so I was surprised at the huge amount.

"Ba't andami niyan?," I asked.
"Eh andami pang natira dun. Tama lang yan," she replied with a smile. I was confounded.

Later, while I was stashing the salad into the fridge, my grandmother explained. Ate Eva had previously informed her that she was making salad for Christmas. My grandmother was too proud to ask for some ("Lang supug mangayat!," she remarked - translated as "nakakahiya humingi!"), so she volunteered a hundred pesos to fund for it. Ate Eva spent almost three hundred for all the salad, and she shared with us proportional to our contribution.

I had just eaten my fill of cheesedog and lubi-lubi (fyi, lubi-lubi is... lubi-lubi. Hehe. I don't know any other name to call it. It's a savory hodgepodge of young lubi-lubi leaves, smoked fish or ground meat, garlic and pepper simmered in coconut milk) when I felt that something was missing...

the salad!

Hinay hinay lang, I reprimanded myself. Nagpapapayat ka, diba? Don't eat too much! I put out the salad, and got my spoon (and my stomach) ready.

It was terrific! The luscious strips of young buko melded perfectly with the mildly sweet yet rich milk-cream sauce; the pandan jelly cubes were firm but very flavorful. But, it was the bits of soft cheese sprinkled on the salad that captured my tastebuds.

Bite after bite I dug into it, savoring every mouthful.

And then, I guiltily realized, that I managed to devour almost all the salad in the container; only a measly cupful was left. Too bad.

Pitiful, aren't I?