My Love Letters To Food

To My First Love: You're Still here.

Wine for breakfast may be weird for other families, but ours requires it. 

It takes forever to sneak away from everyone and just enjoy some peace and quiet alone. I'm so used to being alone that I find it harder now to be around my whole family at once. I guess being in London did help me. I no longer fear my own company as I did before. As a matter of fact, I value my time alone. Unfortunately, my peace and quiet are short-lived because I have enrolled in classes to help me catch up with my class member for the start of the normal semester. 

I have to pack up my life once again so I am fully moved into my condo, and settled with my work schedule with P'Anda before my classes start in two weeks. So, now I am packing up everything I feel I will need so that I can move out by the weekend. Going through the different drawers and shelves in my closet, I decide, less is more and to take as little as possible to ensure I have excuses to come home often. 

"Nam, I saved a few things from the boxes you said I should throw out before you left. The bottom right shelf in the back. If you still do not want anything in there just leave it behind the door when you leave and I'll get rid of it." My father startles me as I fold clothes into a suitcase on the floor. I roll my eyes at him as I think of all the boxes that held nothing hurtful memories for me still lingering in my room. He always does this. Why does he find it hard to let go of my things so much? 

He smiles at my obviously annoyed face. "Just look. I'll do it this time. I promise." Unable to resist his charmer smile that always melts my heart, I smile a small smile and nod. He closes the door and I am left with yet another daunting task. Searching for the box on the right side of my closet, I find a big box right at the back. It is quite heavy. "What did he put in here?" I ask myself as I drag it near my suitcase. 

The first item at the very top of the box is a shoebox I had hand-painted white and gold. I had wanted it to represent a white wood memory box with gold trimming. Inside were a lot of things that had to do with the guy I had had a crush on since forever. A stack of receipts from the printing shop he worked in during high school catches my eyes first. Back then I would go and order custom albums for my family's random pictures doing everyday things. It would be just so that he can talk to me and show a little interest even if it was just his job. I would always fumble with my answers and never look up at him directly, but those moments meant so much to me. Aunt Fon and my mother would be stuck on long phone calls with me about how amazing and cool he was asking me job-required questions. 

A bundle of half-ripped tickets to home and away games from his rugby team are set neatly next to the receipts and I laugh. Aunt Fon and I would take road trips together to watch all of his away games. We should sit right behind the team and ogle the players. Well, I would ogle him and she would ogle everyone else. Aunt Fon and I had the best time on those trips. 

Random items that held great significance to me regarding him littered the rest of the box. A movie ticket stub from tenth grade when I sat next to him while on a school field trip. A pack of hair ties he bought for me because my hair was always falling in my face when we did a project together in twelfth grade. Lastly, a bus card he gave me when I forgot to top up mine and I almost got kicked off the bus on the last day of school. Tears prickle my eyes as I try to not think of that year.

Closing the box, I put it aside on the floor. 

The last thing I expected to see is right under that shoebox. A hoodie. His hoodie. 

It was raining heavily that evening and I knew my father was working a double shift. I was aware of the possible change in weather so I brought my small umbrella. However, nobody had said anything about a storm. Everyone had left the seniors seminar and I was alone in the covered parking lot. I was hoping it would let up enough for me to run to the bus stop but it just got worse. 

Ready to call my uncle or aunt to come and get me, he ran towards me and pushed his hoodie in my hands. "Ey, Tia. You're going to get sick standing here with no jacket. Put this on." I timidly eyed the jacket and then him. He just gave me a warning glare and I put down my backpack to put it on. A few seconds later, headlights blind me and I look away. He just walked to the driver's door and they spoke for a few seconds before he ordered me to get in. " No, it's fine. I'll just wait for my aunt to come. She said she'll be here after seven. I'll be fine." I try to decline but he just tilted his head to the side and frowned.

Scared he might get angry, I scurried to the car and opened up the back seat door but it was full already. I stepped back and looked towards him for direction. He just sat in the front seat with the door open and pointed to his lap. Ever so awkwardly, I sat down on his lap and tried not to die of embarrassment. I politely greeted everyone in the car. Everyone was busy on their phones texting or playing games. A few scattered greetings came back but mostly silence. P'Mait, the older brother of my crush, smiled at me and focused on driving. He seemed distracted and slightly annoyed. Or maybe it was just the neutral face they made?

Unexpectedly, he leaned up towards my ear and husked out, "What's your address?" A shiver threatened to shake me physically so I did what I always did. Slightly parted my knees and pushed my buttocks into the seat. This time I forgot it was a person and not a seat. I was reminded after a few times of doing this that it was a human I was sitting on and not the actual car seat. Things got rigid and tense really fast. 

