Cure for Mondays: Villa Mercedes

Chicken Roast Family Lunch

They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day because it fuels the mind and body. Health-wise, I don’t think anybody should argue with that. There’s another meal during the day though that I feel is more important for three reasons. One, it’s well-planned. Two, it’s well-attended. Three, everybody’s ready for long conversations at this time of the day.

Well-planned lunches

I have memories of the women in my family sitting down during a mid-morning coffee break planning the day’s lunch. We lived in the province where LUNCH BREAK meant coming home from work or school and eating lunch with the entire family. That’s the reason why lunches had to be well-planned — everyone in the family looked forward to it every single day.

My grandmother would sometimes call over the phone asking us what we’d want for lunch. So even if we did not live in the same house, she’d have our “orders” delivered by one of the ever-reliable househelps and the driver. I have loved crispy pata (pork’s leg) since I was four so when I was in the mood for it I’d let my mother dial the phone so I could call Lola Didit and ask for my crispy pata. That was my food delivery service back in the 70’s.

Attendance is a must

My grandparents were rather strict about lunch attendance. Everyone would be expected to be at the table a few minutes after my grandmother would ring the bell for a meal. Their home, the Villa Mercedes in Bohol, was a huge Spanish house sitting gracefully between two spacious gardens. You could be anywhere when the bell rang — you just had to make sure that you’d be at the table before the second call. It may sound a little austere but I’ve been thankful for all those moments because now I have wonderful memories of family time well-spent, eating together the most delicious home-cooked dishes one could ever imagine.

My father carried this on at home. You could never be doing anything more important than a family meal. It didn’t matter if Duran Duran was playing on MTV. You’d had to leave those guys to be at the dinner table when it was time for a meal.

Every bite counts

I’d be seated somewhere on the right side of my grandfather and they’d have to put a can of biscuits for me to sit on because I was tiny. My grandfather initiated all conversations and I still clearly remember how all the adults would politely answer him when he asked them questions. He was a judge and carried an air of intimidation in him.

The talk would slowly become animated in the middle of lunch so everyone would start easing up. I’d remain quiet, hardly eating anything but tremendously enjoying all the conversations that would go on around me. Theirs was a 14-seater antique table and you could just imagine the buzz that went on there especially when desserts were about to be served.

What are your lunches like? I'd love to hear about your memorable experiences with food. Share them here!

All the memories I have of food and the people who made them are all amazing. That’s what my husband and I have been trying to let our son (and now our daughter who obviously loves to eat) experience in our home.

From time to time we’d gather family around and cook for them and share the wonderful experience I had when I was little.

We gathered together recently, and as usual, cousins requested for Roastaman’s roast chicken. Roastaman of course, could not refuse.

Roast chicken, pasta and salad for lunch

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, by Frances Beldia

ancestral house

Winds from Laguna de Bay

Villa Mercedes, our ancestral home in Bohol
Photo courtesy of Jenny Dawn Beldia

It was unusually cold again yesterday. When you’re in Metro Manila, experiencing temperature that falls somewhere between 20°C-25°C is a treat — well at least it is for me. The weather has been my good friend these last few weeks. Our huge windows allow the wind to come in and pass through from all directions, so a gush of wind can either be pleasant… or scary. It depends on who’s telling you about it. Since her youth my mother has blamed the wind for her episodic vertigo attacks, so she likes breezeless, warm, dry weather. My husband and son sometimes feel like they’re being punished by it. My sister visited a week ago and when the wind suddenly went wild at four in the afternoon and (as usual) I refused to close the doors and windows, she looked at me and bawled out, “Why do we have to suffer from this?”

It’s normal for stuff in our house to go flying around, mocking a localized hurricane, or more fittingly, a poltergeist. On some days it’s not unusual to see a carpet upturned, rugs from different parts of the house strewn in different places, and all kinds of stuff thrown on the floor. On one occasion, our east-hugging wooden bench (that carries an inexplainable character of egotism) moved about half an inch when a strong wind swished through our veranda.

So what is there to like about all this? It’s quite difficult to explain really. I am an island girl who grew up reveling in the sun and wind. Our house was near the wharf and I have fond memories of afternoons bathing in the pleasantly warm sunshine, and chasing small leaves blown by the wind. I am a tad embarrassed that this is beginning to sound like poetry, but my life in the 70’s and 80’s was beautiful. I can sum it up in a haiku, but won’t.

My paternal grandparents’ old Spanish house is my mental scrapbook of great memories. It had seven huge rooms of which three shared a balcony. The carved balcony balustrade allowed me to see the other side, so when my small feet became tired from tiptoeing I’d sit and watch small boats crossing the silvery sea through the gaps. The wind would almost lull me to sleep, but my siblings and cousins would suddenly tug me and bring me right back to reality. We’d all run down and towards the vineyard and play a game of hide-and-seek.

Years later, we moved across the ocean and lived in a tiny city by the sea. You see, the wind and the sea have never left me.

I’ve lived in daydreams all my life and the wind is my music. On some days when I turn down the music at home, it irks the other living beings in there (one big boy called a husband, the other not-so-big boy called a son). I fail to explain that whenever I do that I’d just want to go back to my first homes where I could chase leaves on the wharf, or watch boats floating on silvery seas. But those can only happen in my mind now.

I thought I’d completely been orphaned by the wind when we moved here In Manila. I was always surrounded by buildings and the suffocating realities of life in a big city until I reunited with the sea (well, almost. It’s a lake), the mountain and the blue sky right here in our own veranda.

The wind is my most welcome visitor. To close the doors and windows in my house is like closing the doors to my old, old friend.