A small parcel wrapped in fresh, green leaves lies at the center of my doormat, dividing the word “Welcome” into two syllables. The stark contrast between natural and suburban is not lost on me. I lean down and gingerly press my fingers into the leafy wrapping. The contents give a little under my fingertips. The little parcel feels warm to the touch. I pick it up in my palm, making sure not to squeeze too tightly, and sniff the wrapper to catch a whiff of what’s inside. The overwhelming scent of coconut milk and vanilla grass reaches my nostrils, conjuring childhood images of my mother puttering around the kitchen, making gising-gising for breakfast, or bilo-bilo for merienda.

It has been over twenty years since I last stepped foot in the Philippines. I moved here to chase an overrated dream of middle class comfort, leaving a country of poverty and lack for a country that knew only obscene excess. I lived comfortably in this little suburb for the first few months, amused by their culture’s oversensitivity and addiction to instant gratification. But soon I began to miss simple comforts that reminded me of home.

Mostly it was food: I missed the salty taste of patis and bagoong, the tang of vinegar and calamansi. And the rice. It seems comically stereotypical to say it, but it is an undeniable fact that the culinary world of the Filipino revolves around rice. We eat rice for breakfast, lunch, dinner. We use it in most of our desserts.

This parcel I hold in my hand, made precious by its scent of gata and kakanin—coconut milk and sticky rice—is a little pocket of home. I lift it up once more to my nose, breathing deeply. As I peel back the fragrant leaves, I think of Mom and of home. Of my titos and titas who have been begging me to come back—and for good this time.

As each strip of leaf falls off, the sweet, milky scent becomes stronger. I unfurl the last part of the delicate wrapping, revealing the delicious, delicate treasure inside: suman. The most common rice cake in the Philippines, our Dessert Zero. Usually, suman is off-white and scented lightly with gata. This one, however, is not as common. It is one of my mother’s specialties, pandan suman—rice cake flavored with vanilla grass.

An eye-catching, glistening green, the rice cake in my hand is peppered with little brown bits of coconut milk curd called latik. Some of the latik is embedded deeply into the sticky cylinder of sweet rice. I indulge my olfactory senses for a few more moments, revelling in the scent that I have not smelled in years. I take a bite, and it is soft with a bit of chew. I sigh in contentment, not caring where or whom this bit of heaven has come from. It is perfect. And so, for the moment, is my life.