I tried to play it off as if I felt nothing and just leaned down to whisper my address to him. "16 Cresent Drive." He nodded at me and just took his brother's phone from the holder on the dashboard to input my address. Once the navigation system had started to direct us and the people in the back seat saw the distance, they all decided to take a nap. The three of us in the front seats were the only ones awake. A radio station I did not recognize played popular tunes. P'Mait hummed along to them and even sang a few. 

Once we neared my turnoff, I sensed he was getting a bit stiff-legged so I rose up as much as I could and allowed his tall frame to change position. He let out a gratuitous breath. Warm hands pulled my hips down once he was settled into a new position, and I sat right on it. Full buttocks to rigid stuff contact! Trying not to panic, I lifted myself up again but he just pulled me right back down on it. And kept me there. 

My sweat glands tried to work overtime but I was luckily never much of the sweating type. I was the shaking type when I was nervous so I did my thing to stop shaking subconsciously which caused him to grip me closer and try to keep me still. That just made me push back into him more and this cycle of torture continued until his brother reached the gate of my house. "Go in so we know you're safe," P'Mait instructed me as I ready my umbrella and pull the hoodie over my head. 

Nodding, I wai at him and gave my thanks. "Thank you, P'Mait, for the ride. Thank you, Food, for asking him to take me home." He just mumbled a low "Mmmh."

"Don't mention it, Tia. See you around." I smiled at P'Mait and opened the car door to take off running through the opened remote-controlled gate. Sprinting for the carport, I reached it and waved at them as I looked for my keys in my bookbag. A series of honks followed and they drove back down the street.

I took hundreds of selfies with that hoodie on! Nobody could take me down from the cloud nine heavens I was on that night. Nobody! We usually sent our clothes to the dry cleaners but that day I washed that hoodie by hand. I hung it up on the covered clothing line and watched it on the line until my father came home from work around eleven pm.

The next day at school, I hid from him, which was hard to do. We were in the same class after all. I was just so scared I would ruin my only chance to have a conversation with him that I wanted to wait until I returned his hoodie. However, once it was dry the next day, I brought it to school and it stayed in my bag for weeks. I could never catch him alone. Eventually, I saw him wearing another one and I just sort of kept this one. 

Bringing the hoodie to my nose, I inhale to check for that scent and sure enough, it is still there. It is faint but still there. 'Food Suppasit.' is embroidered at the back of the hoodie in a very big and bold font. I cannot wear the hoodie anywhere even if I wanted. 

While folding it back into a neat square, a piece of paper falls out and I recognize immediately."Oh shit." I was once dumb enough to write a letter to Food and had hopes of confessing to him. On valentine's day, no less. 

However, someone else had the same idea. Cream. 

Cream was a cheerleader. She had everyone under her spell with her slim physique and snow-like skin. She was beautiful and well-spoken. Cream was also one of the smartest people I knew. She would always receive the second-place academic award for some of the awards I received. Being a social outcast, I had no choice but to be the number one student. Cream was number two but she was the winner compared to me because she got the guy in the end. They made a beautiful couple. 

I did not see that at the time but they truly did. The only thing I felt was a heartache so painful, my father drank with me that night to help numb my heart. It was that night that I packed all the reminders of him I had and put them into picture albums and boxes. I wanted it all out of sight.

It is funny now that I think about it. 

Out of curiosity, I grab my phone and start to search for his name on i********:. I check the old handle he used back in high school 'Food the Foodie'. His picture is the first profile to show up under that name. Opening his profile, I find it really odd that it is just pictures of him. "What happened to Cream?" I scroll down to ensure I'm not missing anything and I'm not. Her pictures are not here anymore. She is not even followed by him or following him. "Wow." 

His profile is quite professionally set up until around the time the lockdown period started. His posts mostly consist of restaurant and food reviews. He looks for restaurants that have unique and colorful flavors. I know a few of these because some of the restaurants he's reviewed are owned by my father's friends. They aren't all commonly known or easy to get a table at. 

He makes eating food look like an erotic act. Especially the slow-motion clips of him chewing or wiping his mouth. It should be a sin to look that sexy while you eat. 

I get lost in a loop of watching his more recent content of trying to cook and it is hilarious. The dramatized way of reacting to the smallest kitchen knife knick on his fingers. A scream from hell made the person recording him drop their phone because he was splashed by a tiny amount of oil on his arm. He shouldn't have thrown his onions in like they were a grenade. 

I am laughing so loud that my father has to shout at me to keep it down from the living room downstairs. He is just the best sometimes when he's being nosey. Putting the hoodie in the suitcase with all my jackets and sweaters, I zip it closed and go downstairs to bother everyone.

I really missed home.

09/05/2021

My condo is a dream! It's the first space that I actually get to design and customize to my liking other than my dorm back in London. White and gold seemed like a good choice at the time because the aesthetic I am going for as an influencing chef is clean and sophisticated. It does look amazing and I have gotten countless compliments on it, but the maintenance is really detailed and compulsory. I cannot even hire a maid to help with everything because of the regulation of my building, so I am stuck cleaning it every day.

