Deli Syosa

Knuckle-head

2011-11-07T15:57:00.000-08:00

Paksiw is not adobo. The true Filipino foodie knows the difference. Strictly speaking, the basics of adobo are boiling in salt, vinegar, peppercorns and garlic, then frying to seal in the flavors, then returning the meat to the original liquid. Adobo is usually cooked in a wok that allows the liquid to evaporate and create a thicker consistency. A true adobo does not have soy sauce.

Paksiw on the other hand does not involve any frying and is usually prepared in a stewpot.The best ones are cooked in claypots, though there is no prohibition against that for adobo.

Both however, have the same beginnings. Adobo and paksiw (whether fish or meat) begins in a liquid of vinegar (coconut is best) garlic, pepper corns, bay leaf and some water. Which would probably explain why some people confuse the paksiws that have soy sauce as adobo.

Both are Tagalog dishes, evidently as the use of native coconut vinegar marks a traditional Tagalog dish, as does the use of gata -- though famously shared with the Bicolanos. Which is not to say that there aren't any versions from the other regions, but that is a whole 'nuther article by itself.

A final comparison involves how foreigners see these two dishes. Some Chinese think that paksiw has origins in Chinese cooking, while the French see themselves in adobo. These are statements made by respective ambassadors at various functions. Perhaps it is because soy sauce has its Asian roots, while the method of lightly frying meat to seal in flavors is a traditional French technique.

Paksiw na pata is a household favorite because it is relatively easy to cook and may be left alone to -- pardon the pun -- stew for a while, while the cook attends to other things, like writing her legal briefs or blogging. Also, pork knuckles are relatively inexpensive and may be bought at cut rates in the market. At any rate, this recipe is my mother's, herself busy with her orthodontic practice when she raised us and remains a favorite everyday dish.

Paksiw na Pata

1 to 1/1/2 k pork knuckles
1 to 1 and 1/2 C vinegar (add as needed)
3 T rock salt
1/2 C water
2 t pepper corns
1 head garlic
2 bay leaves
3 T brown sugar
1/4/ to 1/2 c soy sauce
250 g banana blossoms
oregano powder to taste

Halve the vinegar and water, add half a head of garlic, one bay leaf, half the salt and half the peppercorns. Add the pork knuckles and bring to a boil in a stew pot. Make sure that the liquid covers the pork knuckles. If it doesn't, proportionately add more vinegar and water. Once boiling, reduce heat and allow to lightly boil in the covered stew pot for about one to two hours. Do not allow the liquid to dry up.

The resulting liquid will be scummy. In a second stewpot, heat up the remaining vinegar, garlic, peppercorns, bay leaf, salt and water. When the pork knuckles have become tender in the original pot, transfer them to the hot second. The first mixture may be thrown away.

When the knuckles are fully cooked, remove from the liquid. Add sugar, oregano powder and soy sauce, adjusting to taste. Return the knuckles into the mixture for another fifteen minutes or until the meat has imbibed the soy mixture. Add banana blossoms. Turn off the heat after about five minutes. Allow the paksiw to sit for a while before serving.

As with any Filipino dish, everything may be adjusted to taste.

Be our guest

2011-10-15T07:20:00.000-07:00

Filipino hospitality is not only a tourism catchword, but a reality. Practices like communal eating means that strangers who happen on any person at mealtime automatically gets invited to eat. And guests are always treated to the best any household can offer.

When I was young, I heard that in remote areas, one would proudly be served with canned food such as tuna or sardines. The members of the household would serve this delicacy to the guest because it is expensive and considered a rare specialty. Much later, I have discovered that this practice is still true. I had occasion to watch in envy as members of the household "made do" with a freshly killed native chicken stewed in tamarind leaves while I was honored with sardines -- a whole can all just for me.

The practice of treating travelers or guests with honor goes back to biblical times. Severe punishment would be meted to those who take advantage of a person who is not in his home town. In the middle ages, those who waylaid and robbed the traveler was called a highway man, the precursor perhaps of the expression now of highway robbery. Later they were called brigands and the crime, brigandage. The Philippine Revised Penal Code states:

BRIGANDAGE

Art. 306. Who are brigands; Penalty. — When more than three armed persons form a band of robbers for the purpose of committing robbery in the highway, or kidnapping persons for the purpose of extortion or to obtain ransom or for any other purpose to be attained by means of force and violence, they shall be deemed highway robbers or brigands.

Art. 307. Aiding and abetting a band of brigands. — Any person knowingly and in any manner aiding, abetting or protecting a band of brigands as described in the next preceding article, or giving them information of the movements of the police or other peace officers of the Government (or of the forces of the United States Army), when the latter are acting in aid of the Government, or acquiring or receiving the property taken by such brigands shall be punished by prision correccional in its medium period to prision mayor in its minimum period.
It shall be presumed that the person performing any of the acts provided in this article has performed them knowingly, unless the contrary is proven.

At any rate, canned goods being the epitome of gustatory delights for those in the mountains, in my visits there, I have taken to giving these as gifts, wonderfully wrapped in cellophane and sitting serenely in baskets. In my next visit I plan to bring the ingredients and cook pork and beans for them. Fortunately, I found this recipe online. It tastes great.

SOUTHERN  BAKED  PORK  AND  BEANS

 Ingredients :
 1 lb. dried pea or marrow beans
 6 c. water
 1/4-1/2 tsp. crushed dried hot
    peppers or dash of cayenne pepper
 Onion, sliced
 1 clove garlic, minced or pressed
 1 bay leaf, crumbled
 1 lb. lean salt pork, in 1 piece
 2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
 1/4 c. catsup
 1/4 c. molasses
 1 tsp. dry mustard
 1 tsp. salt
 1/8 tsp. black pepper
 1/4 c. minced onion
 1/4 c. brown sugar

 Preparation :

1.  Pick over and wash beans.  Put in large kettle and add water.  Bring to
 boiling.  Boil hard for 2 minutes.  Let stand covered 1 hour on
 stove.

2.  Add hot pepper, onion, garlic, bay leaf and pork.

3. Bring to boiling again.  Reduce heat and simmer 1 hour or until
 tender but not mushy.  Drain, reserving liquid.  Skim off fat.

4.To 1 cup liquid, add Worcestershire sauce, catsup, molasses,
 mustard, salt, black pepper and minced onion, mixing well.

5.  Put beans in 2 quart shallow baking dish.  Pour in the 1 cup liquid and
 seasoning mixture.

6.  Remove any rind on pork.  Cut in to 8 or more slices.  Arrange on top of beans.

Sprinkle with brown sugar.

7.  Bake uncovered at 400 degrees about 1 1/4 hours, adding more
 liquid if necessary, until pork and beans are glazed and nicely
 browned.

Rice for the Resurrection

2011-04-16T22:40:00.000-07:00

It almost seems as if the Holy Week penitential traditions have been replaced by pilgrimages to places of leisure., like the Passion being turned on its ear. Arguably, however, my parents would have thought that Holy Week trips with us kids WERE penitential traditions, since my brother and sisters could not conduct a conversation in less than ear shattering decibel levels within the confines of our Mitsubishi Galant. .

My childhood Holy Weeks were unalterably spent at home in Cubao. On Holy Monday, Lola would be host to the Pabasa (the Lenten reading of the Passion of Christ) and my Lolo's relatives would come in several jeeploads from Cabuyao, Laguna. Somehow, Lola would manage to produce enough chairs for up to about forty relatives -- mostly elderly females.

The singing would begin at about six o'clock, with about twenty or so participants. There would be no break, even for lunch, as it should conclude no later than five in the afternoon so that my various aunts, lolas, distant cousins and assorted relatives could make the trip back to Laguna by early evening. Instead, the singers would take turns, efficiently and discretely handling the changes without missing either beat or tone, nor making it appear that there has been any change in participants.

Come to think of it, when I was a kid looking at them, I would get confused identifying whose hand I should bring to my forehead, in the traditional greeting for the elderly. The lolas all looked alike to me. Many would be dressed in the maroon and cord garb of the devotees of the Black Nazarene.

In fact, the figure before which these women would sing, was a small antique replica of the same dark, suffering Christ that brings hordes of devotees to Quiapo. This same figure sits on my mother's altar with the cross removed from the shoulder and gently laid on the ground, in a nod to the belief that having a cross-bearing Christ in the home would be to invite similar suffering, that one would be also a bearer of heavy burdens.

For merienda, Lola would serve pospas, a rice porridge with chicken and seasoned heavily with ginger. What follows is not my lola's traditional recipe, but my hurried one, when I want to approximate the gingery, garlicky memories of my childhood.

Pospas

1/2 chicken chopped into cubes with the bone in

1 head of garlic, half of which is peeled and pounded, the other half chopped finely and fried until crisp

2 inches yellow ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped

1 cup malagkit rice

chicken broth

salt and pepper to taste

scallions

turnmeric

Boil the chicken in water enough to cover. Add salt and pepper. When the chicken is cooked, reserve the broth. Sautee peeled and pounded garlic and ginger and add chicken. Add the broth. When boiling add rice. When rice is nearly done, add turmeric, which gives the porridge its yellow color. When the rice is done, serve topped with scallions and fried garlic. Serve with fish sauce and kalamansi (Philippine lemon).

Breakfast of Champs

2010-11-27T22:53:00.001-08:00

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. I nearly always associate dinners with family affairs or dates and I've known some pretty painful ones. While I do love dinners with the kids, all kinds of drama tend to happen at that time. I mean check out all the soap operas. Wine tossing seems to occur in fancy dinners in all the telenovelas at least once in the entire storyline and twice if its a movie with Sharon Cuneta in it.

But breakfast, if one wakes up early enough, is the best time. Even if you eat with the kids they are too sleepy to snap at each other or pull any tricks, or they're rushing off to school or some other function thats a matter of life or death. They can't get picky.

Still, I like to have trimmings for breakfast and I thrive on traditional fare. So when one speaks of a Filipino breakfast, it usually begins with chocolate. Yeah, I love my country. There are all sorts of cultural reasons for indulging in everyday pleasures. Anyway, chocolate, either the drinkable kind made with tablea or that all time favorite, champorado. Strangely enough, in Mexico, champurrado is the traditional hot chocolate.

When speaking of hot chocolate, however, we say tsokolate e or tsokolate ah recalling Padre Salvi's code in the Noli Me Tangere where the tsokolate ah (meaning "aguada) is the watered down version given to the non-influential parishioners. The rich kind however can be further enriched either by adding a thickening agent in the form of finely ground peanuts or by simply adding more chocolate.

Tablea is made from roasted and ground cacao nuts. The province best known for it is Batangas and the variety that comes from Taal seems to me to be perfectly roasted. However, for really exquisitely formulated tablea, I have found one of the best in the most unlikely place -- Miag-ao, Iloilo. Trust the Ilonggos with their impressive culinary culture to come up with their version of this Tagalog specialty.

But champorado appears to be primarily a Tagalog treat. Though instant versions are now available, the best kind is always the one where you can control exactly how thick and how chocolately you want the result to be. Made with sticky rice, cooked gently with constant stirring, ground tablea and sugar is added in increments until the entire mixture is thick. Sugar and milk are best added at the table for individual tastes and also to prevent the watering down of the champorado as well as to allow it to keep longer. I have heard of some of the older folk adding thick coconut cream to their mix, instead of milk. Others use the richer and creamier carabao milk.

It is usually served with tuyo or any other form of salted fish.

Kain tayo?

Snack ideas

2010-07-01T00:03:00.000-07:00

I'm sort of fascinated at the idea of working overtime. I mean, I do it a lot, but since the office doesn't have a snack machine (I must have a talk with my partners about that), staying in the office for mealtimes such as dinner and late night snacks becomes sort a dilemma.

I have noticed that most clustered office areas are surrounded by malls and restaurants making food runs an integral part of office procedure. Twenty four hour convenience stores also make for great pit stops for emergency rations.

So of course, not all these places are created equal. Some taste better than most others, and there are the ones that put in the extra effort, either through service, better food, excellent interiors, eye-catching presentation -- even in some turo-turos. Since my law partner is such a gourmand for Pinoy dishes, we would be doing the office-going public a service if we go through these places. :)

So, starting next week, aside from the usual recipes, we will be doing the rounds of commentable fast foods, restos and turo-turo places.

Abangan!

Election Mess

2010-05-14T00:03:00.000-07:00

By mess, I am not referring to the trash in the streets as a result of this strictly Third World election style, although that would constitute one whole blog, I am referring to mess in the military sense.

Wikipedia (ok, so its not the worlds best source, but its pretty interesting to read) says:
"A mess (also called a messdeck aboard ships) is the place where military personnel socialise, eat, and (in some cases) live. In some societies this military usage has extended to other disciplined services eateries such as civilian fire fighting and police forces. The root of "mess" is the Old French "mes," portion of food, drawn from the Latin verb "mittere," meaning "to send" or "to put," the original sense being "a course of a meal put on the table." This sense of "mess," which appeared in English in the 13th century, was often used for cooked or liquid dishes in particular, as in the "mess of pottage" (porridge or soup) for which Esau in Genesis traded his birthright. By the 15th century, a group of people who ate together was also known as a "mess", and it is this sense that persists in the "mess halls" of the modern military."

I refer to the military sense, because aside from all the battle allusions spouted by our dear candidates, the first thing one learns as a candidate is that your campaign team runs on its stomach and feeding your volunteers is a paramount consideration. Thus, campaign headquarters are or ought to be equipped with kitchens for the daily feeding of volunteers who will be at your HQ in increasing increments of time until E-Day, er election day, that is.

In the alternative, other candidates contract out the feeding of their volunteers to outside kitchens. thus, we saw that McDonald's began promoting their big orders specials, just for election year.

The care and feeding of constituents is also the reason why the houses of old-time politicos especially in the provinces had the long tables and immense kitchens that were called to duty at all hours.

When the Spaniards began colonization, the Philippines was a society that relied on a mix of blood succession and merit. There was social mobility and general equality between genders. In the course of organizing, the colonizers assigned the cabezas based on existing leadership. So the ruling rajahs also became the political heads under the new foreign rule.

However, prior to Spanish rule, local leaders were expected not only to lead their nations, they were also expected to provide for them. This is because many of the nations or communities were family or clan based groups and were lead by a father or mother figure. Somehow, the idea of providing for their constituents carried over to the next form of government under the colonizers.

While we may have transitioned into a democracy, our people still expect politicians to provide for them, the way a father or clan leader would provide for his family. This kind of thinking is often disastrous when taken literally, so you have political leaders raiding public coffers to provide their constituents with free burial, baptism sponsorships, medicines, food, etc.

Many of the local politicians in the 17th and in the early part of the 19th century had houses that provided for constant feeding. Huge vats and ladles still seen in antique stores were used to make lugaw (a cheap form of rice porrige). Long solid narra tables was where most meetings would take place. Kitchens would have extensions for wood burning brick stoves and ovens that could handle large amounts of food at any given time.

Now that the election results are nearly all in, we can soon see which politicians did not fail the expectations to feed their volunteers. This is usually an accurate assesment of a winner.

Mother's Day Pancakes

2010-05-08T19:18:00.000-07:00

Everyone, it seems in on a health kick. This makes me wonder why it is I still keep baking these sugar rich food, but I'll stop the day people stop eating them. At any rate, I do get pangs of conscience and so lately, I've been incorporating more whole wheat as a substitute for regular flour. So I tried them first on the one thing you can't do wrong. Pancakes.

I tested a couple of recipes first but had to greatly modify them as they were really very watery and resulted in lumpy and thin pancakes. So I had to make my own.

