I am writing this on a chilly afternoon while thinking about Bohol Bee Farm, a resort in the province of Bohol which Jeff and I consider as a sanctuary created by the Heavens and carved by a woman named Vicky.

Sometime in October 2012, I was eating two scoops of organic ginger-flavored ice cream at the Buzz Cafe of the Bee Farm in Panglao Island, Bohol province. Jeff was having a cold glass of kalamansi juice and we were just seated across each other, silent, not talking to each other, staring at the vast blue canvass infront of us. 

We met Vicky Wallace on that trip. I’ve known her before that meeting because my previous job was working on a possible corporate-community partnership with the Bohol Bee Farm and we were in the process of looking at possibilities for partnership. I introduced Miss Vicky to Jeff and right there, my favorite Boholana and my husband became kindred spirits as they found a common ground: the previous lives they lived in the island of Hawaii.

Miss Vicky lived and worked in Hawaii before coming home to the Philippines and convert what was then a thick patch of bushes on a cliff into what is now known as the Bohol Bee Farm. Jeff spent the early part of his career as a sports journalist in Hawaii, which he still recalls with fondness and excitement to this date.

 

Dalandan shake

In that 2012 visit, Miss Vicky invited me for a taste test of a dalandan shake recipe. “Gihatdan man ko diri gud ani Cris. Gisuwayan man lang ba pud nako, (The locals gave these to me. I am trying a new recipe with them)“ she told me.

It was sour but very refreshing on a humid Sunday afternoon. I asked for another glass.

We had a quick tour around the property. There’s a modest area where the herbs are grown, a big space where lettuce are raised (and you wonder how on earth do they manage to make these plants grow in a tropical environment). There’s an area where they keep some bees for educational purposes. Surrounding the entire property are gardens and plots filled with every kind of vegetable, flower, and herbs which they use in their dishes.

Dining at the Buzz Cafe of the Bohol Bee Farm is a refreshing, cleansing treat. No white rice in here as they serve red rice with sweet potato. Fancy an organic garden salad? Prepare to be served with a colorful plate of vegetables and flowers. Wait, flowers?! Yep, flowers! Miss Vicky says if bees suck their nectar, then they must be edible!

 

Muffins please

Leaving her American life for this life in a rural community where she farms and provides jobs for the local people was a decision that she never regrets. It’s easy to see it by the way she smiles, the happiness reflected in her eyes, and even the color of her sun-kissed skin which found it’s most beautiful glow in this place where the land and sea meets.

Tucked in this comfy little house in Kalispell, Montana back here in the US of A, I’m reminded of the smell of freshly-baked squash bread and the assortment of muffins (corn and carrot being my top favorites). Jeff and I left the Bee Farm with two loaves of squash bread with jars of different spreads (mango-honey, pesto, malunggay); one loaf was done before the boat left the Bohol port.

I can still remember the taste of their homemade icecream made with ingredients known to all Filipinos. Coconuy milk is used and no preservatives are added so they easily melt. The cone is made of cassava starch so that alone offers a different dessert experience. And at $1 dollar a scoop, you wouldn’t want to stop trying one flavor after another.

 

Babymoon

Around April of this year, pregnant with baby number 3, Jeff and I went back to the same resort and settled for brunch in the exact same spot. We ordered the same things – and more on our table because we were famished from the delayed boat trip from Cebu to Bohol.

I was staring at my husband of three years, grateful about the time we spent alone. Then he told me he learned to drive at the Great Barrier Reef and had seen the wonders of the sea from that experience. It was yet another great discovery about him; one piece of information that can only be best shared in a place where we can admire the beauty created by Heavenly Father and made possible by the bees and the wonderful hands and giving heart of a woman named Vicky.

I can’t wait to go back.