My life these days is consistent with me trying to get my schedule in check and catching up with the compulsory material from last semester that I may not have covered because of language or country regulations. Everything in London was in English and based on United Kingdom laws at times. My programming class is what has left me in the dust the most. I had wavered that module for next semester after the lockdown commenced because I know myself. I am not good at anything technical without much help so I am taking that class along with this year's syllabus. 

My professor was kind enough to find me a tutor to help me grasp the material before school begins. I would write that one extra examination along with my second year expected examinations. This did give me ample time and an advantage over the rest of the class because I have extra time and experienced assistance on my projects. I could score better marks. 

However, this did interfere with work a lot more than I thought. I have had to turn down interviews and appearances because they already conflicted with the schedule I had with my tutor and my personal study schedule. In as much as I want to be a chef, I want to graduate more, and so I understand that I have to be firm in my decisions and boundaries set starting now. If I change my schedule for one appearance or interview, then I have to change it for all of them. 

A few interviews are not going to set me back that much. I just have my priorities straight. 

Tonight I will be attending a dinner for young chefs here in Bangkok. My father is hosting so I have to go.

16/05/2021

I am not even going to lie, I am scared to sleep now. I am sleep-deprived and I am about to burn out. Between appearances and recording, I haven't even sent through a concept for my second solo cookbook. Luckily the manuscript for the father-son book is already in the final stages of proofreading and editing. We start printing in a few weeks.

My tutor is the definition of a killjoy. He gives me so much a heavy workload knowing I have a full-time job. Just last week I had five projects to submit to him. I have two weeks until classes start and I cannot wait to never see him again.

After a long day of sitting down for hours, my alarm notifies me that I can now stop working and go for a much-deserved run. As I stand up bones in my lower back c***k and snap back into place. The relief is amazing.

Walking past my kitchen, I see that leftover food from my live stream this morning. A South African-inspired Thai seven colors Sunday dinner. I went over beard and made so much food, it cannot all fit in my already full fridge and even if I tried. I could not eat it all. It is too late to take it to the security office here because I do not know the guys on night duty so it would be awkward to just go and give them food.  

"Well." deciding to sort it out once I get back, I change into my jogging clothes and grab my mask by the door from the box of disposable ones. 

The outside is very warm. I feel a sweat threaten to break as I jog down the stairs to the lobby. It got dark really quick today strangely, but looking at the clouds, it may rain. Stretching outside the gate of my apartment building, I attract an audience from a blue Toyota SUV parked at the gate across the street. It is also an apartment building but from my observation, they have fewer parking spaces so the tenants that come late have to park on the sidewalk. 

I ignore the car's headlight flashing because I will not just walk up to some random person parked on the side of the road. Seeing that I am clearly ignoring them, an extremely tall and burly man gets out of the vehicle and proceeds to walk towards me. I ready my pepper spray and the remote to open my apartment building's gate. "Ey, Tia! Tia, it's me! P'Mait!" 

Squinting at the emerging man the closer he gets, I notice the telltale dragon tattoo starting at the side of his neck and ending at the back of his hand. It really is him!

I run towards him and stop in front of his car before he gets any closer to where I am. "P'Mait. How did you even know it was me?" I ask curiously because not many people can recognize me from that far, or at all unless they really know me. "Well, you're kind of hard to miss. Your hair told me it was you. Also the scar on your calf. " P'Mait reminds me of that calf scar that I always forget about. I got it from a barbwire after I jumped the fence at school running from some bullies from his class. He was in twelfth grade then. He had stopped me and helped me sit down then proceeded to break a few of their noses. 

I found out that day that such a giant actually wanted to be a doctor. He helped me clean my cut in the first aid office and bandaged me up. He looked out for me after that. He was always lurking in the shadows of my classroom or the staircase where I had lunch. If looked especially sad or he was not busy, he'd have lunch with me. I had a friend of sorts. Sadly that did not last long because after a few months schools closed and the next term, he was a freshman medical student. However, nobody bothered me much after that. I was an outcast after that because nobody dared bully me knowing I was close to P'Mait.

"Oh, the blonde. How are you P'Mait? How's med school?" I ask trying to change the topic from me to anything else under the sun. Anything. He laughs at me and leans on his car door. "I'm good. Med school is okay but with this virus, we wonder if we will graduate. But, I want to know about you 'Best Seller of the Year'. You are constantly on my feed. How does it feel being a famous chef like your Pa?" Bowing my head down and looking at anywhere besides him, I try to think of a good answer. However, my head still hasn't wrapped itself around everything even though it's been a year. "Umh..... I honestly haven't wrapped my head around everything yet. I don't even see myself as a chef. This whole thing sort of got blown out of proportion." Trying to justify the situation as I feel kind of guilty. I know I had a leg up against all the chefs that have been working hard for a long time to have half the success that I have.