If served with low glycemic coconut syrup, this makes for a low sugar (not zero sugar though) breakfast treat.

1 c + 2T whole wheat flour
2 1/2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
2 T granulated sugar
1 c milk (I use reconstituted powdered skim milk)
1 egg
1 t vanilla
2 T oil (use any oil you want, though I must warn that olive may not be well suited for this as its flavor may clash with the vanilla)
oil or butter for your pan

Mix dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl, whisk milk, eggs, vanilla and oil together. Combine with dry ingredients and mix until most lumps disappear.

Pour a ladle full of mix onto a lightly greased pan and fry until bubbles form and burst. Flip over and cook the other side.

Your first pancake will probably stick a little. But keep at it. By the time you flip it, your pan will have enough oil to resist the subsequent mixtures.

Baon Bread

2010-05-06T17:08:00.000-07:00

After a few more tries with basic bread which needs to be consumed right away, I've had to set my sights on the fact that the kids will be heading back to school in June. I would need a softer, more sandwhich-y type bread for the kids (actually just one kid na lang who is in grade school).

This bread is more typical. It has sugar in it so it produces a brown crust. The milk also softens the texture while making it still firm enough to hold sandwhich fillings. The picture at the bottom of the page is by Salvador Dali. My camera cable is missing and I can't download my pics yet. Sigh. The smell of this bread though, is the most comforting thing in the world. Oh, ok, maybe next to cinnamon.

3 c All purpose flour or 2 c all purpose plus 1 c bread flour
1 t instant weast
1 t salt
1/8 c sugar
1 c warm milk
2 T butter
warm water (if necessary)

Mix dry ingredients together. I usually use a sifter then, a wire whisk to make sure that all the dry ingredients are evenly distributed. Add the wet ingredients. Add water a little at a time if the mixture is too dry, until you get desired consistency. Make sure that the ingredients incorporate. If the dough is too sticky, add more flour, not sticky enough, add more water.

Pour dough on a flat, floured surface and knead for about ten mintues. Take special notice of the dough's transformation as you do so.

Return dough to an oiled bowl and let rise until doubled in size. This takes between 60 to 90 minutes depending on hot the day is. The hotter the temp, the faster the rise.

Shape the loaf and let it rise again until you get the desired size, but no more than one hour.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 35 mintues or until tapping the bottom of the loaf results in a hollow sound and when the bread springs back into shape if you press a finger also on the underside of the loaf.

This bread may be kept frozen for about one to two weeks then thawed before use.

Odds and Ends

2010-05-05T19:02:00.000-07:00

I found that I have been baking more often now, grabbing a couple of hours after work or in between writing assignments and photo shoots and court hearings. There is nothing like putting ingredients together and watching people devour what you have made, happily asking for more. Its almost as satisfying as hearing a "Not guilty" verdict.

Of course, there are failures too. The puto that was made with malagkit rice and not regular rice flour tasted like a cross between kutsinta and steamed coconut milk. The kids ate them anyway. Thankfully, they haven't developed gourmet tastes yet. Or that time I ended up misreading the label and using cornstarch instead of flour for my blitz torte. My son actually asked me to repeat that because he liked it so. He claims he likes the regular torte just as much, though. Maybe he's just saying that to make me feel better.

Then there are the web discoveries. Unlike our grandmothers' time when recipes were traded or learned painstakingly, the net has made sharing so much easier. Of course, every recipe you grab off the internet must first be tested, no different from when you try out the ones I post here. Lola also had to strive for authenticity. Thus, her dinugguan had to have very precise ingredients lest her guests think that she had taken too many liberties with the pork blood. Her tulingan had to be more Batangas than the Batanguenos, so she kept kamias trees in the backyard for that real fruity sour taste you can't get from vinegar.

We have it a bit easier in an era of globalization with certain foods acquiring a universal appeal and adjustable for local our household tastes. However, in general, I have found that recipes I discover on the web are pretty good except for slight adjustments for climate and temperature, bread dough rises faster in Manila, for instance than it would in San Fransisco.

Bread Winner

2010-05-02T05:26:00.000-07:00

I baked bread yesterday and I must admit that the smugness that makers of this home-made stuff is contagious. Most of my adult baking experience of late has largely been in avoidance of making bread. For some reason I always remember it as too much of a hassle when I was asked to bake bread as a teenager.

But as an adult, there is something satisfying with kneading dough with your hands-- its an almost hypnotic effect. Tony Perez would call it going into an alpha state or altered state of consciousness. I also think that it makes me feel like I am part of a tradition as old as agriculture itself.

The modern practise of breadmaking is credited to the Egyptians who turned the wheat berries into a paste and baked it so that it would keep for several days. The accidental application of yeast led to the raised bread forms common today. But until yeast was isolated as a separate substance in 1000 BC, the manner of reproducing leavened bread was by keeping a piece of the leavened dough of the previous loaf and adding it to the subsequent one. This method is still used today and is known as the sour dough method.

Bread was introduced during the Spanish colonial period to a largely rice consuming indigenous population in the Philippines. Though wheat is not cultivated here, flour is a steady and constantly available imported commodity.

Today, I baked a basic bread using only flour, yeast, salt, warm water and good old fashioned elbow grease. And it shocks me to no end that making my own basic bread cost me less than fifteen pesos. In subsequent posts I will be making more complex breads using additional ingredients like milk or honey or different flours like whole grain, corn flour, etc.

Happy baking.

Basic Bread
This recipe is for a light colored, plain bread that goes great with salted butter or jam. It is heavy for an afternoon meryenda, but diegests easily.

3 c All purpose flour
2 t yeast
2 t salt
1 and 1/8 cup warm water

Mix all ingredients in a bowl until the dough forms. If the mixture does not stick, adjust water by adding more. If the mixture is too sticky and clings to your fingers, add more flour.

Knead the dough on a floured surface for ten minutes and feel the dough acquire a silken consistent texture. Then form the dough into a ball, place it in a very lightly oiled bowl and cover bowl with a towel. Let the dough rise for about 90 minutes. It should double in size.

Punch down the dough and knead again lightly. Return to bowl and let it rise again for 90 minutes.

When the dough has risen again, punch down the down, knead lightly and shape into a loaf. Score the top of the bread by making long cuts on the length of the bread using asharp knife. Place the loaf on a lightly oiled cookie sheet. Allow it to rise a third time for about thirty minutes. Bake in pre-heated oven for 35-45 minutes.

The bread should have a thick crust and soft interior. Note that this bread's crust shall not darken not due to the absence of sugar. It is the sugar in the bread that caramelizes into a brown crust.

My Slow Coooker Died

2010-05-01T20:00:00.000-07:00

My slow cooker died. It was a new one. Brown outs are the direct cause. The indirect cause is the state of affairs of Philippine Energy.

This will be my only directly political statement on this blog for these elections.

Two things come to mind when I blog about Philippine food and culture -- the lack of its availability to many of my countrymen and the outrageous price of the fuels we need to cook it. And so I have one request to the politicians who claim they know all the solutions to our problems:

FIX IT.

It difficult to enjoy your food when you know so many of our countrymen are starving. Its difficult to cook when cheap fuel is not made available for you to source your food and cook it. It is impossible to cook when you can't afford many ingredients and it is all you can do to keep up with the cost of living.

I am not going to vote for someone who has stolen from government coffers. I will not vote for someone who can barely find his left foot and therefore cannot be expected to find solutions for hunger and energy issues. I will vote for someone who proposes solutions for agricultural workers and all their concerns. I will vote for someone who makes food security and energy self-sufficiency part of his platform.

That being said, I'm going to make bread today. Recipe will be up tomorrow after I've tested it.

Dr. Lee on Coconuts

2010-04-29T01:54:00.000-07:00

Coconut milk had been condemned in the past decades as deleterious to your health because of the high saturated fat and high caloric content, and it still is. But recent studies have shown that coconut milk has some health benefits as well. Coconut is quite abundant and inexpensive in the Philippines. Many people specially the poor depends on this food product for their daily existence. It's therefore not unusual to see many exquisite dishes prepared with the use of coconut milk as its basic ingredients. The Thais, Indians, Africans, Hawaiians, and of course the Filipinos have a variety of food prepared with the use of coconut milk. As a Bicolano, my taste buds longed for coconut dishes once in while. This is what I prepared two days ago and shared it with four other people with delight. Allow me to just simply call it coconut milk with vegetable because it is more descriptive.

Ingredients:
1 can of thick coconut milk
1 dozen of large shrimp with the head on, unpeeled
2 bitter melon, cleaned and sliced into bite-size pieces
4 oriental eggplant sliced into bite-size pieces
1 yellow squash about 2 to 3 pounds in weight, peeled and sliced into bite-size pieces
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 onion, minced
1 ginger root, minced
1 teaspoonful of peppercorn
salt to taste

Heat 1 tablespoonful of canola oil, add the ginger and garlic until it turns golden brown. Add the onion and saute the shrimp for a few minutes, remove from sauce pan and set aside.

Using the same saucepan or wok, boil 1 can of chicken broth and cook the eggplant, bitter melon, and squash until it is almost done. Add the peppercorn, coconut milk and shrimp and allow to simmer until the vegetables are well done. Add salt to taste. For a spicy dish, add red chili pepper according to your taste and desire.

Serve with freshly cooked jasmine rice.

Chinese cooking in the Philippines

2010-04-24T20:29:00.000-07:00

I am descended from Sangleys, the Chinese who settled in Cavite. My great-grandfather, Alejandro Lavina left Cavite and settled in Cabuyao, Laguna, in the late 1800s. This was a time of revolution and I strongly suspect that Lelong may have been either fleeing the escalating violence or he was running from the Spanish authorities who may have suspected some kind of Katipunan ties. The latter is more likely, as Lelong later joined the Philippine forces in the Philippine-American war.

But this was indicative of the times. The Chinese were merely tolerated by the Spanish colonizers who never really quite shook off their fear of the pirate Lima-Hong, whose forces successfully breached what they then thought of as the impenetrable Intramuros walls. When Filipinos finally took the reins of power, we were not much different in our xenophobia to the point where laws were enacted specifically targetting the Chinese, whos industry and parimony allowed them to undercut the average Filipino businessman's profits. The Retail Trade Nationalization Act was passed because of this.

Still, despite all that, Chinese culture found its way into mainstream society, and food like pancit, siopao, sio mai and the more modern pearl drinks became part of our own cultural expression.

Perhaps because Chinese food is so integrated into the Philippine cultural experience, cooking schools teach it as a regular part of their curriculum. I learned this recipe in the basic cooking course.

Shrimp on Toast

1/2 k shrimp
1/2 c Chinese rice wine
sesame seeds
sesame oil
3 eggs
1 1/2 c cornstarch
bread
1 t salt

bacon

1 t vetsin (optional)

Peel and marinate the shrimps in salt and wine for 3 hours. Pour sesame oil on it after three hours.

Beat eggs, then add cornstarch a little at a time until fully blended. Put shrimp into the egg mixture. Once fully coated, spoon shrimp one by one onto halved bread slices, Top with bacon and sprinkle sesame seeds. Deep fry until golden brown.

Sauce
1 small can pineapple juice
2 T catsup
1 t tabasco
1/2 c sugar

2 T flour

1 T vinegar

1/2 t salt

Mix all in a saucepan over low fire, until desired thickness.

For an interesting discussion on the origins of allegedly popular Chinese food dishes, check this site:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jennifer_8_lee_looks_for_general_tso.html

Pineapple Upside-down Cake

2010-04-23T18:09:00.000-07:00

Still on the subject of meryenda. This is an easy cake to make, no need to frost or ice and goes perfectly with coffee.

To make it, one can use instant cake mix for yellow cake and simply add 5 tablespoons of pineapple juice to the recipe and the topping. For those who make their cakes from scratch, however, I've listed everything needed.

Topping

In your cake pan, spread 1/2 c butter (I use butter compound) on the pan floor. Lightly grease the sides. Add 1 cup brown sugar and spread it evenly. Add and arrange about 8 slices of canned pineapples, drained. Note that if you put in too many pineapples the cake will not absorb the brown sugar topping, so I would adives one not to go overboard with the pineapples.

Yellow Pineapple Cake
2 c All purpose flour
1 1/4 c white sugar
2 1/2 t baking powder
1 t salt
1/3 c shortening (I use butter compound)
1 c milk
1 t vanilla
1 egg
5 T pineapple juice

Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the shortening and 2/3 of the milk. Beat at medium high speed constantly scraping the sides. Add remaining milk, pineapple juice and egg. Beat well then pour over prepared pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for about thirty minutes or until the knife inserted into cake comes out clean.

Turn pan upside down onto cake plate while still hot. Serve.

Mash-ups

2010-04-21T19:20:00.000-07:00

Leilani, a reader and friend has an interesting blood mix in her family: Filipino/Hungarian/Chinese/American/Syrian

To accomodate the various tastes, by necessity she must be creative. Here is one of her concoctions.

Slice a head of onion
8 or more gloves of garlic, in chunks
2 med sized tomatoes, chopped up
6-10 anchovies from a jar or can
Fresh & thin asparagus. cut up
Spinach
Slice grilled tofu into strips
Extra virgin olive oil or vegetable oil

Saute the lst four ingredients, adding the anchovies when tomatoes

are nearly cooked. Add the tougher end of the asparagus to allow it

to cook sufficienty. When halfway cooked, add the top part of the vegetable. Add the tofu slices and spinach, fold in gently with the mixture. Allow spinach to wilt, keeping its bright green color...Serve up with rice or potatoes.

Kain na po!

Blitz Torte and Meryenda

2010-04-15T09:04:00.000-07:00

Meryenda bridges the hunger between lunch and dinner. Inappropriately called a "snack" by the less evolved, it is more of a small meal for most Pinoys, something akin to a British high tea. In these modern times, they can be sandwhiches and juice combinations for children, while the more sophisticated have cake or pastry with afternoon coffee.

When I was younger, lola would make palitaw for me, or banana fritters that my yayas would call maruya. On Holy Week she would make pospas for the pabasa singers, and of course for me. While Lola had a modern gas oven in her 1950s remodeled kitchen, she also had -- not one, but two -- wood fired ovens in the back. One was the traditional horno made of brick and mortar, where she would do the heavy roasting or the light baking -- think bibinka for meryenda even when it wasn't Christmas. The other was what she termed an "American style" upright metal oven that looked like a lightweight steel safe without a dial. She said she used this during the war years.

But it was Lola, and later on my mother who firmly established the meryenda as a mini-meal, to be shared and prepared for with as much fanfare as the family dinner. But my mother had more modern tastes, so meryenda was usually something freshly baked, like her special honey raisin bread that only needed the faintest spread of butter for full enjoyment.

As I settled into a larger home and my law practise became more routine (if one can call kidnappings and murder cases, routine) I now have more time to spend making meryenda time reminiscent of lola's or Ma's. For meryenda, I bake cakes, like this one I learned from Tita Ruth (Guingona), called blitz torte. Its a light meryenda cake that will still allow you just enough room for dinner.

1/2 c butter
1/2 c sugar
4 egg yolks
1 t vanilla
3 T milk
1 t baking powder
1 c all purpose flour

6 egg whites
3/4 c sugar
cinammon powder
sugar
chopped almonds

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy but grainy. Add egg yolks one by one beating thoroughly in between. Add milk and vanilla. Then add dry ingredients. Set aside.

With an electric mixer set on medium high, beat egg whites until slightly frothy. Add sugar a little at a time, beating continuously. Keep beating until stiff peaks form.

