Food Is Love!

Recipe 28: Home

Roadtrip Day 6:
Destination: unknown...but somewhere between Cagayan and Isabela provinces

Alex's POV:

A little girl named Catherine is riding with us right now, she always clings on my passenger seat...perhaps because she desperately finding her parents who lost during the strong storm that passed here earlier.

But not too far away from where Flonne picked her up, we noticed a riverside...where a multitude of people flocking around something. We decided to go down to check it out...

"Kat, hold my hand tightly so you will not separate from me, okay?" That's Flonne's only directive to Catherine as we walked closer to the area. We are able to sneak in through the crowd what's going on there...until...we saw something...very terrifying...

We saw two bodies...lying on the ground...only covered by a combination of broadsheet newspapers and banana leaves...a indescribable stench filled the atmosphere. Without warning, Catherine breaks away from Flonne, looks closer to the bodies...and opened the cover. Within moments...I noticed that tears fell to her eyes...and before I know it....

"MOMMY!!! DADDY!!! HUHUHUHU!!!!"

Catherine stomped her hands to the ground as she cried very hard. She had finally found her parents but...it's too late...

"We found them here floating towards the shore just moments ago." A random guys suddenly told us what happened. "They so drowned that their bodies are bloated because they have absorbed too much water."

We let Catherine mourn the death of her parents for awhile...but as the authorities started to pull their bodies away from her to be embalmed and put into casket...she started to get loose...

"HE-HEY!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?! DON'T TAKE THEM AWAY FROM ME!!!!"

And just as Catherine is about to snatch the bodies away from the authorities, Claire, Flonne and I take her and keep her to do so...

"HEY!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME?!?! GET OFF ME!!! Please...sniff...get off...me...huhuhu!!!!"

Catherine finally calmed down...and cried once again. Flonne hugged her very tightly...

"Calm down, Kat...calm down..." But even Flonne is also broke into tears...as she console the child...the loss of the parents that she loves...is visibly deep for Catherine to forget...

We accompanied Catherine back to our truck...and Flonne let Danica and Claire console the girl for awhile...as she called me inside...

"Alex, we need to do something." A sad Flonne pleaded to me. "I don't know what to do...I wanted to cope her up but...but..."

I understand her intentions...but she is quickly overwhelmed by the emotions of Catherine...feeling that it's very hard to move on for the loss of loved ones. Yes...it is difficult...but...there's still a way to lessen...even just a bit...the pain that Catherine is carrying...

I patted Flonne's head to cheer her up...

"Huh?"

"Flonne, you don't need to ask that." I smiled at her to comfort her. "Alright...let's do our best...put all of our effort...and make the best dish for this little kid, okay?"

"Yes....yes we could." Flonne smiled back at me. "Thanks, Alex."

Let's see...how can we make a dish...that will comfort Catherine...at least for now...to get through this grief...and make her a little better? Hmm...how about a dish that reminds her of home. I know this is weird but a reminisce...a home cooking perhaps...will make Catherine calm and relaxed for a moment...so that she could reflect for herself...ugh!!! Why I need to do this?! I'm a fast food cook...sigh...

"Umm...Flonne...do you still have some ground pork in the refrigerator?"

"Oh, yes. Actually, I didn't take it out because I don't have any tomato sauce to make some....wait a minute!!!"

Suddenly, Flonne makes an evil grin towards me...as if she was saying...that I've breached our rivalry deal...

"No! It's not what it looks like! I just wanna get just a pinch of your giniling for the burger I'm making.

"Huh? Who told you that you can mess with my stuff?" My girlfriend then pouted me. "Not to mention that I didn't permitted you to desecrate my food by putting it in a fastfoody thing!"

"Come on, Flonne. I didn't ask you without a reason, right? I just wanna help her by making this dish. Come on, please?"

Flonne stared blankly at me for a few moments...before she make a deep sigh. Against her will, she opened the refrigerator and took a bag of the ground pork.

"Here..." Flonne gave the ground pork to me with a pouted face.

I dipped the bag of ground pork to de-ice it. While they're at it, I chopped some garlic and onion into strips. Putting a wok into the stove with some cooking oil in it, I sauteed the three...before I put the ground pork and some soy sauce...huh? Wait, where is the soy sauce?

"Here, Alex!" I looked at Flonne...and she had a new bottle of spy sauce, coming from the closet. "Do you want any help with your cooking?"

"Sure. You're the one who knows how to cook giniling! Hehehe!!!"

Flonne taught me the right amount of soy sauce that will be put into the wok...as well as for how long does the giniling will be cooked. When Flonne puts the meat way from the heat and into a small plate...

"Alright, fastfood cook! Show me how creative you are...to create your own masterpiece from that!"

With my girlfriend boasting at me...I let her watch how I turn this simple giniling into one of my renown burgers...hehehe...I mean I will just show her why the fast food restaurant, that I've used to work, becomes popular because of me!

I simple get a big slice of cheese on top of the giniling and put it into an oven to microwave it for some minutes. When I took it out...voila! It's a rare giniling cheese melt! Hehehe!

"Whoa! Pretty good, huh?" Flonne grins to me like there is no problem after all. "Well then, what should you do next?"

Without saying a word, I put out from my compartment in the refrigerator some lettuce, leftover onions, pickles and a bottle of mustard and ketchup. With a bag of buns already in front of me, I combined all of the ingredients: the cheese melt at the bottom...blanketed with lettuce...put on the pickles...and finally painted it with ketchup and pickles...sprinkling some imagination out there. Hehehe!

There! A unique giniling cheese melt burger! Though I don't have a picture to describe what it looks like, just imagine that it was my giniling burger that Flonne tasted when we've first met...just filled with cheese.

"Here...this dish will help Catherine cope up with the grief...and make her feel like home."

"Alice! Alex! Can you go out for awhile, please?"