“Six months after the end of the historic Marawi siege in 2017, I joined Assad to the scene of the destruction. His family home was gone, ruined by the daily bombings. The only thing left in what used to be the kitchen was a wooden mortar-striking a memory of the traditional cuisine he learned from his mother and grandmother. This book brings him back to his roots and to other places in his formative years, to Zamboanga, to Iloilo in the Visayas, and to the Diliman campus where a Thai woman's corner canteen elevated his affection for ingredients. With all the master chefs in his life- other women he's come across who know when to be sweet or spicy-and added by his training in economic theories and practices, he valued the taste forgotten in modern alimentation and concocted his own from his cherished land of Mindanao.” - Criselda Yabes, author of The Battle of Marawi