Summer memories.

I learned how to tie it very well to give it that fat look. I can still remember my mom’s read flask that helped the mixture slide down the plastic container. My personal favorite was mangoes diced well and mixed with milk. But I loved buko, chopped peanuts, and milk too. Summer brings me back to my memories of ice candy.

My Lola taught me how to make them. I got frustrated every time I fail to tie it perfectly. There has to be a little air in it. If not, it will look collapsed. It was my job to arrange it inside the freezer. I pull a chair to help me reach inside the freezer. At night, when everyone else is sleeping, I would lift the chair instead of dragging it; I ate my ice candy under the table. We weren’t allowed to have something sweet after supper, especially after brushing our teeth.

If it’s not ice candy, there’s dirty ice cream. It was sold for twenty five centavos per scoop. I usually had three scoops – mango, ube, and buko. It was heaven licking and slurping my dirty ice cream. The ice cream man would ring his bell to announce his arrival by walking. It’s different now; the ice cream man from Selecta plays his Selecta jingle, while he sits on his bike. Seventy five centavos became fifty pesos for two kinds of ice cream unless I buy the boys buko bar!

I thought of making ice candy, but changed my mind before I fully formed the thought. It is both a happy and sad memory. Do you know that feeling of getting used to doing something with someone and doing it again without that someone? You stop in the middle of doing it, and then you ponder, you think and then you miss the person terribly!

Instead of ice candy or dirty ice cream, I went to Chowking and bought their improved halo-halo. The ice they use now is finer and softer unlike last summer. Why would I go for just one scoop on top of the mixture of sweetened coconut, nata de coco, langka, mongo, ube, kahong, and a slice of leche flan! It won’t do justice to my halo-halo. One scoop of ube and mango is my perfect combination.

I looked at my halo-halo while my friend started eating hers. I thought of the summers I spent with L eating the not yet improved Chowking halo-halo. Our spoons would clash inside the bowl to fish out a particular ingredient. We split the leche flan in two and ate the rest happily.

I sat and looked at it for a good five minutes. I thought about my summers growing up eating and making ice candy with Lola, Lolo handing me seventy five pesos for my dirty ice cream, and halo-halo shared with L.

“Memories, I have so many of you.”