I’ve been slowly introducing V to eating raw vegetables this month, I guess it has been my fault that he’s not gotten to like eating more fruits in vegetables since we have been so forgiving of him when he refuse to eat them. We have reinforce the rule of having 1 bite of each food prepared during meal time, explaining to him that he will never know if the dish taste good if he never try and eating vegetables will make him stronger.

As a kid my cousins use to put all their veggie share on my plate and bully me to finishing all of them or else I’m not allowed to leave the dining table, thanks to our Manang’s who would only require me to finish a spoonful of my veggie share. Sadly I was not a big vegetable eater as a kid but I did eat a lot of fruits, it was not till my teens that I enjoyed eating them.

One of the vegetables that I refuse to eat is Ampalaya (Bitter Melon), and when I was force to have them my secret would be to drink a cup of water and swallow this bitter veggie without taking any bite. Our Manang Juliet prepares ampalaya with almost no sign/taste of it’s bitterness, she would always tell us “Ay naku tikman nyo yung ampalaya ko di mapait yan!” (Taste my ampalaya dish it’s not bitter) and she was right, that’s the time that I learned to enjoy eating ampalaya.

Whenever we visit our Lola Kaye in Pagsanjan, our Manang J always serve us this fresh salad and which she usually paired with fried Tilapia or Crispy Pata.