Missing my Lola while cooking....

It's funny how simple things like removing moringa leaves from stalks  can give one a feeling of nostalgia.

Today, it brought me back to my childhood, a time when my grandma and I prepared moringa leaves for tinola.

I remembered how I would always be by her side, whether she was cooking, doing the laundry, listening to a radio program, watching TV dramas.  I remembered how I would always do what she did.  I helped her cook, I helped her do the laundry, I listened to the radio, I cried with her whenever she cried with TV drama heroines.  

I miss her and I miss doing things with her.  It makes me sad to think how lonely she and my grandpa must have been all those years we were away from them.  There was no  land phone in the province to connect us, no internet, no cellphones.  We just had letters, Christmas breaks, and summer vacations.  But there were long months in between and they must have been unbearable for ageing people like them who lived a simple life in a simple quiet town.

Anyway, here's what I did with the moringa.

My grandma would have been proud. I cooked her tinola recipe. It's a soup-based traditional Filipino dish usually served in Filipino homes as the main entree.

I miss you, Lola.

On another note, I've just finished  making a crystal bracelet for my mother-in-law.  Here's it is.

I hope it fits her wrist.