Mixed Love
by Nicole Hirt

Runestone, volume 11

Mixed Love
by Nicole Hirt

Runestone, volume 11

The Florida sun shot through the sliding glass doors, slowly baking the kitchen into an oven. We didn’t have a central AC unit, so a meager fan was our only source of alleviation from the heat. I wiped the sweat from my forehead and watched Mama with impatient eyes, wondering what on earth she could’ve dragged me from my cool room for.  

She plopped the plastic bags on the table, the smiling yellow faces printed on them crumpling into a frown. “We’re going to have halo-halo,” she announced. 

“Halo what?” 

“Hah-low hah-low. It means ‘mix mix’ in Tagalog,” she explained. “When I was growing up in Cebu, my siblings and I would eat it after mass. Not all the time, though—it was a special treat.”

I slid into a chair and rested my chin on my hand. “So why are we having it now?”

“Because I went to the Oriental market today, and they had the ingredients needed to make it! Besides, it’s so hot, and this is a cold dessert.”

“It has ice cream in it?” I said hopefully. 

Mama laughed and shook her head, her dark curls bouncing with the movement. “No, we couldn’t afford ice cream.”

“Oh.”

“But I can now!” she declared triumphantly, drawing a tub of ice cream from the first plastic bag. I peered at the picture stamped on it, which featured a scoop of ice cream as purple as Prince’s electric guitar. 

“Ube?” I asked dubiously. 

Mama corrected me, saying, “Ooh-bay.”

“What does it taste like?”

“Yummy.” Very helpful. 

She went to the cupboard, took out two large milkshake glasses, and placed them on the table. To my horror, the first ingredient she spooned in was a heap of beans, red and sticky with syrup. 

“Beans?” I exclaimed. 

“They’re sweet,” Mama said, as if we weren’t going to eat ice cream with legumes. 

Ignoring my protests, she reached into the fridge and pulled out a bowl of sliced mango, one of our favorite fruits. They slid over the beans, the golden meat a welcome color after the sludgy brownish red. She popped the lid off a jar stuffed with balls of bright green jelly (“kaong” she explained) and dished them in before topping the jelly with gelatinous white strings that resembled jellyfish tentacles. 

I blinked as she put in the first normal ingredient. “Shaved ice? Is this just a glorified snow cone?”

“No!” She paused, then reluctantly admitted, “Now that I think about it, maybe. But this is better.”

The ice was quickly buried under a hefty scoop of ube ice cream. Mama held up a can of evaporated milk and stated, “The final ingredient.”

Creamy liquid dripped over the ice cream and seeped into the halo-halo, beans and all. Despite the unorthodox ingredients, the rivers of milk mixed in with the flashes of purple, green, and gold made it look worthy of a food magazine. 

“Okay,” Mama said, handing me a large spoon, “now mix it, inday.”

“Huh?”

“Mix.” She placed her hand over mine, her brown skin blending with my tan. Together, we pushed through the ice cream and jelly all the way down to the beans. Then we mixed, stirring the concoction until it was a purple puddle with shaved ice and mango floating on top. Trails of ice cream dribbled down the glass, but we didn’t care in the slightest. 

Mama scooped a dripping bite and held it up to my mouth like I was two years old again. “Open,” she said. 

I did. 

The ube ice cream was sweet and coconutty, complementing the gelatinous strings that were, as it turned out, shreds of jellied coconut. My teeth crunched down on the shaved ice and juicy mango. Then came the dreaded squish of beans. Yet the hearty sugary mush was a delightful touch to the saccharine sundae. 

“So,” Mama beamed as I swallowed, “how does it taste?”

I smiled. “Yummy.”