Thursday, August 7, 2008

Ube Ice Cream

by Omie

April 2006, we went home to Hagonoy, Bulacan to visit my mother who was a diabetic. She didn’t want to eat anymore. The whole family was there, and we were all worried that her health would continue to deteriorate if she wouldn’t eat. We tried our best to make her eat – anything. Never mind if it wasn’t good for her diabetes. We were that desperate.

I sat beside her and asked her what she wanted to eat. Because I knew her favorite foods, and most of them were desserts, I started naming them: “Do you want Sansrival? Chocolate cake? Brazo de mercedes, champorado? Mais con yelo? Hmm… so yummy! “ But she remained silent, her eyes closed. “What about ube ice cream?” I asked. Upon hearing that, she opened her eyes and looked at me. “Gusto ko ‘yun!” (I like that!) she said. We all smiled. Everybody was excited to buy ube ice cream.

My husband and I immediately set off to look for an ube ice cream. Unfortunately, all the groceries we tried didn’t have ube-flavored ice cream. Determined to find one, we continued our search until we saw this old grocery store near the market. I went inside the store and found exactly what I was looking for. I was so excited that I screamed to my husband: “Hey there’s ube ice cream here!”. Everyone in the grocery gave me a puzzled looked because my husband was outside, waiting in the car. I bought the ice cream and went back home. “Mother, here’s your ube ice cream!” I said. She opened her eyes and when she saw the ube ice cream, she smiled.

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