To honor my Mother and all the Mother’s out there, I will tell a story about my Mother. My way of showing her that I love her and even though I don’t say it often enough, for me she is the best Mother in the whole Universe. My Mom an orphan of World War II, was a self-thought baker. Unlike Julia Child who went to a French Culinary School to learn how to bake, my Mother bought recipe books, read, read, baked and baked. It was a trial and error for her but she persevered and she succeeded. My Moms cakes and pastries are to die for. I guess thats why all of us, her chil­dren have a weakness for sweets.

When she decided to leave Bicol and follow my Dad to Manila, she wanted to help my Dad income-wise since by that time her brood where growing. So she started her own business. My Mother is one of those people who looks fragile but has an iron will, she has also an abundance of charm that who­ever she talks to about selling her cakes and cupcakes they readily agreed.

With little capital and an enor­mous self-confidence she started her “Blondie’s Bakeshop” and we started to supply schools in Mandaluyong and Sta. Mesa. Her helper was my older sister and me. And her delivery boys were my three brothers. The devourer of left overs and rejects were of course the whole family, specially the younger ones.

Life was at that time a very busy one, specially for my Mom, my sis­ter and me. After school my sister and I will race towards home and begin our assigned cupcakes to make for the next day. One day our big mixer, the bringer of life to our cakes and cupcakes died on us. If you don’t use a mixer, your baked good­ies will be flat like a pancake so there was a big commotion in our house.

My Mother took a long breath and called my brothers and di­rected them to beat the eggwhites by hand. We are talking here of huge batches to make and my poor brothers were really chal­ lenged that day. There were plenty of jokes going back and forth, like who had the biggest muscles and who can beat the eggwhites faster. It could have been a disaster but my Mother with her usual calm­ness controlled the situation and it ended up like a family night com­plete with fun and laughter.

That night was an eye opener for me, my Mother’s action taught me that no matter how difficult you perceived a situation or a prob­lem, most likely than not there is a corresponding solution. Life is like that, you encounter a problem, you look at alternatives and an an­swer is just there waiting for you to discover it. (Check out my blog at www.pinkybartolome.com)

< Prev		Next >