Lessons from Mom

In celebration of Mother’s Day, some of our foodloving friends reminisce on the treasured life lessons and kitchen wisdom their moms generously passed on to them. Here, they tell us just how love and happiness can be shared through good food.

PRODUCED BY Anna Felipe

Trina’s childhood playground—her lola’s commissary—

emapanadas. Insets: Trina’s

When Trina was

her mom and

empanadas; years

recipe was passed

Heirloom recipes and great memories

by Trina Tiutan Cancio Owner, Mama Empanada

In 1978, my mom and her sister started baking cakes when they were both pregnant with me and my cousin. They sold their baked goods in my lola’s stall—a small space in Timog puto and kutsinta. I can trace my earliest memories of our family food business to when I

lola’s

pastry boxes as they tied red ribbons around each one until well

built across the street where my lola’s house is in Maria Clara, Quezon City. I would spend countless hours there, getting my hands dirty playing with dough and trying to ice cakes.

As I grew older, I became more immersed in decorating cakes, making empanadas, and packing boxes. I actually didn’t know

just fun play. Being in the commissary also meant spending quality time with my mom. Throughout my childhood and teenage years, I saw the business grow from a small mom-and-pop operation to what later became Red Ribbon, the iconic family-run bakeshop chain. By the time we opened in the US, I was old enough to spend my summer breaks there selling pastries at the stores.

My mom and grandmother are two of the strongest, wisest

entrepreneurs make them my heroes. Their humble beginnings and the many challenges they faced along the way continue to inspire

business. I am grateful for their constant reminders to choose a

lifelong partner. Through their example, I also learned that in

peace and stability.

Now as I build Mama Empanada with the same recipe passed on to me by my mom and lola

a rolling pin brings me a special kind of joy. Nothing’s quite as rewarding as hearing the kids say that they see how hard I work in the kitchen. As the saying goes, experience is one of life’s greatest teachers. I hope that exposing my son and daughters to the work

Life lessons in good taste

by Lori Baltazar Author, Dessert Comes First

Iam zealous about food, a quality I attribute to my mom, because she was the one who raised me and my two sisters on an international

sukiyaki, fondue (cheese, meat, and chocolate!),

tsokolate chocolate) with duman lola educated my mom on how

we used (now more than 40 years old and still

Lori’s love affair with dessert started when her mom taught her how to bake cheesecake. The same recipe is the basis of the cheesecakes she makes today. Insets: This 40-year-old mixer is the very same tool that Lori’s mom used to teach

still uses it to whip up sweet treats. Lori and her mom, a whiz in the kitchen.

From top: Enjoying a seafood feast at Crab Claw in Bangkok. A note Karla sent to her mom in 1995, expressing a love for food early on.

A rich culinary legacy by Karla Reyes The Plaza

My mom and I, we’re a tag team, a dynamic duo, partners-in-crime. Her friends used to call me her Xerox copy. My mom has been running The Plaza Catering, our family business, for as long as I can remember, and she single-handedly brought me up at the same time. She’s a single parent and I’m an only child, and it has always been just the two of us.

I was one of those kids who grew up in the kitchen—in my case, my mom’s commissary. On the rare occasions that we would spend time in our home kitchen, we would bake Bruun Butter Cake and prune cakes. She would always tell me how when she was pregnant with me, she would stay up until the wee hours of the morning to

enough money to buy me a crib. At four years old, I was cracking my own eggs and separating the yolks from the whites. She would always remind

incorporate too much air into it. She also had a folding technique for mixing the ingredients of the batter, which she still reminds me to practice today.

Although she wasn’t as hands on in our home kitchen as she was with the business, my mom gifted me with a sophisticated palate at a young eating cereal and milk, I would go for smoked salmon. At school, while all the kids had Spam and hotdogs, I had themed lunches like a Japanese meal complete with chopsticks! During family dinners in restaurants, I would casually

and she would prepare for me a small plate of interesting things to try. That was more exciting to me than fried chicken and rice.

Kong and feasting on sausages and beer in Zurich—but the best food memories are the ones we made in our home kitchen: like the Sundays when my mom and I would make kare-kare for my lolo, the times when I would play in the kitchen in the middle of the night and ask my mom to be my taste tester, and the time Ricky Reyes asked us to host a cooking segment on

My mom has opened my palate to a whole

opportunity to learn more about food and pursue the craft. I not only learn from her; we learn from