Pour batter into two greased removable bottom pans. Pour merengue mixture on top. Top with chopped nuts, sprinkle with cinammon and sugar. Bake in 350 degree pre-heated oven until the cake portion tests done.

Cream Filling:

2T butter
1/4 c sugar
3 T conrnstarch
1/8 t salt
1 c milk
2 egg yolks
1 t vanilla

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir continuously until thick. While hot, spread between two layers of the torte.

Note when the cake is baked, remove one layer from the pan and set on a serving plate merengue side down. Spread filling on top, then top with second layer, merengue side up.
Others, however, serve both layers merengue side up as shown in the picture. Your choice.

Basic Chocolate Cake

2010-03-31T01:49:00.000-07:00

Very few kids can turn down chocolate. And even fewer can turn down rich chocolate cake. The bakeries will attest that it is the best selling cake flavor for birthday cakes and in some bakeries, even for wedding cakes.

My lola, mother, aunts, cousins and sisters all made chocolate cakes with slight variations on taste, usually on the frosting that is used. Cooking school teaches us that it is one of the basic cakes that aspiring bakers must cut their teeth on.

Basic Chocolate Cake

1 c butter

2 c sugar

4 eggs

1 c sour milk

2 c all purpose flour

1/2 c cocoa powder

1/4 t salt

1 t baking powder

2 t baking soda

1 t vanilla

Sift all dry ingredients together.

Cream butter and sugar (this works better and easier if butter is softened by taking it out of the fridge early) until fluffy but grainy. Add eggs one by one.

Mix in one part of dry ingredients. Alternate with milk, ending with dry ingredients.

Add vanilla.

Bake in 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until knife inserted into center comes out clean.

Glossy Chocolate Frosting

1c sugar

5T cocoa

3/4 c boiling water

1/2 t vanilla

3T cornstarch

1/4 t salt

3T butter

Boil water, then pour into a pan containing the sugar and cocoa powder. Keep heat on so water is just under boiling point. Keep stirring constantly. Add cornstarch and salt. When fully combined, take off heat and add butter. Spread over cake while hot.

To be or not to be

2010-03-25T01:41:00.000-07:00

"Whats wrong? Sometimes I also miss meals!"
Gloria Arroyo alleged President
when informed about the statistics of hunger in the Philippines

On my Facebook, there is a link to a site that shows the by now famous and award winning short film, Chicken a la Carte, by Ferdinand Dimadura. It traces food served in a fast food restaurant, turned into left overs, collected as pig slop and finding its way into the homes of an impoverished family in the slums, to be served as dinner. To say the least, it is painful to watch and difficult to forget, particularly the part where the family gives thanks to God for their supper. Despite the sometimes trivial and facetious nature of Facebook, I keep that short film on my wall because it keeps me grounded.

In a country where the statistics vary only on just how high the poverty rate is at the moment (it ranges from 60 percent to 80 percent, depending on whether or not the President is legitimate), it is sometimes ironic that I find myself writing a food blog. But here it is and here we are.

I know that this kind of writing is guaranteed to make people want to click off and go to some site where consciences aren't troubled by the starving. And I wouldn't blame you. I will eventually get back to writing about food and related matters, but I find it essential, at this time and just before Holy Week, to consider and ask readers to think just how much or how little trouble would it be, to give out biscuits to the old man or little girl tapping on your car window?

I know that we have bought into the canard that we should not give beggars anything because they may be pawns of criminal syndicates. But personally, I just can't. When someone begs me for something because they are hungry I will take it in good faith. The rule of evidence states that a positive assertion is generally acceptable as the truth, unless proven otherwise. And if an adolescent boy, stunted in height who sleeps in the streets tells me he is hungry, hell, I will assume that he is, and I will give what little I can.

Over one year ago, I took in a street child and allowed him to sleep in my house. There was a typhoon, and my son, who had befriended him asked me if this boy could stay even if it was just for the duration of the storm. The boy had been sleeping in jeepneys and making a living selling rags. My son and his friends had befriended him and sort of adopted him, but were terrified that their parents would find out.

That boy is still with me and has gotten great grades in school. I wonder what my life would be without him if others had not taken pity on him and given him just enough food so that he was alive when we came along.

Talbos ng Kamote

2010-03-11T08:30:00.000-08:00

Pinoys love to use food expressions. The more archaic of my law professors would reminisce about their own professors telling them to go home and plant camote in a successful attempt to further mystify their approach to jurisprudence. They also would still describe some of our more befuddled classmates as "nangangamote." Cliche though it may have been, considering how indispensable (and delicious) the sweet potato is, I wouldn't mind calling a spade a camote.

Dr. Lee is in again.

Sweet potatoes are easy to grow in the tropics all year round. In the rural areas of the Philippines, one can often find patches of sweet potato plants in the yards of almost every house or hut. The food values of sweet potato leaves are often under-estimated. Sweet potato leaves contains vitamins and iron as well as anti-oxidants. Fifteen compounds have been founds that could prevent heart disease, diabetes, some infection and some type of cancer, according to researchers.
Sweet potato leaves are not available in your average American grocery stores. In Houston, this particular vegetable can be found in Chinatown where there is a demand for it. It fetches a price four times higher than cabbage and napa, three times higher than oriental eggplant, bitter melon, bok choy, celery, and green beans. If you take the stems (which has to be discarded before cooking), that comes with it when you purchase it, the price is even higher. Yet, camote leaves, as it is called in the Philippines is considered a "poor man's food." Poor man's food or not, I love the camote leaves with gata and crabs. The spicier the dish, the better. I grew up with it as a kid in Bicol. Bicolanos are noted for their hot dishes such as the Bicol express.
These are the recipes for sweet potato leaves:

Salad: boil the sweet potato leaves for 10 seconds, remove and drain. Add a few slices of tomatoes and unions and use oil and vinegar for dressing.
Sinigang: just like any sinigang dish, try using sweet potato leaves instead of spinach or kang kong. Add slices of tomatoes, onions, green and red bell peppers, garlic, chilies, and slivers of gingers. For 4 servings, use 4 cans of 99% fat-free chicken broth. For sour taste, you have the choice of using lemon, or calamansi juice, apple cider vinegar, powdered tamarind or tamarind concentrate. The only problem with tamarind is that it will make the soup looked murky and brownish. Not an appetizing sight. Place your milk fish or bangus on top of the vegetables, and cook for 10 to 15 minutes. By doing so, you are part boiling and steam cooking the fish, thus retaining the sweetness flavor of the bangus.
Blue crabs or alimasag with sweet potato leaves and coconut milk: Clean about a dozen of blue crabs, discarding all the shells and legs and gills. Cut the crabs into two, saute' the crabs in lots of garlic, add a can of coconut milk and cook thoroughly. Add chili for a more spicy dish.
Sweet potato leaves can also be stir-fried with shrimp. Make you blanch the leaves first before cooking.
In the Philippines, we call a dim-wit disparagingly as a "camote" or worse, "camote na, may uud pa."

Next time you hear the word camote, run home and fix yourself a camote leaves dish.

Northern Eating

2010-03-08T23:05:00.000-08:00

Abra, in the North is home to the Itnegs and Tingguian cultural community known for their cotton weaving with frog embroidered designs. It is a rapidly vanishing cultural community largely to the vast denudation of its ancestral domains.
.
It is also home to part of the Ilocano nation, famed for its parsimonious though no less delicious cooking. Prof. Vic Torres writes about his culinary adventures in this part of the great Philippine North.

FOOD FROM THE NORTH
(A Small Adventure in Ilocano Food Culture)

Bitter is said to be the taste of the Ilocano palate. Probably because their lives were forged from the hardships of the mountain life. The patience of the Ilocano, however, has created a unique food culture from ingredients produced by the harsh highland climate and its rich soil.

My first taste of Ilocano cuisine started with what seemed to be the most common dish of that region to grace the Philippine table – pinakbet.

So far I had tasted pinakbet (or pakbet) cooked three ways. The only difference was that the ingredients used ranged the flavors from a plain meaty sauté to a fish-flavored salty.
The Tagalog pinakbet is oily because of the bits of fatty pork used for the sauté. Bagoong alamang is then added along with the usual ingredients of tomato, eggplant, ampalaya, okra and squash. This is the way my mother (a full-blooded Manileña) prepared it.

One of our maids before, a true-blue native from Abra, cooked two kinds of pinakbet : one made with bagoong isda and the other with patis. The latter was an alternative ingredient for diners who preferred a light, salty taste to the dish. It is also a safe substitute for those who are allergic to bagoong.

For a while, pinakbet seemed to be the only genuine Ilocano dish I was fated to taste in my lifetime as there are few (of which I have not visited) restaurants in Manila that served genuine Ilocano dishes. I hated traveling so that temporarily reduces my chances of visiting the Ilocos.

Until in 1995 when my wife Nikki, and I went on a trip to the North. Destination: Bangued, Abra.
This was a trip that had been planned for quite some time. I had been a father for a year now. Nikki was jobless but needed a break from the hassles of child-caring. And the baby had to be seen by her aunts and great-grandmother,

So, after much persuasion, I agreed to go to Abra. I must admit for an infrequent traveler, I was excited.
It took eight hours by car to reach Abra. Luckily, the traffic was still light. We left at four in the morning, Palm Sunday. Though it was the start of Holy Week, vacation from office work was still four days away. It was twilight when we arrived in Bangued.

Dinner at the house of Nikki’s grandmother was hurriedly-prepared dishes of nilagang baka, fried bangus and rice.

“How good is Ilocano fare in Abra?” I asked off-handedly. Manang Maribel (Nikki’s aunt) and Lola Esther (Nikki’s grandmother) were only glad to oblige in preparing Ilocano food for a “city boy.” I later discovered that Ilocano dishes were exotic enough that they had to wait for nature to “create” the ingredients. It was, as some food writers would describe it, frontier food.

There was hipon (pronounced “i-pon”) which was not the crustacean we are familiar with but a fish fry. They were no bigger than a pencil eraser. This species of fresh-water fish swims in large schools to the mouth of the Calaba River (one of the main waterways of the province) to the South China Sea in the first months of the year. The fishes change color from dark gray to white back again to gray during its migration to the sea and back to the river. It was during this transformation that fishermen anchored at the mouth of the river would lower fine-meshed nets and scoop up the yellowish-white fingerlings. These were then hauled to shore and spread out to dry. It is displayed in the market in small mounds and sold by the glass or evaporated milk can. Hipon turns a light brown when fried or a bright, orangey color when sautéed with onions and tomatoes. They have a buttery taste with just a tinge of fresh saltiness from the sea.

Another kind of fish was the palileng - a river fish sold skewered on a bamboo sticks. The number of fishes per stick depends on their sizes. There are usually four to eight pieces on a stick. Palilengs are roasted on an open fire until charred black and hard. It was a way of preserving the fish. Eaten plain, the flesh is tough and rubbery. Ilocanos prefer it cooked in a paksiw as the fish softens, bones and all, when prepared this way.
Bagnet is defined in the old Spanish-Iloko dictionaries as “something that is half-dried.” It also refers to the Ilocano dish of deep-fried hunks of pork similar to the Tagalog lechon kawali. Bagnet is so popular as an Ilocano dish that it is sold by the kilo side by side with the fresh meat stalls in the public market.

Preparing bagnet involves hanging and air-drying the meat thoroughly before it is deep-fried in oil. Water is splashed on the skin at the right moment to make it blister. Cooked to a crisp, the bagnet is then hung again to let the oil drip out. Storing is done with little fuss as it lasts a long time.

Chopped, the bagnet separates into succulent, flaky crisp pieces of skin and meat. Sometimes the tender, pinkish-white meat peeks deliciously below the browned skin. The Ilocano way of eating this dish is with a dip of sliced tomatoes, chopped onions and vinegar or fish bagoong.

Sinanglaw is a dish made of cow innards cooked with ginger, pepper and papait (bile). The result is a stew richly-yellowed by the bile and fat. One sip of the broth lets loose a mixed bitter, meaty sweet, spicy flavor very much like the papaitan cooked with goat meat.

But the most unforgettable dish I had was the one served to us by Lola Esther. Nikki and I found her one day sitting at the dining table before a small plastic basin full of water. Settled at the bottom of the basin is what seemed to be a mound of soil and tree bark flecked with white specks of what looked like insect eggs. Floating on the water were dead ants. Hundreds of them.

“What is that?” Nikki asked.

“Abu-os.” Lola Esther replied. “Ant eggs.” She deftly scooped out a handful of dead ants and debris. “We will have it for dinner.”

After cleaning, the ant eggs are then sautéed with tomatoes, onions and soy sauce. The resulting exotic dish resembles caviar only white in appearance. If one could get over the squeamishness of the dead ants still clinging to it, abu-os has a salty, slightly creamy taste to the uninitiated palate. It is a dish you have to acquire a taste for.

Other Ilocano dishes I had during my stay in Abra was imbaligtad. This was sliced lean pork and liver mixed with ginger, onions, pepper and a little vinegar (the Ilocano kind). A hot pan with very little oil is heated then the ingredients are dropped in. Cooking time is very short. Just enough to sizzle the meat brown.

Then, of course, there was dinengdeng. This is second only to being the common Ilocano dish to the pinakbet. Like the latter, dinengdeng shows the Ilocano genius in making do with the ingredients available to them. It is cooked with practically any green leafy vegetable that can be placed in the pot. Flavoring, such as bagoong isda, is added. The ingredients are then simmered together until cooked. My father-in-law likes this dish with bits of roasted fish like dalag for added flavor and aroma. The more roasted the fish, the better.

Novelist and National Artist for Literature F. Sionil Jose taught me a brief lesson in Ilocano food culture during a trip up north in 2001

Going back to Manila after an overnight stay in Ilocos Norte, we stopped at the town market in Sinait. Like almost all the small-town markets, the one in this part of Ilocos Norte was a low-roofed concreted space some distance away from the town plaza.

Jose pointed out the vegetable stalls. “You can identify the dishes in a place just by looking at the ingredients you can buy in the market. For Ilocanos, you can see the ingredients of pakbet almost everywhere.”
The produce were spaced out on mats and sheets of plastic sacks. There were piles of ampalaya and eggplants – the small kinds favored for stewing. Stalks of yellow squash flowers lay tied up in bundles. There were piles of red tomatoes; hunks of ginger root and bundles of red onions. There was a pungent smell of garlic – the strong-smelling kind that is grown in the Ilocos. Wreaths of this favored household spice hung from stalls where it is sold by the kilo.

A product sold on one side of the market was very conspicuous because of the stink it made in the place: bagoong. There were small barrels and pails of it sold side by side with bottles of golden-brown patis. Flies also buzzed heavily around the containers. One could not miss that side of the market – it stank to high heavens.

“Have you ever seen how bagoong is made?” Frankie asked me, “If you haven’t, don’t. You wouldn’t eat it once you saw how it’s done.”

There is one thing I noticed in the market: there were no meat stalls inside. All the fresh food were sold in an open space outside. Fish and meat were displayed on open boards. And like all Ilocano markets there was at least one stall selling bagnet. The meat hunks were literally stacked on top of each other.

What was unsettling for me about the place was the language barrier. Frankie was comfortable talking in Ilocano with his provincemates. It took only two words from me (magkano ito?) for the vendors to realize that they were dealing with an out-of-towner. One of them even mistook me for a Japanese. I decided to just shut up and let my companion do the talking.

He was soon shaking his head and laughing as we walked back to his car, carrying our bag of vegetables. “You stand out like a foreigner in an Ilocano market,” he said.

A fitting reminder on how one can still be an alien to his own country’s culture.

