I let Ima and Lola (my grandmas) down

It was a disappointing Christmas.

Every December, my cousins on my dad’s side make homemade gifts for our Kris Kringle game.

This year, someone came up with the idea of making “homemade ethnic gifts.” Meaning, we each had to make gifts that related to our respective backgrounds.

With the exception of a couple significant others, we’re all Filipino… So, essentially, we all had to make Filipino presents. I have a quirky family.

Since I’m trying to learn to cook, I figured this would be a good opportunity to make Filipino food!

I chose to make bilo bilo, a Filipino dessert that’s kind of like a coconut soup that has tapioca, rice balls, jackfruit, bananas, and sweet potatoes in it. It’s sweet and delicious, just like the Filipino people!

One hater was telling me that I should try something easier. She said bilo bilo is too difficult and time consuming, and maybe I could make some kind of cookies instead.

But to that hater, I said, “No, Mom. I was the Reyna Elena. I can do this.”

(During fiestas in the Philippines, the Reyna Elena is like the queen of the parade, because she gets to hold the crucifix. 🙏)

I found a recipe online, spent a whole afternoon trekking to three different grocery stores (including a Filipino grocery store that had the cutest little owner), spent about $25 on all the ingredients, then got working on this two-day project.

On the first day I made rice balls, which are basically just balls of dough. It took me hours to get the purple colour right and to roll them to the perfect size. Then I put them in the fridge to be cooled overnight.

The next day I cut up the potatoes, jackfruit, and banana, boiled the coconut milk, water, and sugar, and added everything that needed to be added: the chopped fruit, the tapioca pearls, and the rice balls that I slaved over the night before.

I thought I was doing everything correctly. The smell was right, the colours seemed right. But unfortunately, the texture was terrible: rock hard and inedible.

Apparently, I was supposed to boil the tapioca for 20 minutes prior to mixing it with everything.

I was informed of this... The recipe said it. The bag of tapioca pearls said it. My sisters both said it.

Sometimes when you set your heart on something, you can’t see the warning signs that others see so clearly—lol, am I talking about cooking or am I talking about my love life?

Any who.

There were hundreds of tapioca pearls in the bilo bilo, so with each bite, there were hard, inedible bits that had to be spit out. Not to mention the rice balls only partially cooked, and I used the wrong kind of jackfruit.

Frig!

Since this was a gift (yes, I still gave it, but I included a nice Christmas card, indicating that it was shit), I felt it was important that I add something actually edible.

I ended up giving in to the trolls and making Filipino cookies. OK, there was one troll and her name is Mom.

Anyway, I’ll probably post about those too, because they were actually pretty difficult to make.

This was quite a significant cooking fail, but what can you do? My next bilo bilo will be better—probably.

I’m pretty sure that when it comes to Filipino cooking, it’s only the lolas who know what they’re doing. Honestly, once my aunt had a grandkid, her food got significantly better.

Considering I’m light years away from becoming a lola—I have zero interest in even becoming a mom rn—I have lots of time before I need to be good at making bilo bilo.

Stay tuned for when I try again.

What I’ve learned/some realizations:

Sometimes things don’t work out. But if you’re lucky, something wonderful and unexpected may happen in the process. (I’m referring to how I got to meet Top!)
I won’t be a lola for many, many years. So I don’t need to be good at this yet.
If I had taken the recommended easy route by never trying to make this bilo bilo, I wouldn’t have learned the lessons or had the wonderful experiences necessary to grow and eventually make legit bilo bilo. And I would be living with the what ifs. Again, am I talking about cooking, or am I talking about life?
As I said last post, no better place to be than with family on Christmas.