‘In the Kitchen with Eartha & Angeles’ is a series on what I imagine it would be like to cook with my black and Filipino grandmothers, neither of whom I actually knew.
I don’t know what it’s like to grow up with grandmothers. I don’t know the types of lifehacks they pass down or the kind of comfort they provide. My mother’s mother, Angeles, died in the Philippines before I ever had a chance to meet her. I had to call my mother specifically for this piece to ask her name (“Angeles … you know, like Los Angeles.”), a testament to how little knowledge I have of her.
I was 6 years old when my parents divorced, and once my mother, sister, and I escaped Philadelphia, we never saw my father again. I only saw his mother, Eartha, two more times before she passed, and with the exception of a couple of cousins, I still don’t have much contact with my father’s side in Philly. I didn’t have a relationship with Angeles or Eartha, but I like to find inspiration in thinking about the three of us choppin’ it up in the kitchen, creating delicious food for our family.
This banana pudding recipe was developed in the spiritual kitchen I share with my…