Adventures in Dining Out

2010-03-05T02:55:00.000-08:00

I'm not a superhero. But I do have one secret "power." I'm invisible to waiters. I could stand on my head, juggle with the plates, do the cancan and I would still be ignored. If anyone could die of starvation in a restaurant, that would be me. I can see myself now, all skin and bones carrying a sign, "died waiting."

Waiters, they say, are trained to be discreet and look towards the male of a couple. In my case, they do take it to ridiculous lengths, even if I dine alone. When I'm with a group, I usually raise my hand to call the attention of a waiter, any waiter, busboy, maitre d', anybody and I wouldn't get so much as a response. But if my companion even twitches his arm upward, you have a solicitous server whispering sweet delectables in his ear. Thus, I have learned to ask whoever I'm with for whatever I need to order. You do what you have to, to survive.

Which brings me to another problem. When I used to date -- back in the Upper Cretaceous-- I found that I tended to date guys who are irresistible to waitresses. They would banter with my dates, bring them water, unasked. We would get extra cream, sugar, freebies, and they would get some boyish smile in return. Usually I didn't mind, until one time, the waitress asked if he wanted take-out. She meant herself, of course. But she doesn't want him now that he's missing all his front teeth.

Which is why I love fast food places. They actually see me there. I love how when I walk in they call me "M'am/Sir" or that they ask me three times what name they would call me -- I usually respond with something strange like, "Marian Rivera" or "Demi Moore." When I'm in a particularly loving mood, I give my name as "Loch Ness" and then they go out of their way to deliver the food to my table, instead of calling me over to pick it up. Sometimes they add a funny toy to keep me quiet. Maybe they're hoping I won't break out of my lucid interval.

So there really is a lot of fun to be had in dining out. And its not always about the food, either.

Eat Your Vegetables

2010-02-26T00:46:00.000-08:00

Dr. Lee is back with travels and vegetables.

by Dr. Albert Lee

As an avid photographer, I usually have my camera with me whenever I dine out, be it in my hometown or abroad. In the many places that I have visited, getting to the kitchen to talk to the chef and watch him cook is not an obstacle. If the food is excellent, I tell the waiter/waitress to convey the message to the chef. Without fail, the chef will come out of the kitchen and thank me for the compliment. After all, almost everyone is proud of his/her work regardless of their profession.

In Amsterdam, I saw a sign in front of the restaurant that says, "special for today----fish head soup." I was intrigued so I went in to check it out as I am very fond of fish head soup. I later found out that fish head soup is a delicacy among Hungarians, so he said.

In Beijing, I was able to penetrate the kitchen to watch the art of preparing Peiking duck at the Peiking duck restaurant. This restaurant exclusively serve Peiking duck only. What a delight to see a spotless kitchen with charming chefs in their white uniforms. To me, they all looked like surgeons ready to do a major operation. As a matter of fact, the chef will carve the duck in front of the customers like a surgeon taking out a gallbladder----with ease and finesse.

Just a few days ago, I was invited to dine at an authentic vegetarian restaurant in downtown Houston. Looking around, I saw several dishes being served to customers close to our table which arouse my curiosities. I asked to see the chef and was pleasantly surprised by the eagerness of the chef to show me his kitchen. Soon, we were talking like long lost cousins and he was showing me how he prepares the dishes. Oh, what an artist he is! We had a hearty meal and I was able to take numerous photographs of his work.

Vegetarian food must be the healthiest food for humans. A vegetarian diet is nutritionally adequate. A person living on a vegetarian diet can add ten to fifteen years to his longevity. People on this diet has less chances of developing high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus, coronary heart disease, cancer, gallstones, obesity and food born diseases. In the United States the total direct medical cost attributable to meat consumption were estimated to be 30 to 60 billion dollars per year for the diseases mentioned above.

The vegetarian food derives its protein from beans and lentils-----kidney beans, lima beans, pinto beans, cranberry, great northern, garbanzo, soy, and black eye peas.

Soy has isoflavones such as genistein and daidzein, which act as phytoestrogens which inhibit tumor growth, lower cholesterol, lower risk of blood clots and lower bone loss. In contrast, grilled, cured and smoked meat and fish produce cyclic hydrocarbons and heterocyclic amines which are carcinogenic.

Broccoli, brussels sprout, cabbage and cauliflower has cancer protective properties.

Carrots, tomatoes, cucumber, grapes, cantaloupe and berries have all their unique benefits. Whole grains, flaxseed, nuts, garlic, turmeric, scallions, onions, chives, ginger, rosemary thyme, oregano, sage and basil are all known to have significant benefits for our body. Mushroom such as white mushroom, sheitake, maitake, oyster and enoki mushrooms are widely available through culture and these add to the flavors of vegetarian dishes.

People on pure vegetarian diets must take B12, vitamin D, calcium, iron and zinc supplements.

Egg Recall

2010-02-21T18:46:00.000-08:00

Memories are made of these... Papa was the early riser. A military officer, it was not unusual for him to be up at 4am. He would go out and buy a paper and read until breakfast. I can picture him in my mind, back to the window, enjoying the early morning sun. I would sometimes join him and he would give me the comics page to read for myself.

If it was early enough, he would make me breakfast. Everyone else would be asleep, so it wouuld be just the two of us. He would fry up the day old rice in flavored oil -- no history of heart disease in his family, so he wasn't above using the run-off oil from the rendered bacon.

He would pound a head of garlic, remove the skins and press the garlic cloves flat with the side of a knife and toss this in some heated oil (or butter) He would scrounge around for leftover meat or vegetables to add to the mix. My favorite was when he would put peas in it. Having previously separated the sticky rice, using his fingers, he would then toss this into the wok and keep tossing it around, so that the rice would fry in just a little bit of oil.

When this was done, he would fry up tapa that my mother would have already cured, mixed and flavored.

Last he would fry up an egg. Sunny-side up and flawless. He never liked the eggs burned, even slightly at the edges. He also would instruct the maids never to break the cooked egg.

Breakfast with him was usually a quiet affair, as he was a quiet man. But one practise I remember is how he would first put the egg on his plate, pile on the rice, then slice up the egg through the rice so the yolk would permeate. He would then add salt and pepper and eat this with meat or fish.

Years later, I would cook breakfast for my own kids and teach them to eat the egg with fried rice. Since I would prefer to live a little longer, I use vegetable oil in frying rice and instead of frying, I poach the eggs. But breakfast with at least one of my kids is a tradition of precious moments.

Poached Eggs

Egg

Water

Vinegar

Salt

Put water in a saucepan and heat until actively boiling. Add vinegar in 1:2 proportions to water. Add salt. When the liquid resumes actively boiling, crack the egg into the water. It usually takes about a minute and a half for a soft boiled poached egg and about three minutes for a hard boiled one. Remove egg from water with a slotted spoon. Repeat with the next egg.

THINKING FOOD

2010-02-19T14:59:00.000-08:00

My grandfather, Filimon Lavina (with an enye) was the eldest son of Alejandro who moved to Cabuyao, Laguna around the time of the Cavite Mutiny. Years later, Alejandro's great grandaughter (thats me) would speculate about his participation in that event.
Lelong Andong was a veteran of the Philippine American War, and, like many others of the time, would bring his baon to the battlefield, usually wrapped in banana leaves. During that time, wars were more civilized. Both sides would take lunch and siesta breaks before renewing hostilities in the afternoon. He would also go home at night. At least that is the kwento that got passed on down to me.
Prof. Vic Torres is a historian and professor in a prestigious university on Taft Avenue, who, coincidentally comes from my lolo's hometown. We haven't yet discovered any blood ties, but considering that Cabuyao really is a small town, I wouldn't be surprised.

Memories of Cooking in a Laguna Town)

“In fact, in the traditional Filipino school of
virtuous cooking, known as “mix and taste,”
rote measurements are disdained as inimical
to a true cook’s creativity. One simply knew
how to make superlative sweets from watching
them made in one’s house numberless times;
no one bothered to write down measurements.”
Luning Bonifacio Ira
“Sweet and Sour”

The Cabuyao I remembered in my youth was not the bustling, modernized fastfood lined streets you would see now.

The Cabuyao I knew then was a quiet town of Laguna - a two-hour bus ride from Pasay City where the BLTB bus terminal was. The South Superhighway then reached up only until Alabang. Going to Laguna meant passing through Muntinglupa (where the smell of roasting coffee was in the air near the Nescafe factory) before entering the first provincial town - Biñan.

Going to Cabuyao for me also meant tasting old-fashioned provincial cooking.

Cooking was one of the means of livelihood for my father’s family. Papa once told me how he earned money by selling buko and chicharon in Calamba (which, like the days of Rizal, was the center of Laguna’s economic activity). He would then deposit his earnings in a savings account that he dipped into from time to time to buy personal things. He would proudly point to one of the tocadors in their house saying he bought that cabinet with chicharon.

My father’s ancestral house in Cabuyao was located beside the town school. So they decided to put up a canteen managed by my two aunts. It was a high-roofed room that was annexed to the old house. One side was lined with counters with glass-covered shelves filled with kakanins, short orders and the menu of the day. The eating area can seat fifty students on long wooden tables and benches.

My childhood summer vacation days in Cabuyao meant eating three times a day (not including meriendas) in that canteen. A meal prepared for me by my aunts meant a mound of steaming rice scooped from a large pot on the stove onto a plastic plate and a pile of viands taken from trays in the glass shelves.

Every time there is a family occasion, my two spinster aunts Tita Ising and Tita Siani (Cha Ising and Cha Siani) would begin preparing food early in the morning. Preserves and pickles were made at least a week before. Kakanin was in stock for the two would cook a large batch for the canteen.

It was Tita Ising who woke up at four a.m. to go to the public market in Calamba. At around eight, she would return home with a jeepload of goods. A jeepload meant a lot for the jeepneys then were the extra-long, stainless-steel, twenty-seaters manufactured in Biñan.

A special pasalubong from Tita Ising was butchi - that fried pastry of glutinous rice stuffed with sweetened mongo beans or kundol . She would buy half a dozen pieces for me and my cousins. They came in a paper bag which would soon become stained with the oil the butchi was fried in.

The unloaded goods showed hints of the different dishes to be cooked that day – slabs of fresh pork and beef, chunks of cow’s liver for the pastel hubad (more on this later); bags of vegetables varying from leafy cabbages to sticks of ubod; the saucer-size circles of raw nata de coco swimming in metal tubs of fresh water; a dozen niyogs along with some macapunos; kaengs of green mangoes for the buro; paper sacks of malagkit rice to be ground into galapong – the base for some of the sweetened kakanin.

These were piled on the kitchen counter with the bottles of condiments and sauces. On one side were the plastic packs and cans of spices like pamintang buo, saffron, pamintang durog and rock salt. There were no pre-packed sauces yet. Everything was made from scratch. Vinegar was the pure, fermented coconut water or palm juice and not the chemically-treated ones. If bottled condiments were needed, the two cooks were not particular about any brand as long as everything was mixed properly and the final result tasted right.

Cooking in the canteen kitchen for a family affair meant lighting up six burners: four were from two table-top gas stoves while the other two were from two kerosene kalans with those tanks that you continuously pump to get a blue flame going. There were also open charcoal cooking grills and makeshift hearths in the backyard for the kawas and cauldrons.

The unforgettable flavors that I tasted from provincial cooking were sweet and sour. – sweet from the fruit preserves and kakanins that Tita Ising prepared; sour from the various buros and atcharas that Tita Siani made.

Preserves were a specialty of Tita Ising. I remember the kamias, siniguelas, santol (both pulp and skin) and even watermelon rinds that were collecfted in small plastic basins, waiting to be transformed into delicacies. Tita Ising rolled the kamias fruits with the palm of her hand on one of the wooden benches while pressing down to squeeze out the juice. What was left was a wrinkled, green mass like an elongated, wet prune.

For santol preserves, she peeled the rough santol skin then broke the fruit open to scoop out the pulpy seeds. Both rind and seeds were then placed in separate containers. Slits were cut into the siniguelas fruits deep enough till the knife point touches the seed.

Watermelon rinds required some work. Tita Ising chose the ones with thick skins. After slicing out the pulp (which we kids would greedily eat with red juice dripping from lips and fingers while spitting out the pips on plates or at each other), she then peeled the skin. Tita Ising showed me the greenish-white rind with a thin sheen of red pulp. “Peel it this way,” she said, “Leave some of the red pulp for color.”

The fruits were then soaked for a day in a solution of apog (powdered lime) and water. The measurement of the lime and water is a classic method of “mix and taste” cooking. Asked how much lime is to be used, Tita Ising held out her middle finger and press down on the first digit with her thumb.

“That much,” she said, “depending on the amount you want to cook.” Add a little more if you have more fruit. “Pangkunat lang,” she says.

After pickling in the lime solution for a day, the fruit is washed thoroughly then dropped in a boiling solution of syrup made out of equal cups of sugar and water. The secret is to literally pickle the fruits in the syrup. But not too long and not too short a time. Let the fruits stand in the syrup for a couple of days. Then it is ready.

The atcharas and buros of Tita Siani were easier to do. The secret for its delicious sourness is the timing.

The boiled vinegar must be of the right temperature: not too hot or the bottle will explode and not lukeward or the atchara will not pickle right. It should be just hot enough to semi-cook the vegetables (to remove its rawness) and then pickle it.

It is the same thing with her buros. In this case, it was either mango, mustasa or spring onion leaves. Except for the mangoes, Tita Siani always emphasized washing the leaves first in hugas bigas (rice washing). Then she pours in her vinegar-sugar-salt brew. The measurements were not exact and Tita Siani never mentioned spoonfuls or cupfuls. “It’s all in the taste,” she said. I often wondered how many experiments she made before she got the “taste” right. But the results were unforgettable. Her buros were a favorite sidedish in family reunion meals.

A traditional dish which served as both viand for meals and pulutan for the family drinkers was the pastel hubad (literally ‘naked pastel).”

The dish is almost identical to the Spanish pastel but without its thick, baked crust. The Cabuyao pastel was a mixture of cubed fatty pork, liver, carrots, pickles, soy sauce, tomato paste and the entire bottle of juice the pickles were packed in. No water and no other added seasoning. Just simmer the meat, vegetables and seasonings into a pot until the pork begins to render its fat. Add the tomato paste for color then some pickle juice until a sweetish flavor is obtained. No exact measurements. Again, mix and taste enriches the flavor fo the food.

Aside from the preserves, dessert was a sugary treat consisting of a glutinous rice cake we called sinukmani (biko to other Tagalogs), antala and halayang ube.

These three kakanins were cooked with the skill and care that only old-time cooks knew. The sinukmani and antala were made from malagkit, coconut milk and sugar. The malagkit is boiled in a pot then cooked in a pan with the milk and sugar. Sinukmani is made with brown sugar while antala with white (refinado). It is then stirred over a low fire until it solidifies into a sticky mass. Latik is made from coconut gratings and sugar toasted into brown sweet fragments. This is then sprinkled over the kakanins.

Halayang ube is made from ube tubers grated very finely. The violet mass is then mixed with condensed milk and sugar. Like sinukmani, it is continuously stirred over a low fire until sticky.

The difficult task in making these kakanins is the stirring of the sticky mass so it will mix properly. Tita Ising’s arms became beefy through the years of hard stirring she had to do. Aunts, uncles, cousins and even hired help would beg off from doing this. Now I could only smile and think how much good food can come out of hard work.

