Lola Sensia's Magical Sapin-Sapin

Merienda with Lola Sensia

I will always associate merienda with my Lola Sensia and her magical sapin-sapin. “Magical?” you might ask. Yes, for everything that Lola Sensia cooked was magical. You might even say that Lola Sensia, herself, was magical. She was known to be a wizard in the kitchen, transforming the most ordinary of ingredients into the most sumptuous of dishes. Among all of her wonderful, magical creations, the most memorable was her sapin-sapin.

Imagine waking up after a restful siesta to the smell of boiling malagkit mixed with gata and sugar. You rush to her kitchen to watch the wizard at work. With a stainless steel spoon, shining like a silver wand, she magically transforms one portion of the white malagkit mixture into the color purple, which reminds you of freshly made ube halaya. Another portion, she magically transforms into the color yellow, which is similar to that of ripe langka. She retains the white color of the last portion, but gives it the sweet scent of condensed milk. When the sapin-sapin is finally ready, she tops it with golden brown latik. As your tongue comes in contact with a forkful of that scrumptious food, everything else magically disappears – the stern reprimand of your math teacher, the humiliating taunts of bullies in your class, the frightening barks of your neighbor’s Doberman. In that one moment, as you enjoy your merienda with Lola Sensia, the world seems to be a happy place to live in after all.

For all of her magical powers, Lola Sensia could never make herself speak a single word. She was always silent. My father told me that ever since Lolo Pedring died, Lola Sensia refused to speak another word. She was contented with expressing herself through her cooking. It never bothered us that Lola Sensia could not speak. Her food was a language that we could all comprehend.

Lola Sensia made every meal a magical event; but it was merienda, when the two of us were alone in her kitchen, that would always remain in my mind. It was the memory of those merienda sessions that would inspire me to write my very first short story – a young boy ate all of Lola Sensia’s magical sapin-sapin, and he lied to his entire family about eating all of it. As punishment, his body turned into the different colors of the sapin-sapin. After typing “The End,” I rushed to Lola Sensia and asked her to read my masterpiece. When she reached the last line, she began laughing as I never heard her laugh before. Then, she stood up from her rocking chair, took my hand in hers, and led me to her kitchen where she was going to prepare one of her magical sapin-sapin. Only this time, the entire bilao would be mine.

But there was no magical sapin-sapin, and there was no Lola Sensia. In reality, merienda in my childhood days consisted of a bag of Cheez Curls, a bottle of Royal Tru Orange, two pieces of Bazooka Bubble Gum and a 14-inch TV showing episodes of Care Bears and Street Frogs. Since the maid was always flirting with the security guard by the front lawn, my only companion in the house was a grandmother forever trapped in a wheelchair. A stroke had rendered her permanently immobile and incurably senile. She was silent, always silent. Her glassy eyes stared at the TV, but I knew she was not watching the anthropomorphic bears and frogs. Once, I tried to narrate to her my own version of the adventures of those bears and frogs, but her only reply was silence. In time, I learned to remain silent in her presence as well. This was merienda – silence between the two of us.

The rumble of father’s Mitsubishi Galant would signal the end of merienda. A slam of the front door later, father would appear in the sala, furious that I had left crumbs of Cheez Curls on the carpet, furious that grandmother had not eaten her merienda of mashed boiled squash. He would grab the bowl of squash from the maid and force spoonful after spoonful of the yellow thing down his mother’s throat. Grandmother would thrash violently yet silently, and only a hurl of curses from father’s mouth would silence her actions as well. Then, father would grab me by the shirt and pull down my shorts. He would throw me face down on the sofa; forcing me to remember the number of times he had warned me not to leave crumbs on the carpet. I would howl, begging him not to hit me, but father would not listen. He would never listen. As I felt the painful sting of father's leather belt on my buttocks, I turned my head to face grandmother. Her glassy eyes were staring at me, but she remained silent. Perhaps she was thinking of the day when I could finally replace these painful memories with happier words.

In the kitchen, mother and the maid would be chatting animatedly as they cleared away the remnants of merienda and prepared the family’s dinner.