If there's one place I always seem to find myself when I'm stressed or bored, it's the kitchen. I think it started when Enzo was born and we'd put his playpen in this small space between the fridge and the light switches. I'd go there to play with him, chew on ice, or sit in the fridge for a couple of seconds to cool myself off on the hot summer afternoons.

I remember how this cooking thing started though. It was all because Tintin showed me how to make garlic and tomato pasta. I forget why she was in my house, but I remember being hungry and having nothing to eat, and Tintin magically concocting something with the few ingredients we had in the fridge. Her pasta was divine, I kept trying to recreate it: once with hot and spicy Century Tuna, which I served out to Lok, Gabby, Nika, Pat and Bianca (I THINK) and the second time with asparagus when I brought some with me to Real. Both were disasters my friends can never seem to forget. Lok reminded me of it a couple of months ago, and I forgot, as usual, until he described how spicy they were, and Josh who won't stop teasing me about how overcooked the asparagus was.

When we moved to Vancouver, I'd hang around the kitchen to de-stress. I experimented with a bunch of recipes. There was the "Mmmmm... this is good..." from my family with my yogurt with chicken for grilled chicken tandoori, and lemon, parmesan and cream for lemon linguini. (Yuck, now that I think about it, those were incredibly disgusting). Then there was the "ATE, MAKE SOME MORE!" or the "Nikki, gawin mo ulit yan pag nandito si Tito Mon!" which would always make my heart skip a beat. I can remember a couple of my hits: prawn and ginger dumplings, baked salmon, adobo flakes, tiramisu, various cookies, opera cake, chicken caesar salad and prime rib roast. The kitchen has gone from de-stressor to sanctuary for me. It's one of the few places I can forget about everything else, and just concentrate on making something, anything that will serve as an addition to the Ignacio family recipe book, if we ever do come up with one.

I've been going crazy over the past 36 hours because I can't stop thinking about the macarons I had at Lindt cafe. It went from "Ohhh, this is so good" to "Hmmm... Lemme google the recipe and see if it's do-able" to "I can't wait to go back to Vancouver and try this out!" I really want to make macarons. I can't stop reading about it that I've practically mastered the technique this food blogger from Vancouver wrote about in her blog (Macaron war, she likes to call it). Make the almond meringue mixture, let it sit for 20 minutes while heating the oven to 310C, macarons should form "feet" after 8 minutes, turn heat down to 300C once this happens.

And since I just found the brochure of the macarons they have at Lindt cafe, I just know that I can make something close to as good as the ones they serve there!

I miss my kitchen terribly, and I want to get my hands on a jar of fleur de sel. :(