By YOLANDA Z. SOTELO

THERE was a time when the world was young and I was younger. The sun shone at basically the same time it does now – just before six o’clock in the morning.

Whenever we (my sisters, brothers and I) wake up with the sun, there would be a bag of pandesal on the table and a pot of steaming coffee.

Pandesal then looks the same then as it does now, too. Brownish and grainy on the outside, white and soft on the inside. It sure tastes the same too (my brain’s blurry on that detail). Sweetish?

I remember the guy who went around in his bike with a tiklis full of pandesal. He had a tooter which he would continuously toot to make his presence felt in the neighborhood (Tooter then means that – an instrument that makes sound. Now, tooter means something else especially for those engaged in illegal drug activities. I’m glad pandesal still means the same).

I can’t recall anymore how much each pandesal cost then. Perhaps ten centavos?

There came a time when he brought big pandesal that costs twice or thrice as much as the small ones. My father was incredulous. Time is really getting hard, he shook his head. But at least he had choices – the small ones or the big ones.

Now, let’s go to that pot of coffee before it gets cold. I do now know if Nestle’ or other coffee manufacturers have come up with instant coffee then. Perhaps there already was but we can’t afford it. What I know was that we would boil ground coffee beans in a pot until its aroma fills the air. Hmmmm…

This we would pour in cups and put sugar in it. Was there milk? Yes, maybe the condensed kind. Or the powdered milk of the little ones (the younger siblings).

So there sexy girls, now you know my love affair with coffee started in my childhood. But the love affair, just like almost every love affair, has turned sour. Coffee gives me migraine these days.

Just like every Filipino and Filipina and those in between, we dipped the pandesal into the steaming cup of coffee, eat the (cleansed) pandesal and all is beautiful in the world. Simple life, simple joys.

But no, that’s not the breakfast for us. It is just the pre-breakfast. There would be rice and eggs and tuyo or some other viands which would constitute the real breakfast.

Fast forward to 2006. At 6:30 in the morning, I would have breakfast with my two kids who have to go to school at 7 o’clock. More often than not, there would be pandesal on the table, and a cup of steaming coffee. Instant. The kind you scoop from the container, put in the cup, pour hot water.

(Coffee has evolved, too, in that sense. There was a time that boiled coffee was for the masses and instant coffee was for the sosyal. Now it’s the other way around, although you need to have a coffee maker to really be sosi.)

But pandesal stayed the same. Many people still dip it on their coffee. I don’t anymore. I would rather eat it first, free of any fillings, then drink coffee. It would always be a comfort food for me. (Read more of me at http://myworld.prepys.com )