There were other dishes that graced the family table in Cabuyao. What I write here are the only ones I now remember. Sometime in the early 1990s, I wrote down the recipes of the preserves, atcharas and buros in a small notepad. Unfortunately, I lost the pad, misplacing it among the papers in the house. I managed to experiment on these recipes based on what I remembered and was successful in some especially the preserved watermelon rinds.

True to the tragedies of family recipes, the ones in Cabuyao have almost disappeared. Tita Siani died in 1998 while Tita Ising died in 2003. Almost none of my cousins inherited the perfection of Tita Ising and Tita Siani’s cooking. But from time to time, they experimented. I recently discovered that one of my cousins has duplicated the delicious pastel hubad. I quickly got the recipe from her. There will come a time when I would cook it myself. Maybe to relive a food taste from the past.

I guess it is enough to say food lives on.

Please be careful with my Heart

2010-02-18T17:09:00.000-08:00

Dr. Albert Lee's recipe for a heart-friendly dinner in this month of cardiac arrests.

Steam-cooking is the healthiest way to prepare food. Almost all the common vegetables in the market or grocery stores can be prepared by steam-cooking with ease without losing its nutritional values.
Among sea foods, fish is the most popular for steam-cooking. In my opinion, black grouper, flounder, red snapper, golden pompano, and sea bass are best suited for this kind of cooking. If live fish is available, that would be wonderful. Otherwise, the fresher the fish, the better. The best size fish, for practical reasons, would be something weighing around one and half to two pounds in weight. For steam-cooking, one would need a metal or a bamboo steamer.

Recipe:
1 whole fish, cleaned thoroughly.

1 bundle of scallions, cut lengthwise

1 bundle of cilantro

1 teaspoon of sesame oil

1 teaspoon of mushroom soy sauce

1 fresh ginger, cut into strips

3 cloves of fresh garlic, minced

salt to taste

Place the whole fish in a 1 inch deep platter, sprinkle it with salt and add the garlic and soy. Place the platter in the steamer, cover, and steam for about 20 minutes. To find out if the fish is cooked or not, insert a fork on the meatiest portion of the fish. If the flesh is flaky and not stuck to the bones, you know you are done. Otherwise, steam it for another 10 minutes.

Remove the entire platter from the steamer, garnish the fish with the scallions, cilantro, sesame oil and serve immediately. Steamed fish should always be served just before eating. This is one dish you cannot prepare ahead of time. Serve with steaming rice.

Love and Fishes

2010-02-15T18:14:00.000-08:00

I learned to cook in summer cooking schools. But I learned to live it, through my maternal grandmother, Paula Espiritu Lavina. She was born in a privileged family (they owned the first model T Ford in Marikina) of the de la Paz clan.

My great grandfather, however, died early before all his children had finished school. He was cleaning his car one day when it was hit from behind by a karitela. He was run over and died of gangrene.

Lola was the eldest daughter. Her older brother went on to become a lawyer, so lola studied and soon became a teacher. She spoke Spanish and played the violin. Her other sibilings finished school too, with her and her brother's help.

But her best achievements (for me) came after marriage to Lolo, Filimon Lavina. Lola's cooking was famous.

I will digress at this point to note that you may get horribly bored at the manner in which I am writing this. It sounds like any other pedestrian who likes to boast of his lineage because he has nothing else to commend him. These people have many stories of how great their ancestors were, how large their lands or holdings or -- this is what kills me -- the fact that they have foreign blood, the most common being Spanish or Chinese.

So as I started writing this, I noticed, with growing alarm that I have become one of those whom I have maligned under my breath. Those people who boast of relations to this or that hero, or of coming from a mestizo family. So I have taken great care to limit the narrations of how great my forebears are. As far as I can tell, I have no national heroes lurking in the family tree unless you count Lolo Imon and Papa's wartime exploits as guerillas. We do have the occasional criminal, failures, priests (I just had to throw that in) and dead ends. But I guess thats a story for another time.

My point is, it is one thing to establish pride for the past -- our country is glorious with it-- but it is also necessary to keep making successes too. It is also necessary to establish a credible past and one that is not fraught with colonialism. I'm not proud of the fact that my paternal greatgrandmother was probably sired by a priest, but there you have it. One cannot deny the green eyes. Its a fact. But being proud of light skin and a Caucasian ancestor as though it were superior is another thing altogether.

Ok, rant over.

Lola's cooking was well known among relatives. Her kitchen, a 1950s renovation had the best and latest technology, but she also had two wood burning stoves out in the back. The traditional brick and stone open oven and an American style iron one. She would buy the freshest ingredients from the market, opting to have chickens slaughtered in the backyard to guarantee freshness. Fish were checked for eye clarity, smell, plimpness and firmness. The backyard had fruit trees and herbs some of whose bounty went straight into the pot.

Lola's daughters all imbibed this love for cooking, with each of my aunts and my mother developing their own specialties, work schedules notwithstanding.

When I began cooking for real -- no cheating with store bought pre-cooked viands -- it was Lola who provided recipes and took me in hand for a step by step demonstration. And no matter how old I was or how infirm she had become, if I asked for her palitaw, she would find a way to make me some.

What follows is Lola's recipe for tulingan -- mackerel -- known as a Batangas specialty, but one which she perfected. Lola insisted on the real thing.

Method
Clean the mackerel and remove innards. Press the fish flat using a butcher cleaver and salt them individually. Line clay pot with banana leaves. Make a small tray or stand using barbecue sticks woven together and place it on the floor of your clay pot. Line the pot with sun dried kamias.

Arrange fish in clay pot (you may want to wrap each individually) making sure each piece is sprinkled with peeled and pounded garlic, pork fat and pepper corns. cover with more kamias.

Add water enough to cover, top with banana leaves and cover with clay lid. Boil slowly with low heat until 80 oercent of the water evaporates. Add more water and allow to evaporate again.

Some serve tulingan by lightly frying first, to seal in the flavors. The remaining liquid may be used as a fish sauce.

Love Pie

2010-02-10T00:08:00.000-08:00

We do know that Adam was tempted by Eve with an apple. Though archeologists would tell us that isn't likely to be so. Since the tale originated with the desert peoples/civilizations, Genesis' fruit of the Tree of Knowledge was probable a fig. Apples would not find their way to the region until much, much later.

Still, given that its heart month, the apple does look like it could be an ideal aphrodisiac. Its red, sweet, juicy and thus by salacious association, fulfills the main premise of Valentine's that love=sex. Hah. Women know better, though, they let men suffer the illusion until after marriage. Now, where was I? O yes, apples.

Nutritionally, apples aren't bursting with vitamins as most fruits are. But they do contain antioxidant phytochemicals. Dr. Barry Sears in his book, "The Top 100 Zone Foods" says "Apples are a good source of soluble fiber especially pectin which helps control insulin levels by lowering insulin secretion."

Wiccan traditions hold the apple in special reverence since it can be used in various spells. Think Snow White and her poisoned apple. However, I have known some grimoirs that consistently use apples for love spells. The simplest one goes thus:

Enchanted Apple Spell

Pick a half green/half-red apple when the Moon has waned three days. Breath upon its green cheek, rub it with a scarlet cloth, saying:Fire sweet

And fire red,

warm the heart

And turn the head.

Kiss the red half, put it later in another's hand. Who holds it shall weaken, who eats it shall be yours as long as you can keep them.

The Philippines imports all its apples, primarily from China, thus making the saying, "As American as apple pie" a dinosaur in a globalized economy, But, since apples easily deteriorate in a tropical country -- they require refrigeration -- many Filipinos enjoy apple in pastries and pies. This one is my favorite.

Apple Pie
Pastry
2 C flour
1/4t salt
2/3 C butter or butter compoound (cold)
water

Filling
5 large apples sliced (not too thinly)
1t cinnamon
1t nutmeg
1/4C white sugar
1/4C brown sugar
1T flour

Sift flour and salt together. Cut butter into flour until it forms pea sized balls. Spray with cold water and form into a ball. Knead very lightly only until the mix sticks together in one ball. Divide ball into two. Roll each ball flat and line pie pan, Reserve the other half for the top portion of the pie. Puncture with small holes or cuts, Keep cold.

It is important not to knead the pastry. This is not a bread. For the pie crust to be light and flaky, you will need an equally light touch. Remember to work quickly since butter melting into the flour will cause the pastry shell to be tough or hard. While doing your filling, keep the pastry in the ref.

Mix all dry ingredients together. Put a single layer of apples in pastry lined pie plate, sprinkle dry mixture over it. Alternate layers of apples with the mixture making sure all apples are covered. The top layer should be covered with dry mixture.

Cover with top pastry and seal the sides with your fingers or a fork. Make generous cuts in the top pastry so that the excess water will evaporate gently and preserve the flavors in the pie.

Bake in preheated oven at 400deg for about 40 minutes or until pastry is evenly light brown in color.

Valentine Opiates

2010-02-05T21:43:00.000-08:00

There is no lover like chocolate. He is sweet, dark, sometimes dangerous. He whispers softly as I unwrap him. He caresses my tongue and gently juices flow.
I smell him and he fills my mind. My blood races. Month after month, I crave him. Sometimes he comes with gifts, sweet cherry liquid, soft caramel, almonds...
I have no lover but chocolate...

Chocolate contains chemicals that reproduce the effects of marijuana. The combinations also produce a euphoric feeling sort of like falling in love.

Ellen Kuwana of the website Neuroscience for Kids says "Researchers at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, Emmanuelle diTomaso (she's now at Harvard University) and Daniele Piomelli (he's now at the University of California, Irvine) looked into the chemical components of chocolate. They found three substances in chocolate that 'could act as cannabinoid mimics either directly (by activating cannabinoid receptors) or indirectly (by increasing anandamide levels).'"

No small wonder then that chocolates form an intrinsic part of the Valentine's rituals. Although I must warn the readers that chocolate has a limited effect. The chemicals are not sufficient to produce actual marijuana-type "highs" or "euphorias." Maybe the flowers are contributory, and you need all the ingredients for the full effect. Nevertheless, I would not suggest a Valentine celebration without both chocolates and flowers.

For those who intend to stay home, though. One can be consoled with chocolate recipes. The way I see it, if there are enough cannabinoid-like compounds in your food, who needs a date?

This is my favorite brownie recipe -- no it has no opioids other than cocoa powder! Its pretty easy, I've been baking this solo since I was nine.

Ingredients

¾ cup butter (room temp)
1+½ cup sugar
2 teaspoon vanilla
3 eggs
¾ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
a pinch of salt (optional)
1/2 cup chopped nuts (cashew, pecans or walnuts) optional
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cream butter and suger. Add eggs mix well, then add vanilla. Add in all dry ingredients except nuts and mix well. Add nuts if any.
Grease a 13x9 inch pan. Pour in mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 to thirty minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool, dust with powdered sugar, if desired.

Sweet Tooth, Duck Eggs and Churches

2010-02-03T15:46:00.000-08:00

There is no truth to the rumor that Prof Vic is known as Torres the Terror to his students. In fact he's a sweetheart. Or at least, we know he must be partly made of sugar -- local, not imported. Today he shares his leche flan recipe.

Leche flan is a dessert I always love to cook. This is a recipe that my mother taught me using a bit of a shortcut method. The original recipe called for three eggs only and sometimes included the white of one of the eggs as a “binder.” However, the white leaves the custard looking like Swiss cheese so I shifted to using egg yolks only. Friends and family who had tasted it said it was better. I don't use grated dayap rind (although some say it gives the leche flan a bit of a bite) But then again, to each his own taste.
Modern technology has brought the steamer and the rice cooker to the kitchen which made cooking leche flan easier. If there's no steamer or rice cooker, I use a large deep pot in which I place an upside down ceramic or metal bowl inside to put the llanera on then pour in a glass or two of water. However, this takes a longer time to cook and one has to guard the pot constantly to prevent the water from totally evaporating.
Unfortunately, the two best brands of condensed milk in the market (Alaska and Carnation) seems to have cut costs and their product only comes out in small cans now. But I still use the medium-sized cans (300 ml, I think it was) of different brands of condensed milk and, so far, the taste was not affected.
By the way, don't ask me what I do with the egg whites. Never did figured out what to do with it. I am not in the middle of building a house or church anyway so there's no mortar to mix it with.

Take six eggs. Separate the yolks from the white. Store whites in the ref. Beat the egg yolks until a bit bubbly then pour in one medium-sized can of condensed milk. Stir until well-blended. Instead of adding water or additional milk, what I do is just I put a little water in the condensed milk can then stir to get the residue then pour it in the mixture.
Get a llanera then put in a couple of tablespoons of white sugar. Caramelize the sugar over low flame. Be careful not to burn the sugar or it will taste bitter. (Burnt sugar in leche flan is yucky.) Remove from flame and pour in egg and milk mixture before the caramel stiffens. Place llanera in steamer. If you are using a rice cooker steamer, use the measuring cup of the rice cooker to pour a cup and half of water inside the pot. Steam until a knife inserted in the custard comes out clean.
Loosen leche flan from llanera with a knife then turnover on a serving dish. Enjoy.

Vic's consternation over what to do with the remaining egg whites, notwithstanding, I couldn't resist reproducing this article I wrote for the inquirer.net, two years ago. However to those who do want something to do with the egg whites, I will be adding in a recipe soon for blitz torte, a merienda cake I learned from Mrs. Ruth Guingona, former Second Lady of this Republic.

Meanwhile:

An Omelet Heritage

A country without a memory, is a country of madmen. -- George Santayana

If all uninformed tour guides are to be believed, our churches are held together with cement and egg white like the confections they are. In my former life as NCCA’s legal conservationist, I’ve had some side-ripping tourist moments as some enthusiastic guide with more guesswork than research attempted to explain their history factoids with gossip and superstition.
Philippine churches are primary tourism targets and a booming industry surrounds them. Unlike many of their European counter-parts, these churches remain in use, and are thus showcases of continuing history. Over thirty of them have been declared national cultural treasures and World Heritage Sites.
Because of renewed interest in these structures, the informality of accreditation systems for tour guides (not to mention the downright politics of some of their appointments) and too few sources of information on the histories of both the locales and structures, too many have taken up occupations as “tour guides” using savvy business sense and not much else. The result is a disastrous mish mash of misinformation that often bewilders the educated and damages the uninformed.

A common theme among these guides is a small but significant footnote in the construction methods of these churches. Too many times, I have heard a guide say that the churches are made of adobe and were put together using egg whites, which gave rise to local delicacies like the leche flan. To my consternation, this was uttered during a local government-sponsored tour of Iloilo. The guide was referring to the sandstone Miag-ao Church, a World Heritage Site, which has no record of being built with egg whites and is nowhere near a source of adobe. We do know that it is held together with a lime plaster.

Lime plasters were mixed with various materials, according to the Philippine expert on ecclesiastical heritage, Ricky Jose, among them crushed shells, sand, lime, water, animal blood and yes, in some instances, duck eggs. National Museum restoration engineer Orlando Abinion adds that animal manure was also used in some instances. It is the duck eggs that perhaps led to the belief that egg whites were used.

Jose however says that the records are unclear on whether the whole duck egg or just its egg white was mixed in with the plaster. While there is no clear correlation between the building of the churches and delicacies made of egg yolk such as yema, tocino del cielo and leche flan, it’s certainly a tantalizing idea. This is not enough, however, to say that all churches are built of adobe and egg whites.
In fact, not all churches were built of adobe. Their locations usually determined the material to be used. Churches in Manila and some from the Southern Tagalog regions were made of adobe, which can still be sourced in these areas, the best of which still comes from Bulacan. When the Intramuros walls were being restored in the 1970s, new blocks of adobe were cut to fill in portions of the walls that had been removed. To ensure authenticity, the stone masons were trained to cut the adobe stone in the same manner as the original stone of the walls were cut.

