You'll never understand until you're there. I always thought it's a cliche to say that you put love when you cook.

For me, weekend will always be a delight because it means a chance for me to fulfill my title as chef-chef-an. Cooking is now a regular thing for me (at least for, as i said, weekends) but I am yet to share some of my adventures. This will be my first.

Kare kare is one that I took picture of mainly because of the level of difficulty. Not everyone can pull this dish off. The list now includes me.

Kare kare is not something I'am very familiar with. I grew up not having this menu in our household. There was a back story which is as basic as our cook does not eat kare-kare. As I remember, first taste that I had with it was when I was in grade 6. Our neighborhood had an arrangement to cook kare-kare for several households, since cooking it is a tedious task. Following that were having kare kare on several ocassions I have attended.

This very day with the ingredients around, I decided to try with the help of the menu at the back of Kare-kare mix pack. I am cutting the story short. The cooking time was around 1 hour and 15 minutes. My wife had a lukewarm reception and insisted she could have done it better. Yaya had no response other than her several meals she endured my kare kare.

Still, this is not counted on my legitimate accomplishments. I intend to do the hard way. Nagsasangang ng bigas, nagbabayo ng mani at nagkukulay gamit ang atsuwete.

Describing how it fared? With the entire mentioned duration I could no longer take the dish by the time it was done. It is not because it had an awful taste. It's just I'm sawang sawa na katitikim.

I don't know. I just hope there would come a point that I don't cook that long. I just want to see to it that in the end they can bear with what I came up with and positively end up liking it. It's no longer about devoting time or exerting effort. It's about showing love to them.

Now I know.