PINGGOT ZULUETA
MANILA, Philippines — "Our first date was eating out in a restaurant in Quezon City. We enjoyed that together. And after that, we just kept eating out. Until the day she decided to kiss me. And that was when I knew, she was hooked. To save her from embarrassment, I decided to ask her to be my girlfriend.”
Chef Rob Pengson laughingly shares when he was asked how he courted his wife, Chef Sunshine Puey, who exclaims, “Of course not! That’s not what happened!” But he quickly points out: “That’s how I remember it, but she has another version.”
The truth is: it took him almost three months after they first met to ask Chef Sunshine out. The two met in 2006 during a photo shoot for a charity coffee-table book entitled “Wear Your Conscience,” which featured people in various professions, and the two represented the culinary industry.
During their first meeting, Chef Sunshine thought Chef Rob was just a kid in a chef ensemble. It didn’t help that Chef Rob was wearing cargo pants underneath his chef’s robe.
“When they told me that the photo shoot would take place in his school, the Global Culinary and Hospitality Academy, I was picturing a somewhat older chef. He owned the culinary school, so I thought someone old and fat. I was surprised when I first met him and saw how young he was. I was even impressed that he has so many accomplishments at such a young age,” shares Chef Sunshine.
For someone who has never imagined that he would be going out with female chefs, Chef Rob was mesmerized with Chef Sunshine’s simplicity and beauty.
“I thought she was cute,” Chef Rob says. “Most female chefs I know are a little bit rough. I seldom see a female chef who exudes femininity. So when I met Sunshine, I found her so cute, so refined that I decided to invite her to teach in my school, so I could get to know her more,” adds the celebrity chef who anchors with Love Añover the five-minute cooking show “Del Monte Kitchenomics,” aired on GMA News TV four days a week.
“But really, he just asked for my resume to get my phone number,” the lady chef teases, which made Chef Rob laugh and turn red.
After her classes were done, Chef Sunshine would mind her catering business, doing private functions at her clients’ homes, in their offices, or any location they prefer. And Chef Rob would always offer to help her. “We were helping each other out. She helped me with the school, and I helped her with the catering business. It was a good start,” says the celebrity chef.
All the while, Chef Rob was trying to find the courage to ask Chef Sunshine out. “During all those times, I would call her and ask her random questions like what do you think about these dishes, where to buy this and that, how to cook these dishes. I was making pa-cute to her. Sometimes, when I run into her in food shows, I would walk towards her and try to make small talk,” shares the self-proclaimed torpe chef. “The thing with me is I am torpe when I like the girl. But when I’m not into the girl, I am so confident naman. So after three months, nung hindi na ako natotorpe, I finally asked her out.”
In the beginning, the two chefs weren’t really looking for something serious. Back then, Chef Rob had just gotten out of a relationship, while Chef Sunshine had already decided to just date around. But things changed when she left for the United States.
“He just kept on texting me every day. He even asked me one day if he could call me, and I just told him that the signal was so poor I wouldn’t be able to hear him clearly. I was afraid that things were starting to look serious,” shares Chef Sunshine.
But despite her apprehensions, the lady chef was admittedly drawn to the celebrity chef’s boyish charm. When she came back home, all her fears faded. She knew in her heart that her fears were baseless. So, when Chef Rob asked her to become his girlfriend, she agreed without any fears or apprehensions.
Nine months later, sometime in December 2007, Chef Rob invited Chef Sunshine to have dinner at a restaurant in Intramuros. On the way there, Chef Rob was joking around inside the car irritating her on purpose.
“We already had a plan then, to have dinner at Ilustrado. But I kept telling her, ‘wag na lang.’ Then, I would change my mind and tell her ‘tuloy na kami.’ And I knew she was getting exasperated with me,” shares Chef Rob.
When they arrived in Intramuros, amidst the procession for the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Chef Rob declared to her that “I don’t want to be your boyfriend anymore.” And Chef Sunshine couldn’t take it any longer. And when she was about to say something, Chef Rob beat her to it and said, “because I want to be your husband.”
Whatever words Chef Sunshine were about to blurt out in that very moment were lost. Shocked, she stood there quietly, as if the wind was taken out of her sails. But when the moment had set in, Chef Sunshine could only say the word that would make Chef Rob the happiest man in the world.