In the Visayas and parts of Mindanao, many of the churches are made of coral stone, save for others like Miag-ao’s Sto. Tomas de Villanueva, which is of sandstone. Others are made of volcanic rock and still others were built using river stone held together with the lime plaster. Others were built with a combination of these materials and locally produced brick, such as those beautiful churches in Northern Luzon. If one looks carefully, the remains of the large hornos (ovens) in which these bricks were baked can still be seen on church grounds. The Tumauini Church is a symphony in various sizes of brick made for the purpose.
However, if we must insist that our churches were built with eggs, the records say that the dome of the Church of the Immaculate Conception, the former parish of the Intramuros now better known as the Manila Cathedral, was sealed in 1780 with a mixture of lime, powdered brick, duck eggs and bamboo sap, again according to Ricky Jose. Two hundred duck eggs are also said to have to have been used on a convento in Imus.
As far as old churches go in various places in the country, I hear many local tour guides who love to boast that their church is the oldest in the Philippines. However, if the church is not located in Intramuros, then it’s not likely to be true. According to curator of the San Agustin church museum, Father Pedro Galende, OJA, two churches were built at the time Miguel Lopez de Legazpi occupied the area that was Raja Matanda’s former fort, now known as the Intramuros.
These two churches were San Agustin and what is now the Manila Cathedral. The original church of San Agustin, made of wood and nipa, was built in 1571. The structure burned down in 1574 after the raids directed by the pirate Lima Hong. The structure that was rebuilt also burned down in 1583, when the draperies caught fire during the wake of Governador Ganzalvo Ronquillo. After the structure burned down again in 1586, the Agustinian provincial met with his council and they passed a resolution ordering the building of a stone church.
This stone church, whose construction began in 1591 was finished in 1607, is the same structure standing in

Intramuros today. It was declared a World Heritage Site and acknowledged as the oldest church in the country.
This bit of history notwithstanding, the funniest tour guide comment I have ever had the privilege to hear is this nugget from a Northern Luzon guide: “Our church is the oldest church in the entire country. Even before the Spaniards came, it was already there.”

Becher-de-mer

2010-02-01T07:27:00.000-08:00

Dr. Albert Lee is back with pulutan, having gotten a craving for it after reading Drink of Angels.
The doctor is in!
Becher-de-mer, the fancy French name for sea slugs or sea cucumbers, are marine animals used in oriental cuisines. it's called namako in japan, and balatan in the Philippines. In china, it is also called sea ginseng because of its "medicinal values." It is considered to be an aphrodisiac by some believers (I ain't one of them). It's a "yang" food (as in yin and yang). Sea slug dishes are usually served along with the other high-end Chinese food in banquets such as shark fin's soup, bird's nest soup, abalone, Peking duck etc.

When I was growing up in the town of Sorsogon (now a city) in Sorsogon province, Bicol region, Philippines, my cousins and I would go down the ocean floor during low tides looking for live sea shells, crabs, and sea cucumber. These items were in abundance then. I heard that nowadays this is no longer the case because of pollution. Peoples have destroyed the very habitat for a food source that have sustained them for generations. Many other places are suffering from the same fate. The Philippine coral reefs, so important in marine ecology, is partially damaged and will take decades for it to recover.

Sorsogon city has a pier called rompeolas where ships from Manila and other places docks and unload their cargo. On their return trips, they carry hemp and copra for export to America and other countries. The pier was also our favorite fishing spot where we used to catch rock lapu-lapu (grouper). We would spend hours fishing and dreaming about taking long voyages to far away lands. I wonder if the descendants of those fish are still living in those craggy rocks around the pier.

One does not need to wander very far outside Manila to see the ravages of human pollution. Look at the Pasig river that divides Metro Manila into two. The river used to be an important transport route during the Spanish occupation but is now so polluted it is considered dead by the ecologist. Ironically, the river is right in the backyard of Malacanang Palace, the seat of power, where, with political will something could have been done to remedy the problems during previous administrations. Rhetoric about rehabilitation was aplenty in the past but nothing was ever carried into actions. It is only recently, with public outcry, that rehabilitation is being taken up.
Sea cucumbers are usually harvested, dried and traded in places like China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea,and Japan. In Palawan, Philippines, sea cucumbers are being cultured and sold to the different countries mentioned above.
For home consumption, sea cucumber can be purchased dried or the re-hydrated type ready for use. Let's stick to the re-hydrated type for our home cooking because the dried ones will take days to prepare and I don't want to discourage anyone from trying to prepare this dish because of time constraint.

There are only a few basic items you will need to prepare this dish. Be adventurous and do it at least once just for the fun of it. If you have never eaten sea cucumber before, you may want to try it in a restaurant to see whether you like it or not before attempting to prepare it yourself. Gelatinous food likes cooked pork or beef tendon is also an acquired taste. I know of many friends of mine who don't care much about eating such stuff.

This recipe calls for the following:

1 kilo of re-hydrated cucumber

1 can of abalone, set aside the juice. Slice the abalone into thin slices

6 pieces of dried black Chinese mushroom, pre-soaked, ready for use

scallions, minced

1 tablespoon of soy sauce

1/2 cup of cooking wine

salt to taste

garlic, minced

Slow cook the sea cucumber in 4 cups of chicken stock for 1 hour or until it is tender, adding more stock if needed. Bring to a boil, then add the mushrooms, soy, cooking wine, salt, garlic and the juice from the canned abalone. When the sea cucumber is tender enough, you will notice that the juice will become gelatinous. For a thicker juice, add a teaspoon of tapioca flour dissolved in water. Put the dish in a platter lined with leafy lettuce (for good presentation only), place the sliced abalone on top and garnish with the scallions. You may also want to arrange the mushrooms around the platter for good appearance or some pre-boiled baby bok choy as the sapin. Serve with white rice. Sea cucumber is rich in iron, calcium, magnesium and zinc. Some people claimed it is good for people suffering from arthritis.
Kain tayo!

Drink of Angels

2010-01-30T22:09:00.000-08:00

The district of San Miguel in the City of Manila is genteel and old world. In the shadow of Malacanang palace, the houses are well preserved, though unlike their storied past, must now contend with growing colonies of informal settlers. At its heart is the Church of San Miguel where mass confirmations are regularly held. It is dominated by figures of the archangels with Michael predominant and triumphant over a serpentine Lucifer.

It is the district for which what is touted as "the national beer" is named. It was founded by Don Enrique Ma. Barretto de Ycaza in 1890 as La Fabrica de Cerveza de San Miguel. Barretto later took on a partner, Don Pedro Pablo Roxas, who brought with him a German brewmaster. San Miguel's brew won its first major award at 1895's Philippines Regional Exposition, and led its imported competitors by a five-to-one margin by the turn of the 20th century. The company was incorporated in 1913 following the death of Don Pedro Roxas.

The story goes that in World War II, the Americans pursued the retreating Japanese through Manila, but made a detour to free the District of San Miguel, before pushing on to Ermita and ultimately the Intramuros dead end. But it wasn't a tactical detour. The thirsty GIs wanted some of the beer. And they got it, after liberating the area, drawing them from the factory taps into their helmets. There was also an ice plant in the nearby district and that fit in wonderfully with these last minute plans.

It may have been just as well. The battles that followed go down in history as the bloodiest of that war, with civilian casualties soaring, particularly in the Intramuros. It was also during this time, when the carpet bombing of Manila increased in ferocity, with lamentable destruction -- the National Museum, for instance, took a direct hit and thousands of the country's artifacts and relics were reduced to ash and rubble.

The consumption of beer and other alcohol is so ingrained in Philippine customs, it comes with its own etiquette. An invitation to drink is extended to any person, stranger or not, and it is insulting to the drinkers, to be refused. Many a crime has been comitted in the name of such a refusal. Why this is so, requires some investigation, however.

For most Filipinos, eating and drinking are communal activities. Eating alone, even in modern times like today, will elicit unkind comments from the more traditional minded. In Tayabas, Quezon, there are particular phrases one must use to accept a drink, to pass on a round and to make one's excuses to leave the group. Failure to observe these practices rankle on the host and the other drinkers. Some theorize that ancient Filipinos were a classless society or one where mobility was always possible through industry and later, education. However, the growing class distinctions during the Spanish colonization, drew responses from the masses. An invitation to drink, when denied is considered an insult because person refusing is believed to be too snobbish to join in, or perhaps a bit wary of sharing a communal cup. Of course, the state of inebriation of the drinkers would also be a major factor in determining just how fatal the insult would be. .

Beer Making

Beer is made using water, fermented sugar, hops and yeast. Bryce Edding of about.com says:

Malt

Every beer begins with barley grain. Each grain is a seed and contains all the chemical properties to sprout into a full barley plant under the right conditions. It is the maltster’s job to manipulate this potential into a usable product for the brewer.
The process of malting barley involves tricking each grain into believing that it is time to sprout. This is easily done with a little warm water. The sprouting process activates enzymes in the grain that will later be used by the brewer in the mash. As soon as the barley begins to sprout the maltster quickly but gently dries it completely in a kiln putting the enzymes in suspension. The sprouts are removed and the remaining grains are sent on to the brewer.

Mash
When the malted barley reaches the brewer it is full of naturally occurring starches and the enzymes activated during the malting process. The brewer then takes the grains and adds them to a bath of warm water, typically between 148 and 158 degrees Fahrenheit. This is called a mash. It is at these temperatures that the enzymes are reactivated. A chemical reaction begins whereby the enzymes attack and break down the starches in the barley to simpler sugars. These sugars are the goal of the mash.
This is all done in a special brewer’s container called a lauter tun. The lauter tun is designed to contain the mash without leaking while being able to gently filter away the water through its bottom when the mashing process is complete. Lauter tuns are often insulated or use some other method to maintain a constant temperature mash.

Sparge
Once the brewer decides that most of the starches have been converted, which usually takes an hour or so, the temperature of the mash is raised to around 165 to 170 degrees Fahrenheit to halt the enzymatic process. Then the water is drained away and collected leaving behind a bed of grain. More warm water is sprinkled or sparged on to the grain bed at about 165 to 168 degrees Fahrenheit. This rinses more sugars from the grains. The water is then drained and collected with the original water from the mash. This water with sugars, unmodified starches and proteins dissolved or suspended in it is called wort.

Boil

The wort is then boiled. Boiling the wort improves the beer in a number of ways. It kills any enzymes remaining from the mash that could later make the beer unstable. It sterilizes the wort reducing the chances of contamination. It reduces the amount of water which increases the concentration of fermentable and unfermentable material extracted from the grain. The fermentable sugars will be converted to alcohol during fermentation and the unfermentable sugars and proteins will contribute to the final beer’s color, head, aroma, mouthfeel, and flavor.
Hops are generally added during the boil which extracts the resins and oils. Hops added early during the boil contribute a bitter flavor to the beer which is valuable because they add a balance to sweetness from the unfermentable sugars. Hops added to some beers during the final minutes of the boil contribute aromas and very little bitter flavor to the beer.

Fermentation

Next the wort is cooled to 46 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit for lagers and 60 to 78 degrees Fahrenheit for ales. It is then transferred to a sterile fermentation container where the yeast is added. Yeast is a living organism that feeds on sugar. The byproducts of the lifecycle of yeast are alcohol and carbon dioxide. At the top of the fermentation tank is an airlock that both allows the CO2 to escape and prevents foreign material from entering. It will usually take a day or two for active fermentation to become evident. Most fermentation is completed within seven to fourteen days.

Aging

The beer is then drained off of the yeast sediment that collects at the bottom of the fermentation tank and transferred to a secondary lagering or aging container. Ales are usually aged in the secondary container for one to four weeks. During this time any remaining material drops out of suspension clearing the beer. Aging also blends and mellows the flavors. Lagers are similarly aged for months, some even up to a year, at very cool temperatures.

Carbonation

The result is bright, or uncarbonated, beer. There are two ways to carbonate beer. Natural carbonation involves transferring the beer to it final container – bottles, casks, or kegs – and just before sealing it adding a small but measured amount of sugar. There is enough yeast that remains suspended in the beer that this little bit of sugar will be fermented. This will not significantly contribute to the alcoholic content of the beer but in the sealed container the second byproduct of fermentation, CO2, has no place to go and so is absorbed by the beer. This method of carbonating beer is popular among homebrewers that typically don’t have the equipment to force carbonate their beer. It is also the correct way to carbonate certain styles of beer such as hefe-weizen.

Forced carbonation is the method preferred by many breweries. Before the beer is packaged it is filtered and pasteurized. This removes or kills any yeast that might have been in suspension. It results in a more stable product than natural fermentation. The CO2 gas is then forced into the beer container before it is sealed where the beer will absorb it.

Cabuyao, Laguna Dinuguan

2010-01-29T15:59:00.000-08:00

Reader Jose Victor Torres is a historian, professor and part-time humorist on Facebook. Really. Check out his dinuguan memories, which for some reason, I share. My maternal grandfather grew up in the same town.
Warning: Do not read while hungry.

Cabuyao, with its traffic, convenience stores, and fastfood diners, isn't the Laguna town I once knew.
Old Cabuyao was a bucolic place with a Spanish colonial church and bahay na bato structures. There were still horse-pulled kalesas (carriages) mingling with the infrequent jeepneys on the main thoroughfare. A common street sound day and night was the clip-clop of shod hooves clip-clopping on asphalted roads that ended in dirt trails leading to ricefields and coconut plantations.

Old Cabuyao meant good, old-fashioned cooking.

There were atcharas - grated green papayas; peeled small, red sibuyas tagalog; white, pungent garlic cloves; thinly-sliced carrot rounds; and, red bell pepper strips pickled in a boiled vinegar and sugar solution.
There were kakanins - the sinukmani (boiled sticky rice with coconut milk and brown sugar) and halayang ube (grated ube tubers mashed and boiled with condensed milk) served mounded on oval, plastic platters.
But my most unforgettable Cabuyao fare is dinuguan - a dark brown soup chunky with the meat from pig heads cooked so unlike the thick, dry dinuguan dishes of other regions
Going to Cabuyao was a yearly affair. But ever since I got married and had my own family, these visits became infrequent. The death of the family cooks – two spinster aunts – some time ago meant the loss of the unique recipes I loved.
Modern things have, hence, come to the old town. The South Luzon Expressway made the trip from Manila and back easier. Subdivisions were now built on the ricefields and coconut plantations. More people meant more cars and jeepneys. Cabuyao grew from a quiet town to a city-like municipality. The old town’s not quite the same anymore.

I recently went back to Cabuyao for a family reunion. An aunt arrived from America for a visit and the relatives decided to hold a get-together in the backyard of the old house where I used to spend my summer vacations. The place once had a canteen managed by my two aunt-cooks, catering to students from a nearby school. But the school closed and my aunts had to shutter up their canteen as well although they continued to cook until their demise, sharing the benefits of old-fashioned recipes to aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews and nieces; and, later, grandchildren.

The house directly faced the main street and we got the full blast of traffic noise from the dozens of tricycles, jeepneys, and cars. I muttered to my sister, Lisa, how much the place had changed.

