Editor’s note: This story originally appeared on Playboy.com in 2020.
Chicken adobo is pretty much the most famous Filipino dish. We have 7,000 islands in the Philippines, and different islands have different ways of making it.
When I was growing up, my dad did most of the cooking (and the dishes and the laundry; he was the best stay-at-home dad). My mom was the breadwinner—a teacher for 22 years who always had a side hustle, like doing sales for various products. For a conservative culture like the one I grew up in, the roles were definitely reversed.
I moved to the United States at 17 and lived with my mom in San Francisco. My dad passed away before we left the Philippines, so my mom learned how to cook basically everything he’d cooked. Four years later, I moved to New York City by myself. The first month, a cold March in 2005, I was so homesick; I just wanted something homey and comfy. I remember phoning my mom to say, “I’m craving your cooking!” So she basically told me how to cook chicken adobo over the phone, and once I’d learned it I was like, That’s how simple it is?
I’d never cooked anything in my life except boiling water for noodles or frying an egg. After that lesson from my mom, I started experimenting with omelets because you can mix and match so many different things. From the very beginning the concept was, What can I do that doesn’t necessarily have to follow a strict recipe? As I moved forward, I realized it’s just about understanding the base. Filipino cooking usually starts with sautéing garlic and onion, garlic and ginger or a combination of the three. Then you build it up with fish sauce, soy sauce, vinegar or even tomato sauce. As soon as I’d learned those basic ideas, I was like, You know what? I can do this!
I started sharing my chicken adobo with neighbors and friends. One or two drumsticks with white rice is so easy to cook, and I loved doing it. Cooking at home feels appropriate for this time, because you can make a lot so you’ll have leftovers. And you have options, which is especially important now that most of us are sheltering in place. If you don’t have one of the ingredients and can’t go to the store, you just swap in something else.
Perhaps most famous Filipino restaurant in New York is a place called Jeepney. Filipinos living in the United States are, by many counts, the second largest population of Asian Americans (after the Chinese), but our food cultures just recently entered the mainstream conversation. In the last couple of years, Jeepney led the way in cooking unapologetic Filipino food and providing a cultural hub for young Filipino Americans.
I had my August 2019 Playmate party there. They created a life-sized print of my Centerfold and hung it at the front of the restaurant. It’s home to me, obviously.
When the COVID-19 tragedy started happening last month, I reached out to the owner, who’s a dear friend of mine, and asked what I could do to help. We created a fund-raising video to help her take care of her employees and sell merch. And I just saw that they’re open for delivery now!
As told to Playboy’s Tori Adams.