10 surprises for your foodie mom on Mother's Day

Foodie moms are the easiest to please on a special day – whether it’s her birthday, Mother’s Day or on Christmas. If she’s into cooking special meals for you or she’s one who simply loves to eat, there are so many exciting ways to give her a treat these days. With lots of good new restaurants to try out, bazaars that offer one-of-a-kind food specialties and of course, recipes on the Internet that you can try for her, you shouldn’t run out of ideas on how to surprise her and make your foodie mom feel absolutely loved. Here are a few ideas to show her how much you care on this Mother’s Day: 1. Wake her up to the smell of bacon (or whatever it is she loves for breakfast). Start the day right for your foodie mom by cooking her favorite breakfast meal. It can be as simple as pancakes with bacon, longganisa with fried eggs and rice, or a simple “Continental” style breakfast of breads or croissants with butter and jam. Serve her all-time favorite breakfast meal with a hot cup of brewed coffee or tea and some freshly-squeezed orange juice on a tray for a breakfast-in-bed surprise that will surely earn you “pogi” or “ganda” points that would be handy the next time you come home late from a party. Set a nice little card and a few flowers on the tray or breakfast table to add a lovely touch to your surprise. 2. Bake her a special dessert treat. Whether it’s a cupcake or a muffin, a mini-cake, some brownies, or even just some easy-bake brownies, whip up something in the kitchen. It doesn’t have to be fussy or fancy. If you really aren’t much of a baker, even a boxed no-bake cheesecake that you can assemble easily in the kitchen will go a long way in making your mom feel adored (just make sure she doesn’t see the box of pre-mixed dough that you bought from the grocery). Just put your baked creation in a lovely box or container, tie with a nice ribbon and present to her after lunch or dinner. 3. Gather her favorite treats from the grocery and put them all nicely in a basket or a box. Foodie moms would love it that you know her favorite food treats. If you don’t, this is certainly the time to do some research. If she has a sweet tooth, put together a box of candy confections for her – some hard candy or taffy, a few bars of dark chocolate, marshmallows or whatever it is she can’t resist. For moms who prefer healthier treats, make her a basket of greens, vegetables and fruits along with a nice healthy salad dressing to go with it. You can also make a “specialty” basket for her, like a pack of pasta and jar of marinara sauce with a few herbs or maybe some fresh cheese for the Italian food-loving mom. 4. Buy her a nice, glossy new cookbook. There’s no better way to delight a foodie mom than with a cookbook that’s loaded with lots of gorgeous photos of food. Get her a specialty cookbook if she’s into cooking certain types of dishes such as pasta, soups, or desserts. It can be one of those celebrity chef cookbooks like Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food books or Giada Laurentis’s Everyday Italian. Or it can also be as simple as one of the Filipino food cookbooks where she can cook meals from everyday. If you have a little more savings you can part with, a really nice cookbook that has it all is the classic Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer. Although there are no photos in this cookbook, it is timeless and has all the recipes of food she would want to cook for the rest of her life--and yours! 5. Enroll her in a lifestyle cooking class. With so many culinary schools in town offering lifestyle courses that run for half a day, there must be one that your foodie mom would want to join. Browse the Internet for the schedules of cooking lessons offered by Heny Sison’s Culinary School, the Center for Culinary Arts Manila, the Center for Asian Culinary Studies, Maya Kitchens, Sylvia Reynoso-Gala and more. Choose a course that you think she might like and fashion a “gift certificate” that says she can enroll—and it’s on you! That way, she can make more delicious meals for you and your family. 6. Get her a subscription to a food magazine. Foodie moms constantly need to learn new recipes and be up-to-date on what’s out there in the world of food! What better way to let her indulge in her passion than with a year’s subscription to one of the local or foreign food magazines. This will give her lots of new ideas for meals and where to buy certain items or even just to let her know of good restaurants your family can try sometime. 7. Book a table in her favorite restaurant. If you’re really one who badly needs a copy of Cooking for Dummies, there is no other way to give your foodie mom a treat by making reservations at her favorite restaurant and taking her out to enjoy a nice lunch or dinner. Whatever you do, don’t make her cook on this day. She deserves a treat for making your meals day in and day out, whether she’s doing the actual cooking or just planning your meal schedule. Let her have a “day-off” from the task of making your meals even just on this day. 8. Go to a weekend market and buy ready-made specialty food that you can serve for lunch or dinner. Weekend markets like Salcedo and Legaspi Market in Makati or Sidcor at Centris Walk in Quezon City are havens of good, freshly-cooked and homemade food specialties that you sometimes can’t find in restaurants. There are organic greens and vegetables to make salads, international food like paellas, lasagnas, Thai food and even crepes, native delicacies like sinaing na tulingan, morcon, hamon, all sorts of inihaw favorites and more that you can find in a one-stop destination that is the weekend market. Try to complete a four-course lunch with delectable finds from the weekend market, set up a nice table and gather the family for a gourmet feast on mom’s special day. 9. Give her a cute kitchen tool or gadget. Nothing would inspire your foodie mom more than new pots and pans, bamboo cutting boards and ceramic knives, or even just a new handy gadget that would lessen the load of cooking your meals-like a battery-powered chopper, if you can’t afford a food processor. Houseware sections of department stores have nice little kitchen timers, colorful spatulas and other kitchen tools in fancy designs to make the kitchen livelier. If you’re all out of ideas or a budget, even a set of dainty kitchen towels and potholders or a cute little apron will get her cooking. 10. Make your foodie mom her very own cookbook or recipe kit. If you still have the time to do it and you’re in a creative mood – and you’ve maxed out your allwance -- why not honor your foodie mom with her own scrapbook of specialty recipes and those that the family loves? Gather her hand-written recipes, those that she kept or earmarked in cookbooks or those that were passed on to her by your grandma, type on nice plain bond paper or index cards, and add photos, if you have any. Bind them together or simply put in a nice index box that she can keep in the kitchen or within her reach when cooking. This is also a great way to document your family’s best-loved recipes that can be passed on from one generation to another. — KG, GMA News