Merienda time. My cousin, Kuya Nato, came out from the kitchen carrying a stock pot. He set it down on a small table, removed the lid, and began to ladle the steaming contents into cups and bowls.
I recognized the dark, soupy viand. It was dinuguan, Cabuyao-style. Soup-cum-viand; our favorite snack. The sippy pulutan (appetizer) of the drinkers in the family. And, when the leftovers are scooped into clean jars and plastic bags, the delicious pasalubong (take-home food) for dinner and/or next day's breakfast.
Kuya Nato and his elder brother, Ding, were two of my cousins who preserved the dinuguan recipe. Although measured for a big party, adjustments can be made for small servings and tastes:
Boil a pig's head until flesh is tender. Remove head from the pot. Save the broth. Debone the head and cube the meat. In another pot, sauté garlic, onions, and tomatoes. Add the meat. Simmer. Pour in some of the broth enough to make the dish soupy. Add vinegar, the amount of which will depend on one’s taste.
Strain the pig’s blood in a bowl to remove clots. Slowly add the blood to the cooking meat while stirring constantly. If the mixture thickens, add more broth. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer until done. For a spicier dish, add long green chili peppers.

I took a spoonful of the dinuguan. The meat was chewy. The black soup had a subtle hint of vinegar sourness. Then, for a moment, the traffic noise across the house disappeared. There was only the sound of kalesas. The bells from the tower of the old church began to ring - a slow, low clanging marking the end and the beginning of another hour. It was summer vacation and I could hear one of my spinster aunts puttering around the kitchen preparing the day's menu.

The old town has come alive again.

Reader's Recipes

2010-01-28T01:38:00.000-08:00

Food floods our memories nd trigger sensations -- little wonder that there are so many eating disorders. Pinoys are perhaps one of the most food-centric people in the world. Government employees can attest to the fact that no meeting can be held without at least a token attempt to serve food. Greetings are usually succeeded with a "Kumain ka na ba?" (Have you eaten?). Eating alone is taboo and chancing on a person who is eating necessitates the eater to invite the other to partake of the meal with the traditional, "Kain tayo?" (Lets eat?).

Readers of this blog have been excitedly sharing their recipes and memories. Today Bong David shares his Lola's casual bangus and Dr. Alberto Lee is back with

Lola Abe's Bangus

Bong David

Season banugs. Then marinade (2 heads chopped and bellies in small cubes) in little vinegar. After a while (30 mins) sautee with garlic, onions, little tomato, 2 big green chili. Then pour water boil add dahon ng sili simmer and done.

Sorry about the other specific amounts. Use own judgement. Hope you like it as I do. Thanks.

Bitter melon soup, anyone?
By. Dr. Alberto Lee
Bitter melon, better known in Tagalog as ampalaya, is a common produce sold in manila markets and grocery stores. in Houston, it is easily accessible in Chinatown. Bitter melon, stir fried with beef, is a common fare in the Filipino and Chinese restaurants. However, I have never seen bitter melon soup being offered in the menu here or in Manila, at least in the manner that I prepare it which I will describe later.

Bitter melon is popular in India where it is prepared with potatoes and served with yogurt. In Okinawa, Japan, bitter melon is popular and is credited for longevity. In the Philippines, it is used as part of a popular dish called pinakbet. Bitter melon is also popular in countries like Pakistan, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam where it is prepared with coconut milk or curry. Some studies have shown that bitter melon contains a lectin that can lower the level of blood sugar and therefore beneficial for people with diabetes mellitus.

The taste for bitter melon dishes is definitely an acquired taste. Many people find it revolting to eat such a dish that has bitterness as its main flavor and nothing else. There is no special aroma, or even a hint of sweetness to it. Our taste buds can detect sweetness, bitterness, sourness and saltiness and another sensation called umami. The tip of the tongue is most sensitive to sweet taste and the back of the tongue is sensitive to bitter taste. At the base of each taste bud there is a nerve that sends the sensations to the brain. This is why kissing without using the tongue as part of the tools is not as sweet as using it.

I got carried away by the last sentence and almost forgot to present the recipe for the bitter melon soup. Here it is:
4 pieces of bitter melon, cut cross-wised and gutted. (clean the innards and seeds out using a small knife) set aside.

1 small onion, minced.

5 cloves of garlic, minced.

1 small can of water chestnuts, minced.

one bundle of scallions, minced. set aside to be used before serving the soup

1 egg

bread crumbs

1 pound of 96% lean ground beef

salt and pepper to taste
Combine the beef, onion, garlic, water chestnuts, egg, salt and pepper in a suitable bowl and mix it thoroughly adding breadcrumbs 1 tablespoonful at a time until you get the right consistency. That's right, like making spaghetti meatballs. Now, insert the fillings into the hollowed-out bitter melons and fill it to capacity. Set aside. If you made too much fillings or not enough, don't panic. Nothing will be wasted.
In a deep pot, bring to a boil 4 to 5 cans of chicken stock or beef stock. If you are one of those fastidious cook and prefer to make your own stock, go ahead. Nothing is carved in stone when it comes to cooking. Always cook with great abundance! And smile while cooking, even if you may appeared like a nut to the by-standers. A happy cook makes a better meal. Everything in life depends on good attitude.

Where was I? Oh, the cooking process. Gently put the stuffed bitter melon, one at a time, into the boiling broth so as not to burn yourself. Cover the pot, let it boil for 20 minutes or so or until the bitter melon is softened. Yes, you may check it from time to time to prevent overcooking. Garnish the soup with the scallions and serve piping hot.

To make the soup into a meal by itself, add rice noodles and you have a complete meal with all the proteins, carbohydrates, fat, vitamins and minerals required for the day. I forgot to mention that if you have too much fillings, just roll it into a ball and drop it into the soup. If you do not have enough fillings, chop up the bitter melons into small slices and drop them into the soup.

I love bitter melon soup! Thank you, mother.

Painful Etiquette

2010-01-26T17:48:00.000-08:00

The other day, the Philippine Senate disproved all theories that it is an august chamber. Name-calling, mud-slinging, off-color idiotic remarks and absolute lack of contrition for apalling behavior should be grounds for removal. At least at most dining tables, the erring participant at the meal would be banished for the duration, no such luck with our elected officials. In fact, some time ago, we had a so-called President caught cheating in the elections. We didn't banish her.

In Maryknoll High School, our cooking classes were tied up with lessons on manners -- and not just table manners, mind you. We were taught the Emily Post dicta, no less. However, it puzzled us girls, how far they could be from the reality on the ground -- or, at the tables.

For example, we were taught that on the occasion when two acquaintances of different genders meet, it is the obligation of the woman to approach the gentleman as it would have been extremely inappropriately forward of the male to presume to do otherwise. It would have horrified our gentle teachers if they knew that a girl approaching a boy on any occasion would have been considered "loose" behavior for us high school denizens.

The rule of course, did not extend to telephone conversations. A boy must always ring up the girl. At least thats what lola said. And calling up a boy on the phone, was, in high school, scandalous behavior.

It may seem archaic now, since the specifics of etiquette vary with the times, but its no wonder we were confused. The basic rule, then, Mama tells me is that etiquette is merely a way of being considerate. Everything else are details.

Food etiquette on the other hand is intensely cultural and the rules surrounding them far, far more confusing than gender politics. For instance, for those who do not like dirtying their hands during a meal, they will find to their horror that their practise of using paper napkins to hold sandwhiches, pizza or fried chicken, is incorrect. These are "finger foods" and hence, must be eaten with the fingers. Paper napkins are for wiping, your mouth, fingers, minor spills, blood... it is not supposed to touch food. No need to emphasize the point then, to a friend who rendered me aghast over her squeamishness handling a......... brownie. Hmph.

But the traditional manner of eating with one's hands is the Pinoy way. Personally, I'm terrible at it, because I suffer from occasional bouts of terminal clumsiness. But eating traditions can be fascinating, Take noises and spitting, for instance.

Eating at table in Bulacan where my father comes from, I was expected to eat with my hands. The food was heavenly -- very fresh shrimp and newly caught fish (Papa had a fishing boat in Hagonoy). If we were there in the evening, I would have to join the fishermen and my dad at the evening meal. I was also expected to enjoy my food, and this meant noisy eating. If I did not suck at the shrimp head, I would have been considered wasteful. If inedible parts of the fish or shrimp found their way into my mouth, it would have been perfectly polite to spit the erring part out. However, one was to be very careful that no edible material or saliva came out with the shell or bone, because that would have been rude. Burping was fine, but signaled the end of your meal and you would be exhorted to stop or be considered greedy. That is, unless you were asked to keep eating, in which case, the gas would have been forgotten.

A friend of mine who will remain anonymous if I want her to continue being my friend, once looked at me in horror when I spit out a fishbone at table in my house. All sorts of names were blooming in my head and I held my hand up to stop them from spilling out her mouth. I said, in Japan, noodles must be eaten with relish, which means, noise. If you would not dare stop the Japanese from their own cultural practises in their own place, do not attmempt it with me. That stopped her and we are still quite close.

A Place Called BATO

2010-01-25T15:29:00.000-08:00

The nation's history is made up of the histories of families, of individual experiences that connect with the experiences of our countrymen. This war, as with any other painful national state, forms part of the Philippine story and tells us much about who we are. Stories of survival and moments of joy, snatched from under the heel of oppressors reveal to us how we manage in different forms of warfare today -- be it a war against poverty, political and class oppression, or simply the struggle to get from day to day with body and soul together.
Reader Alberto Lee, of Houston, Texas sent us this narration of life in WWII Philippines. His final sentence reminds us of how he is ever the doctor.

Shortly before the Japanese Imperial Army invaded Manila in 1941, my parents and all their relatives took refuge in a place called Bato. This tiny village has but a handful of people living in it. Although Bato is just ten kilometers or so from the township of Bacon, Sorsogon, it can only be reached by either a banca ride or a trek through thick jungles of shrubs, wild bananas,coconut trees,and abaca plants. My father bought this property from a friend long before the outbreak of the WW II. My parents thought we will be safe from the Japanese soldiers but they were wrong.
During our four-year sojourn in this rather isolated place, we learned to live with the natives the Bayanihan way. My parents and the rest of the clans formed a cooperative no different from the present day communes.The natives planted rice, corn and sweet potatoes as our main staples. From the ocean, we have our seafood gathered by the fishermen no differently than the way their ancestors did generations ago. On a clear day, we can see the island of Samar.

My parents raised chickens, pigs, cows, ducks and geese. I remember vividly how i would gather eggs every morning from here and there for all the chickens and ducks roam our yard freely. It was a particularly happy day for me if i found a giant goose egg.

Of course there was no electricity or running water to be had. Our houses were made of nipa leaves and coconut tree trunks. We slept on mats called banig. We dug our own wells, made our own soap, and my mother made all the clothes we needed on her single, foot-powered Singer sewing machine.
At the end of each harvest, be it rice, corn or vegetables or fish, everybody took their shares equally. Any left over is either salted, dried or stored properly for rainy days.
Yes, the Japanese soldiers found us. There were about a dozen of them when they came that day. Luckily,they did not brutalize anyone. They slapped some faces for no apparent reasons.Why are the Japanese soldiers so fun of slapping innocent civilians? They did search for guns and flags but found none for my father had buried them somewhere in the yard. They took all the chicken eggs, some of my favorite pet chickens, a pig and everything else that they needed and left. It was a harrowing experience to say the least.

It was under these circumstances that my mother learned how to cook the native dishes which she later passed on to us. The laing dish i described on a previous note was a simplified form with only two main ingredients: coconut milk and dried taro or gabi leaves. Another version consists of half a kilo of pork belly chopped up into cube-size pieces sauteed with plenty of fresh garlic. Any fat from the process should be discarded. Add salt and hot chili to taste, mix in the coconut milk and dried taro leaves and simmer slowly without stirring until the water content is reduced to practically nothing. Some people add onions and bagoong but i found this unnecessary. WARNING:This dish is high in saturated fats.

Rice Terraces Tinawon

2010-01-24T15:45:00.000-08:00

Have you eaten tinawon?

Rice grown in the World Heritage Site of the Rice Terraces of the Philippines is organically produced only once a year unlike the hybrid rice that can produce two or more yields per year. Tinawon means yearly.

UNESCO declared the terraces a World Heritage Site in 1992 after studying the Asian region. Rice terraces appear in other countries like China and Burma. But it is only in the Philippines where the terraces are so extensive they encompass four provinces, thus the inscription is of the Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras

Tinawon is pounded and not milled or polished, thus it retains its fibre and germ, the healthiest portions of the rice. Intensely fragrant it compliments any accompanying dish. Off season, it can fetch prices of up to P120 to P200 per kilo.

Everything surrounding it is ritualized, from its planting to its service on the table. This year, we are lucky enough to be invited to the rice planting rituals of Mayoyao, Ifugao. It would be good it you could join us.

Letter of Invitation
Dear Friends,

We are once again inviting you to join the Pfukhay ad Majawjaw (Rice Planting in Mayoyao) to be held on February 19-21, 2010 at Barangay Banhal, Mayoyao, Ifugao. This activity is being jointly-hosted by the Pochon and Maanichar Centennial Batch Assoc. (Pochon Group) and the Barangay Banhal Community. Other partner organizations include the Mayoyao Tourguides and Indigenous Knowledge Holders Allied Organization (MATIKHAO) and the AKHA’KHA-EMEH Cultural Performing Group.

For this particular tour, participants get to choose experience actual planting at the ricefields aside from the spectacular sites that Mayoyao can offer. Highlights of the tour include the cultural presentation where the different Native and War dances will be showcased by the AKHA’KHA-EMEH Cultural Performing Group. The participants will also be able to learn how the Mayoyao Native houses were constructed through the demo to be conducted by the Indigenous Knowledge Holders and Scholars.

It is the advocacy of the Pochon group to help maintain and preserve the richness of the cultural heritage of this town to allow the generations to come to appreciate the cultural practices of the ancestors who tried their best to hand the rich culture to the present generation for the next to learn about it. A portion of the tour’s proceeds will go to the heritage trust fund that will be used to help promote the indigenous culture of the Mayoyao people to its young generation and people who wish to have an extraordinary experience in the beautiful town where unexplored nature still abound.

Please help save our dying heritage. Join the Pfukhay ad Majawjaw 2010!

Thank you very much.

Yours truly,

JOAN SHEELAH O. NALLIW

Group President

PFUKHAY AD MAJAWJAW 2010

Package Cost: P3,900 Tour package. Inclusions: Guide Fee

Cultural Presentation

Demo on Native House Construction

Transportation within the Province

Meals

Lodging

Add P450.00 Bus fare from Banaue to Manila

P4,350.00 Total Cost (Land travel insurance not included)

To bring: Trekking shoes
Jacket/blanket
Water bottle for drinking water
Trail food
Cameras
Towels
Toiletries
Rainwear
Other clothes and gears suitable for cold weather and trekking

Note: February is a wet and cold month. While weather is always unpredictable, it can rain every afternoon. Temperature in Mayoyao is around 20-25 degrees Celsius at daytime and 15-20 degrees Celsius at night time.

