The Housewife Chronicles: Missing Home

There are just some days when I miss my family in Manila.  I miss sitting down to dinner and chattering with my sisters, mom and dad while eating.  Tarlac is my home now and I have my own family but I miss the comfort of eating mom's cook anything-inside-the-ref meals, the way special occasions have their own category of food and sitting around the dining table until we've finished all the little morsels of our favorite dish. 

My mom used to cook us glutinous rice balls (tang yuan) stuffed with either peanuts or black sesame during the Chinese New Year.  She boils it in a sweet soup of brown sugar, water and ginger.  We used to complain and give our mom a lot of grief for forcing us to eat these chewy round orbs.  Only when I got older did I appreciate how delicious they are: soft and chewy on the outside, nutty and mildly sweet on the inside with a hot gingery sweet broth.