Arsenic and Adobo (Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery, #1)

by Mia P. Manansala

Besides, I hate seeing someone unsatisfied with their food. It means they’re going unnurtured. Unfed.”

In typical Filipino fashion, my aunt expressed her love not through words of encouragement or affectionate embraces, but through food. Food was how she communicated. Food was how she found her place in the world. When someone rejected her food, they were really rejecting her heart. It crushed her.

At his blank look, I added, “We don’t really use chopsticks in the Philippines. We mostly use a spoon and fork or our hands.” “Why?” I shrugged. I served food, not history lessons. If he really wanted to know, he could google it.

He responded by convulsing violently, then face-planting right into the dish.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been stared down by an elderly Asian woman, but It. Is. Terrifying. Don’t be fooled by the cute florals and jaunty visors—these women will end you, wielding nothing but their sharp tongues, bony elbows, and collapsible shopping carts.

Even someone like me felt utang na loob, that impossible to quantify sense of indebtedness and gratitude, to the people who’d raised me. But where was that magical line between selfishness and independence? Between my family and myself?

But still, all of these things pointed toward the Calendar Crew being right about something involving my personal life, and I didn’t know if I could bear that shame. Their “I Told You So” dance alone was enough to make me want to embrace the single life.

We both paused, knowing that wasn’t quite true. The law tended to work differently for people like us.

Or at least, he wasn’t as scared of losing his job as he was of angering the aunties.

I made it to Adeena’s fifteen minutes late, which in Brown People Time (BPT) meant I was actually a little early.

I almost said “just friends,” as if romantic partnership was superior to platonic friendship, but stopped myself. Adeena hated that term and idea. And I’d learned, time and again, she was right. There was no hierarchy to love.

“Yeah, Lila, who would do something super dangerous like spy on murder suspects to try and solve a case? Utterly ridiculous .