Chef Sunshine remembers that they ended up not eating in Ilustrado. They went home instead. At home, she blurted out ‘I’m engaged!” to her family and cousins, who all congratulated her for the good news.
While most guys would think twice about popping the question just barely a year in a relationship, Chef Rob was so sure that he had found his "sunshine." While it may seem like everything was like a whirlwind romance, like a scene straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster romantic movie, it felt so natural for both of them. “When you know, you know. This seems cheesy, but it’s like Jacob imprinting on Bella’s daughter,” gushes Chef Rob.
When Chef Sunshine was asked why she said ‘yes,’ Chef Rob teases her and says, “Biological clock.” Chef Sunshine then counteracted, “Robert!” An amused Chef Rob says, “I was just teasing her. You’re taking so long to answer. You don’t know what to say.”
On the contrary, Chef Sunshine knew exactly why Chef Rob was "The One." As she explains, “At that time, he was a gentleman. He was so sincere. I never really dreamt of dating or eventually marrying a chef." Chef Sunshine felt that she and Chef Rob shared the same set of interests in life. "We sort of understood each other. Not only do we both like cooking, but we also like the same cuisine, and we have pretty much the same style of cooking. That was the big thing: finding someone whom you can blend with that way,” she says.
The two got married on July 5, 2008 at the Sacred Heart Church in Makati. After a year, the two chefs collaborated to establish The Goose Station. They consider it as their "first baby." The restaurant’s name is a play on the word ‘degustation,’ as the couple has a passion for eating good food. The Goose Station's concept takes inspiration from Chef Sunshine's catering business, which specialized in tasting menus. At that time, degustation-style dining seemed like an original concept in the country. The two then held monthly dinners for their family and friends at Chef Rob’s culinary school. Soon enough, they began sharing their fondness for the degustation experience to the public.
Today, both Chef Rob and Chef Sunshine are busy juggling and balancing their lives between cooking and parenting. They are parents to their four-month-old baby boy, Santiago.
ON BEING PARENTS TO SANTIAGO
He said: I don’t want him to become a spoiled child. I don’t want to bribe him just so he would stop doing something bad, like ‘Wag mong gawin ‘yan, ito candy.’ Some parents are like that. I think that’s a wrong value. Trust is more important. If you show the child that you trust him, he becomes trustworthy. I like to raise him through structured discipline built with trust. I want him to realize that when we trust him and he betrays that trust, it’s painful for us. I want open communication with my child. I want to do what is right for him. Sometimes, when it is more about discipline, it becomes fear. I don’t want to raise someone out of fear. I want to raise him with positive values.
She said: I think we pretty much agree on how we would raise him, on not being spoiled. But it’s hard to say, because it’s our first time to be parents. We really can’t tell how it’s going to be. In the beginning, we wanted to feed him based on a schedule. So we said, ‘Okay, we would do this. If he’s hungry, we just let him be hungry because we have to follow the schedule.’ But of course, he would be crying hard. So we said, ‘Never mind na lang.’ It is easier said than done. If you’re in a situation, you have to make certain adjustments. We want to be the best parents in order to raise a good person.
ON BEING MARRIED FOR THREE YEARS
He said: Maybe, it’s the transition toward marriage. It’s different when you’re just boyfriend and girlfriend. When you’re single, and when you fight with someone, or argue with someone, you can have the time to go home and calm down, and maybe meet each other later. You have to learn more about the other person and to be understanding. You should be true to yourself. I think if you’re too giving, you lose who you are. And it’s not good. Because if you do, the person s/he falls in love with won’t be there anymore. There should be a balance between yourself and the other person. What we learned in marriage is that it is important to know that there’s the husband, there’s the wife, and there’s the two of you together. Those are three different identities.
She said: I guess one of our challenges is that we’re not only married but we are also partners in the restaurant. In the restaurant, we have disagreements. We have a rule that nothing goes in the menu that we both don’t approve. Sometimes we have different styles, and we argue about that. Sometimes when we’re at home and we start talking about food and our business, it could be unpleasant. Every now and then, we have to remind each other to keep work and personal matters separate. We think that is very important because if there’s no line, there’s no respite.
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