At the height of the pandemic, Abby Gosalves turned comfort food into a taste of grandma love.
Gosalves started Wowa’s Kitchenmade Love in October 2020, whipping up eggrolls in ingenious varieties based on her mother’s family recipe and offering it at food caravans around the Southland.
Her small business’ inspiration is her mother, Avelina Penaflor, who raised her children on sumptuous home-cooked meals and spoiled her four grandchildren with the same tried and true favorites.
“Wowa’s was inspired by how my nephews and nieces call my mom,” Gosalves, a resident of Duarte, said. “Wowa is a name derived from the Tagalog of grandma which is lola. We feature my mom’s Filipino cooking and her grandchildren’s favorites, so that’s why we named our business Wowa’s.”
Pandemic marketing meant traveling to smaller venues or social media pop-ups and offering curbside contact-less pickup in Duarte. But word-of-mouth raves have grown Gosalves’ homegrown business.
She and her husband Eric offer five varieties to their popular eggrolls: aside from the usual party favorites of pork and vegetable or chicken, Gosalves tweaked her mother’s recipe to include the why-hasn’t-anyone-thought-of-this-before lumpianisa. The lumpianisa is the combination of a longganisa (a Filipino sweet sausage) and an eggroll. It has since become Wowa’s biggest hit. Another variation is the sotanghon eggrolls, glass noodles with chicken meat and veggies inside the eggroll.
“We make our longganisa in-house, from my mom’s longganisa recipe,” Gosalves said. “Our lumpianisa is made from sweet garlic longganisa flavor rolled inside the lumpia wrapper, and it’s become one of our most popular products.”
I discovered Wowa’s at a mini-festival at Plaza West Covina, when I spied containers of Gosalves’ gourmet take on champorado, the sweet chocolate rice porridge I adored as a child. I’d resigned myself to making champorado from the processed mixes offered at Asian groceries, but the idea of as-close-to-homemade yumminess was intriguing.
I don’t need to know what’s in Wowa’s twist to the simple perfection of rice cooked in chocolate. But it’s delicious. Gosalves adds her own cream, dolce crema, to top it with. And yes, I ate the whole container and did not share.
“Champorado is one of my favorite Filipino comfort foods,” Gosalves said. “My best memories of food and champorado were during our summer vacations in our farm in Bataan, my parents’ province in the Philippines. From Manila, me and my siblings would spend our entire summer vacation on our farm where my Mom cooked different delicious food made out of the freshest meats, seafood and ingredients our province had to offer.”
Family time around the table included meals of “sugpo,” or tiger prawns, crabs, grilled pork and chicken, and of course, her mother’s eggrolls. The champorado made its appearance at breakfast and was consumed throughout the day. It was finished off at merienda, or afternoon snack.
“It always felt like a fiesta during weekends which we also spent with family and friends, whom my parents always invited over,” Gosalves said. “That’s why Wowa’s champorado and eggroll assortment reminds me of my fondest childhood memories.”
Wowa’s is fast becoming a crowd favorite at local food events and festivals. The couple join other food vendors, including Gosalves’ sisters, who offer their take on their mom’s embutido, or Filipino meatloaf.
The original chef is only too happy that her daughters are rediscovering family recipes.
“What I love most about my mom is that she is very doting, caring, generous and selfless,” Gosalves said. “She always prioritizes her family’s needs above herself. She makes sure the household is being taken care of while she and my dad are running our family business. Her love language is cooking.”
Gosalves hopes to offer more “grab and go stations” where customers can pick up their Wowa goodies, and eventually offer their frozen eggrolls and champorado in local groceries.
“It’s like having our kitchen extending to people’s homes, guaranteed to give you a taste of grandma’s cooking, always made with love,” she said.
Eggrolls start at $12 and a 32-ounce container of champorado is $12. Follow Wowa’s Kitchenmade Love on Instagram, www.instagram.com/_wowas_/?hl=en and on Facebook, www.facebook.com/wowaskml. For more information, 626-272-5670 or email wowaskml@gmail.com.