MANILA: When Father Buddy Agualada goes to celebrate Mass, he sometimes brings more than what he needs for the altar. At the request of friends and parishioners, he also brings some of his homemade specialties: laing, Bicol Express, and ginataang santol

Father Agualada is a Claretian priest, theologian, professor, author, and budding painter, with a licentiate and doctorate in Dogmatic Theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He teaches at the Loyola School of Theology, the Institute for Consecrated Life in Asia, and St. Vincent School of Theology.

But there is another side to this priest and scholar: Father Agualada loves to cook. And he cooks very well.

Cooking for a cause

Those who attend Father Agualada’s regular Masses know this, too. When he has food to sell, his customers know they are in for something lovingly prepared—and all for a good cause. The proceeds support a scholar and, every now and then, students who need shoes, uniforms, school supplies, or help with tuition.

“I cook because I love to cook,” he tells me. “There’s a deeper part of me that feels so satisfied, so contented, so happy when I cook. It’s not a task for me or a chore.”

“There’s a deeper part of me that feels so satisfied, so contented, so happy when I cook. It’s not a task for me or a chore.”

So he cooks, people buy, and little by little, he is able to help students and scholars. The process, he confides, is meditative.

Sometimes we think we need to have a lot before we can give. Often, we simply have to look at what is already in our hands. Father Agualada spoke of the simplest things: a meal, a little time, a smile, a prayer, a phone call, our presence.

In his case, it also happens to be a very tasty pot of laing.

When I asked him to tell me about himself, he said simply, “I am a servant of the Lord, a servant of God, and a servant of the Church and His people.” Because for him, service—and cooking, in its own little way—has become part of it.

A family of cooks

A smoky kitchen in Bicol was where it all began. Father Agualada is the eighth of nine children.

 “As a child, I would wake up to a very smoky kitchen,” he recalls.

With nine children to feed, practically the whole day revolved around food. Breakfast, lunch, merienda, dinner—and almost everything in it—was homemade. His eldest sister made polvoron that the family sold. She even made nata de coco from scratch.

“We’re a family of cooks, really,” he says.

“As a child, I would wake up to a very smoky kitchen…We’re a family of cooks, really”

His mother, Mercedes Grimpluma Agualada, was known for her arroz caldo (rice porridge with chicken) and estofado in their barrio (traditional stew). Sadly, none of the children thought to ask for her recipes while she was alive. They assumed there would always be another time to ask.

Father Agualada learned to cook young and continued cooking in the seminary for parties and community gatherings. Then came Rome. In 2020, while awaiting his doctoral defense, Rome went into lockdown. His international religious community suddenly had a basic problem.

Who was going to cook? The community asked who knew how. Father Agualada raised his hand. And that was that.

Here was a priest in Rome, doctorate almost in hand—and what everybody needed from him had nothing to do with theology. They needed to eat.

To love is to give

In Father Agualada’s life, cooking has simply become another way to give. The long process of cooking laing gives him time to think, pray, and be thankful. At the end of it, there is a meal to share.

So much goodness happens quietly. And through cooking, one small kindness makes room for another.

Father Agualada has spent much of his life studying, teaching, and writing theology. But the lesson he leaves us with is much simpler: Give what you have. Give it gladly. And luckily for Father. Agualada, he has the added gift of making what he gives delicious.