After I lost my mother to cancer, I moved with my young brother to Manila then to Boracay Island where we’d live a hundred steps away from the South China Sea. We’d wake up by the beach, walk and talk with the locals before the mad rush of tourists from all the world woke up to the Top Island Resort in the planet.
This special place is where I learned how to cook. My father and stepmom would share with me recipes passed over from the previous generations of the Filipino family I never had the chance to meet living in the Gulf Coast. There, at Boracay Island, my family became whole again and a new horizon that would lead me to my culinary journey.