It's Aaron's birthday today! To celebrate his birthday, he decided to cook a few Filipino fares that could make any Pinoy's mouth tremble in joy: the infamous sweet-style, Filipino spaghetti and grilled pork belly and ribs. Yum!
Being the best cook in the household, he was not relieved of his cooking duties. When I arrived home from work, he was already in the balcony grilling. He was done with the pork ribs and is then starting to grill the 2 big slabs of pork belly we bought from the grocery store the other day. I actually was able to smell the lovely aroma from downstairs.
While waiting, we just sat in the balcony talking about mundane things while he drank a cold, bottle of beer. He was already starting with the celebration.
Aaron loves to sit in the balcony. It's his haven in the apartment. But since his visit falls in a winter up to early spring and being a person who easily gets cold, I would usually just sit indoors and leave him be in the balcony while he savor the cold weather outside. We don't have that back in the Philippines. But today was different, it was indeed a lovely day in Melbourne. With the smell of the pork being grilled and the warm wind on our skin, we actually felt like we were back home. It just felt nice and familiar.
I went back inside the unit to do a few household chores while Aaron continued to grill. After 30 minutes or so, Aaron called me in the kitchen. He was already cutting the grilled pork belly into more manageable bites and asked me to taste it. It was heaven. I felt like I was transported back in the Philippines since it tasted much like what we have back home. Sweet, the skin crunchy and the fat and meat so moist.
Since our housemate is working in a donut shop, she also took home some donuts for Aaron. We almost filled our dining table because of all the food that we have and in turn, we filled up our bellies.
We celebrated Aaron's birthday with some good food and some feel-good conversation. No extravagance but just pure and simple joys. We really are getting old. We now prefer to cook-in rather than dine-out. We now appreciate more the little things in life.
And it is true: as long as you are in some good company, you would not choose to spend special days like this any other way. Us, together, is the only thing that matters.
You have just turned a year older since we got married and we still have a lot more to go. Here's to more birthdays to celebrate with you!