THE UNCOOKED DISH

I got my cooking interest from my father.  My mother does the cuisine too but I found my father was the better cook maybe because he usually does the cuisine which got used to my taste, while my mother was usually more on other household chores.  I followed more on my father’s blend of cooking and some from my mother.  So occasionally, I explored myself in the kitchen so I would able to know this one basic household chore just when time comes to live independently.  I was planning then to work abroad and true enough I made it.

As an overseas worker, one of the ways I get closer to my mother from a long year of absence is cooking or foods.  Father had gone earlier so every time I am at home, I want to make sure to give my mother the foods that I feel she will amaze either I cooked or bought.  I know she’s a kind of foodie, it may not dinning in from one cozy restaurant to another but I’m sure she always wanted different and tasty foods.

Once I cooked a local menu named chopsuey, a veggie dish with cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, bell pepper, and snow peas sautéed with garlic, onion and mushrooms seasoned with chicken stock, breast and liver.  It was the thick and tasty sauce that made it remarkable and I cannot forget her genuine reaction when she liked it, it was such an overwhelming.  While at one time I prepared stew made of tofu.  Clueless, she never realized that she was actually eating tofu and not chicken as she thought.  Until there was this one dish that I promised to cook for her but I failed her until she died.

One time, I told her about Chicken Cordon Bleu.  She had an idea how it looks and tastes when I told her how I prepared it.  I pound the chicken breast then seasoned it with salt and pepper.  I placed the thin slices of cheese, hard boiled eggs and cooked ham on top of it, then rolled and coated with bread crumbs and bake it in oven.  By the look if, my mother easily liked it and one day she even told me to make one.  I wanted to make one before I go but tiring times did not permit me instead I made other easier dish and told her to do the cordon bleu in some other time.  Until I was about to leave again for another year of work out of the country, I did not able to make Chicken Cordon Bleu.

Another year had passed, it’s another homecoming but I really did not able to make the Cordon Bleu.  I know she was waiting for it. Until soon she passed away without seeing the Chicken Cordon Bleu that she’d longed for.  My mother never tasted the dish, and in this I feel the guilt of not making her wish come true.  I feel I have taken for granted her.  I just thought I should tried then to find a way to make the Cordon Bleu.  I wished I have done the dish no matter how busy I was because you can never take back the times.  No matter what I do I cannot do it anymore.  Sometimes we tend to forget about the people around us or those who are close to us thinking that we can always make-up but we do not know time is running out until it’s up.

Sometimes we deprived simple enjoyment that can bring big smile to people.  If we can do it now, better do it than never and sorry.