 "Hey, don't feel guilty for what you've accomplished. Famous parents or not, you did the work and the world fell in love with it. I always brag about the fact that you were my direct junior in high school and that you cooked delicious food of me back then." We both laugh at the early days of cooking for me where I made different meals and always brought extra for him and his friends. He always appreciated it and I was more than happy to make it. "You were being nice back them because looking back, it may have not been that good. I cook much better now." As he's about to reply, his phone pings and he quickly checks it. His smile falls as soon as he unlocks his phone. "Shit.", he whispers under his breath and kicks one of his wheels. "What's wrong, P'Mait?"

With a glum face, he looks up at his building then back towards his phone. "My dinner delivery order just got canceled. Just great. Noodles were not in my thoughts today." His disappointed face makes me feel bad for him. From what I remember he'd said even his mother was a bad cook so I knew he could not drive home and get dinner as I would have. Without even thinking, I speak and for a few seconds, wish I had not. "Well, I have a lot of food that I won't be able to finish from my live cooking class today. Would you like some instead of noodles?" Fidgeting with my fingers and kicking the gravel under my shoes, I await his answer. I do not dare to look up until I hear his answer first. "That would be amazing! Thank you so much!" Without even waiting for me to respond, he starts to walk towards the gate of my apartment building. I watch him until he's halfway across the street then my brain catches up and I run after him.

Once we reach the lobby, I lead him to the elevator and he says nothing until he sees me press the 'P' button. "Wow, the penthouse." He giggles from behind me and I just scratch the back of my neck. "I like to grow my own herbs, veg and fruit. I-It was the only unit that had a balcony big enough to do that." I try to justify and he just laughs at me. We wait for a few more seconds until the doors open to the foyer of my apartment. "Come in. You can put your shoes here." I point to the black carpeted area just outside the elevator door with a shelf of sealed house shoes. He takes his sandals off and puts on a pair. 

Realizing that I did not clean up after I finished studying I feel a little embarrassed. "Sorry for the mess, P'Mait. I just finished studying before I went out for that jog. Today has been a bit of a crazy day." I point to the recording equipment around my kitchen island. This open space living area is a bit of a downer when it comes to all the mess you make being visible no matter where you are.

 "Oh, this is nothing. I can barely keep my apartment decent for a day." We walk towards the kitchen area and my work laptop is open to my i********: page. He sits behind it and starts scrolling. Well, make yourself at home. I look for a big carry-on bag that can hold everything inside. Knowing all too well that I want him to take everything with him because this week I've got so much more food to make. Taking the biggest bag, I fill it with all the containers that are on the table. Once it's all packed and ready, I add a few bottles of S-Cola. They had given me a whole box and I'm not one to drink much acid and sugar.

 "There you go, P'Mait. I added some cola because the company gave me too much. I hope you don't mind." I hold the bag out to him and he takes it from me. Why am I so nervous around him? Every time.

P'Mait is around me I turn into that little kid again and I hate it. I wish I could be more confident around people like when I'm cooking.

Ruffling my hair, he takes the bag and starts to head for the door. I walk him to the elevator and watch as he changes out the house slippers for his own sandals. In the elevator, P'Mait smiles at me and puts his mask back on. We smile until the doors close. Walking back into my kitchen, I open the balcony sliding door and step out to watch exactly where P'Mait goes. Indeed, it's the building across the street. He clicks his keys and his car locks. Once he's in the gate it's kind of hard to see him until he's at the door. Watching him disappear into the building, I grab the watering can and start to water my plants. My balcony sort of resembles my garden at home but the owners were nice enough to let me use some of the rooftop space to put my bigger planting beds. They even have it fenced for me. "Hey, Babies. How are you all doing today?" I greet my plants as I water them. Touching leaves here and there or fixing stems. 

Taking a seat on one of the chairs out here, I take out my phone from my armband and check 'Food the Foodie' while relaxing on a recliner on the balcony. He's updated his story and I, all too quickly, open it. It's a video of him and the food I gave to P'Mait! "Oh s**t!" My heartbeat skyrockets to shocking speeds. I have no words until I read the caption. 'My brother knows Chef Tho's son. This is the meal from today's live class.' He even tagged me in the image. He tagged ME!!! Me. How? I thought he went to Australia after he got that scholarship. What is he doing in Bangkok? Wait. He lives across the street then! Food lives with P'Mait who Lives across the street!

I smile a little at the thought of seeing him. Even from a distance. I reply to the story just like most stories that tag me and say, 'Enjoy<3'

Sitting there's smiling like an i***t I know just what that means. I was never over Food and now that he's single again, my heart cannot help but fall in love with him again. Even if it's from afar.