ITINERARY
DateTimeActivity
Feb. 18, 2010 Thursday9.00PMETD Manila via Victory Liner Bus, Kamias/Kamuning Terminal
Feb. 19, 2010 Friday5.00AMETA, Santiago City (Victory Liner Terminal)
Travel to Mayoyao via the Ifugao towns of Aguinaldo and Alfonso Lista

6.30AMBreakfast at Ubao, Aguinaldo, Ifugao
10.00AMETA, Mayoyao, Ifugao

Room assignments/Rest
12NNLunch at the Lodge
1PMOrientation
Demo on Native House Construction
Visit to the Museum
Visit to Acacoy Nature Park

5PMRoaming around the Town Plaza/shopping for souvenirs
7PMDinner at the Lodge
Rest

Feb. 20, 2010 Saturday7AMBreakfast at the Lodge
8AMProceed to planting site and join the planting
12NNLunch with the community
1PMTrek to Abfo’or Burial Tomb at Ottong
Trek down Mapawoy rice Terraces Cluster
5PMBack to the Lodge
7PMDinner
8PMCultural presentation
Rest

Feb. 21, 2010 Sunday7 AMBreakfast
Pack-up
8.30AMVisit to Chu’it Viewpoint
10AMTravel to Banaue
12NNLunch at Midway
3PMETA, Banaue, Ifugao
8PMDeparture for Manila via Florida Bus Liner

Feb. 22, 2010 Monday4-5AMETA, Manila, Florida Bus Terminal, Lacson St., cor. Espana Avenue, Sampaloc, Manila
Description of places and activities:

1. Aguinaldo, Ifugao – Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, the first president of the Philippines, is said to have rested here a while (previously a part of Mayoyao) when he was fleeing from American forces during the Philippine-American War.

2. Alfonso Lista, Ifugao – The first town of Ifugao from Isabela. During WW2, the Japanese forces are said to have erected a fort in this place (can be seen along the road going to Mayoyao).

3. Ubao, Aguinaldo, Ifugao – This was the former hunting ground of General Dosser who was assigned in Mayoyao to help the guerrillas fight the Japanese forces in WW2. Today, this is the site of the rodeo competition held in every summer.

4. Acacoy Nature Park – A good vantage point for viewing the upper region of the Central Mayoyao Rice Terraces Cluster particularly Chaya Rice Terraces. It is where the “Hospital in the Clouds” is located. The hospital has received awards as the cleanest in the entire Ifugao Province.

5. Demo on Native House Construction – Indigenous Knowledge Holders and Scholars will conduct show how a native house is built with all the rituals and cultural practices that go along with it.

6. Chu’it Viewpoint – Another site for appreciating the Mayoyao Central Rice Terraces cluster.

7. Mun-alajah Waterfalls – One of the pristine waterfalls of Mayoyao. It offers the cleanest and coolest waters. One can drink directly from the water. Also a perfect site for snorkelling and swimming. (not included in the itinerary)

8. O’Phaw Mahencha Waterfalls – According to myth, a beautiful woman named Mahencha had to leap 3 times for an interval of at least 8 meters each waterfalls just to retrieve her necklace which had fallen off while she was taking a bath. (not included in the itinerary)

9. Bongan Rice terraces cluster – The start of the trekking adventure to the rice terraces of central Mayoyao.

10. Apfo’or Burial Tombs – Igloo-type mausoleums built out of stone for warriors during the early days.

11. Manual rice threshing/pounding/sifting – This had to be done before the local people ate when there were no machines.

12. Ecopark – A collection of rare woods are planted in this Ecopark which is managed privately by a family. The park is called “Pinuchu” or mini-forest. (not included in the itinerary)

13. Mayoyao Hostel (Ottong) – This is the site of the oldest Apfo’or Burial tomb.

14. Mapawoy Rice Terraces Cluster – It is the location of what we call the “Father house” or the biggest native house which can accommodate approximately 20 people and also the “Mother Field” or the widest ricefield in the area.

15. Visit to the Clairvoyant – Many people do not believe this clairvoyant can perform healing wonders. My Belgian visitor was relieved of his backpains when the clairvoyant “fixed” his aching back. One has go to see to believe. (not included in the itinerary)

16. Marian Center – Located at the site of the Catholic High School, a vegetable garden converted into a Retreat center offers the best example of infrastructure development that do not sacrifice the nature and the environment. It is built beside a waterfalls that when filled with flowing water shows the image of Mama Mary. (not included in the itinerary)

17. Lomogig Stone – The stone is a huge boulder standing in the middle of a river supported by 3 small stones at the base. It has been said that as long as the Lumogig Stone stands, Mayoyao will continue to experience Peace, Love, and Abundance/Prosperity which are symbolized by the 3 small stones. (not included in the itinerary)

Carabao Tales

2010-01-23T08:59:00.000-08:00

It is said that when then President Erap Estrada was Senator, he managed to pass only one bit of legislation, then, derisively called The Carabao Law or Republic Act 7307. Yet years later, the establishment of the Philippine Carabao Center has boosted what was once the dwindling stock of carabaos, enlarged its gene pool and stabilized a source of meat, milk and hide for for the country. But they had me at "carabao milk"

Wikipedia says, "Water buffalo have been domesticated in the Philippines as far back as pre-Hispanic times and are often used by farmers in the Philippines to plow the fields and as a means of transportation. The carabao is one of the most important animals in the country, especially in agriculture. Carabao skin was once used extensively in the Philippines to create a variety of products, including the armor of pre-colonial Filipino warriors." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carabao)
Described as a patient animal, its demeanor is often associated with the Pinoys' epic ability to suffer outrageous hurts, but rampages are not uncommon, for brutalized animals. Again, the description, seems quite apt. Yet it is most useful to farmers as a beast of labor, and a meat, milk, hide, horn and bone producer. Entire cottage industries have risen in the use of carabao horn for souveniers. It can be buffed to high shine and sometimes turned into shoe horns. While the bone is often inlaid in the intricately carved woodwork traditionally produced in Bulacan.

But my favorite carabao product is still carabao milk. As a child, I loved it. They came in long necked vinegar or wine bottles corked with rolled up banana leaves. My mother mandated daily milk drinking which I did only under threat of a long and painful childhood because it meant drinking the horribly bland and (then) gag-inducing cow's millk. When my maternal grandfather realized I loved carabao milk, he bought a female calving carabao and sent the milk to me from the then hinterlands of Novaliches to our house in Cubao, just in time for breakfast of hot pandesal (also courtesy of Lolo's panaderia) and butter. He did this just to make sure I would drink milk and in his words, "Grow up smart." I love my Lolo.

Carabao milk is best suited for the normally lactose intolerant Asian stomach. It has vitamin A and D and now, it has been discovered that it reduces tumors in the breast and lungs. So, its true what they say, drinking milk, makes you strong! (http://www.bar.gov.ph/bardigest/2003/julsep03_buffalomilk.asp)

Carabao milk is richer and creamier than ordinary cow's milk and makes for wonderful desserts. Bulacan is famous for its pastillas de leche that comes in colorful wrappers of papel de hapon. A tradition of creating cut-out patterns of the wrappers' tails still exists in Bulacan, though it is fast disappearing. In Bacolod, they make the famous dulce gatas, that brown and sweet ambrosia.

But by far, for me, the best is carabao milk mozzarella, better known in these parts as kesong puti. Traditionally made in Sta. Cruz, Laguna, the milk is turned into cheese in the following manner:

"Milk is strained in cheesecloth, afterwhich it is poured into a stainless steel casserole and heated for 15 seconds. After it has been cooled in a basin of cold water, a cup of rennet and a half-cup of salt are mixed in 15 liters of milk. The white concoction is strained again to remove whey (water) for 15 minutes.

“It is then put in a big plastic pail where it is mixed thoroughly by hand until it curdled... The curds are then poured in rows of halabing (round moulds made of banana leaves) and then let stand for about ten minutes,” “Two halabing are wrapped in a piece of banana leaf, tied with straw and encased in a talulo, a squared piece of dried sheath of beetle nut tree (bunga) that holds a basta (small bundle) together.”

(http://www.agribusinessweek.com/kesong-puti-santa-cruz-lagunas-white-gold/)

Nothing beats kesong puti on pan de sal, for a healthy jumpstart to your day.

PS.

Do you know that there is a Military Order of the Carabao? It was initially set up as a spoof of the pompous Order of the Dragon. "While the original spoof was real enough, the Carabao Order came to epitomize the camaraderie that grows among members of the armed forces who face the dangers and privations of extensive military service far from home. By the way, the effete Order of the Dragon was disbanded many years ago."

Wartime Food: Kape Ko

2010-01-21T03:56:00.000-08:00

Writing about the war-time invention of banana ketsup brought my thoughts to the time when my parents survived World War II.

Both my maternal grandfather and my father were guerillas. Lolo in Laguna, and Papa in Bulacan. My mother, however, was little more than a child, and remembers the war years with a bit more distance than Papa or Lolo recall them.

Mama tells me of waking up in Lolo's arms, bombs raining around them as he rushed her and her sisters and brother out in the middle of the night. Manila was the second most destroyed city in the world then, but few recall that it was the Americans who saw to that. Lolo would run upstairs to where his children were sleeping and carry them down into the air raid shelter where they would wait out the bombing raid.

My aunt Rosario, Mama's sister and my godmother after whom I am named, as my mother tells me, loved to drink coffee even as a child. I would often point to her as proof that coffee does not stunt one's growth. My aunts are all tall. My mother is the shortest.

One time during breakfast, my aunt was enjoying her coffee, her siblings with her, when the bombs began to fall. Lolo picked her up and they all ran for the shelter. In the middle of the entire melee, with explosions going off all around them, my tita's small voice could be heard, crying for her coffee.

Years later, they would laugh about it, as hardy survivors often do.

During the war years, when all essentials, and food were becoming scarce, my mother recalls that they were very lucky not to have starved. Lolo had taken to the hills because the Japanese had already identified him as helping the guerillas. The "hills" then, were thickly forested. Lolo was adept at identifying edible roots and plants and would, occasionally return to his family to deliver these. One time as he was visiting, the Japanese knocked on the door. Lolo jumped out the window and miraculously managed to escape.

Coffee was, to my aunt's consternation, eventually one of those commodities that became very scarce. The resilient Filipinos, however knew how to make do. They would grind burnt cooked rice, called tutong and mix it with water. What they ended up with is a nasty concoction that looked like coffee but tasted like burnt rice.

Please Pass the Pasta

2010-01-20T16:46:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's blog brought out the favorite spaghetti reminiscences of many of my friends. So today, we continue on in this vein.

Joel Guinto, my favorite Bloomberg correspondent, swears by what he calls, "birthday spaghetti." Traditionally -- or maybe non-traditionally -- made with banana ketsup, it is sweeter than Italian spaghetti or its American variations. Hotdogs are usually added in too. Meanwhile, Jollibee, the clear number one fast food in the Philippines, that regularly trounces McDonald's, serves its spaghetti with what appears to be slices of salami. And, speaking of McDonald's, this fast food giant made serious concessions in its menu several years ago, to accomodate the Pinoy demands for the staple, hence, McSpaghetti exists only in this country.

On the other hand, banana ketsup, a condiment I have seen only on Philippine shelves, was, according to my late lola's stories, created during World War II when tomatoes were scarce and bananas plentiful. It's made the same way as regular tomato ketsup, with vinegar and sugar. The food coloring was later included to add to the illusion that ketsup is, well... red.

Birthday spaghetti notwithstanding, pasta with meat sauce remains not only a versatile dish, but seems to agree rather well with the Pinoy penchant for mixing in a variety of ingredients, in the same way we make halo-halo and chop suey (pronounced, "tsap suy").

Back in the day, when I was a housewife with young children (what? I wasn't born a lawyer) I had to dream up ways of sneaking in vegetables in the kids' dishes. Besides, ground beef didn't fit in too well with the budget. Then, frozen vegetables were cheaper and could be bought by the kilo in the supermarket, later I learned to improvise using fresh vegetables which were, in the long run cheaper, but took longer to cook.

The kids -- who despite the onset of young adulthood continue to eat their vegetables -- and I had gotten so used to this vegetable pasta dish that when I served it once to a group of fraternity boys, one of them actually stopped in mid-spoonful and said, "Ma'm, your spaghetti has vegetables in it." I gave him a look I had practised on for years that said, "Don't-mess-with-me, young man." He ate everything and I noticed later that he came back for seconds and later, thirds. I swear it wasn't under duress.

This recipe can be made very quickly if using frozen vegetables. But to add to the nutritional value, I toss in fresh squash too.

vegetable meat sauce
1/4 k ground beef thawed
1/2 k frozen vegegtables (corn, carrots and peas) thawed
1/4 fresh squash (roughly about 2 sections or dalawang guhit) cubed
2 onions
4 cloves garlic
3 tomatoes chopped
fresh basil chopped
oil for sauteeing
250 gram package of tomato sauce or Italian style spaghetti sauce
salt and pepper to taste
1tsp Oregano or Italian seasoning (add another tsp if using tomato rather than spaghetti sauce)
sugar for the traditional Pinoy (optional!)

Saute garlic in oil, when lightly brown at the edges add onions. When onions have become slightly transparent, add tomatoes. When tomates wilt slightly, add ground beef. Add salt and pepper to beef. When beef is still reddish, add squash, continue sauteeing until squash softens.

Hurrying cooks may want to pre-boil the squash as it may take some time to cook.

If preboiled, add squash together with thawed frozen vegetables before ground beef cooks fully. Do not overcook the beef as it becomes tough and tasteless. Add packaged sauce immediately after. Keep stirring the sauce to prevent the beef from sticking to the bottom of your pan (tough to clean, I tell you) . When beef is fully cooked, remove from heat and add your spices. Top with fresh basil. Serve on pasta, preferably penne rigate, but spaghetti noodles works just fine.

Crispin! Basilio!

2010-01-19T23:09:00.000-08:00

Unlike most Filipinos, I do not like my spaghetti sweet or with hotdogs. I'm sorry if that sounds unpatriotic, but really, one look at the hotdogs swimming in bright artificially red sauce is enough to give me leg cramps from running in the opposite direction.

But I do love Italian dishes. Especially pesto, which I make with basil grown in my garden and nuts. Pine nuts are difficult to source, but I usually substitute with almonds that my mom sends via a Balikbayan box (thanks, Ma!). She also sends the olive oil, that costs an arm and a leg hereabouts. Which really just goes to show that in the kitchen, I am tied to my mom's apron strings.

Few Italian dishes are complete without the king of herbs, Basil (ocimum basilicum). Wiccan practitioners use it in spells for courage, fertility, healing relationships, love, protection, purification, wealth (if carried in your wallet). Its compounds have anti-microbial, anti-cancer, anti-viral properties and is considered an anti-oxidant.

Basil, in literature (primarily in Italy and India) symbolizes love, though the ancient Greeks used it to symbolize hate, so there may really be a fine line between those two. In Africa it is supposed to protect against scorpions. In Italy, its association with love manifests itself in various courtship rituals. A man, for instance, who visits a woman with basil in his hair is said to be proposing. In Moldavian culture, if a man accepts a sprig of basil from a woman, he will fall in love with her. Yet it is also associated with death, such as in India where it is grown on graves.

Personally I love basil for its distinct aroma, a masculine scent. I grow it on my windowsill (supposedly a symbol of meeting a lover) and in the garden where it tends to compete with my oregano, another herb for another day.

My Pesto

1 cup sweet basil leaves
1/4 c olive oil
1 t olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts or almonds
dash of salt and pepper

Toss everything in a blender except for the 1t of oil. Grind to a paste or desired consistency. When serving add olive oil on top to prevent oxidation and maintain color. When storing, top the mixture with olive oil.

Glorious food!

2010-01-18T21:02:00.000-08:00

Food. Everyone on a diet knows we can't live without it. It is the energy that spins our wheels, powers our thought, sustains us.

I started this blog because of my yearly tradition of baking my Christmas give aways. Normally I bake pie. This year, I made apple cakes. Now, I live in a tropical country in the Pacific and have just been told that apple importation is destructive to the environment because it uses up too much energy.

Now that information kind of gave me guilt pangs and images of The Bad Apple, began dancing in my head. What can I say? I love wordplay. So I decided, fine, I would continuing baking, but would start doing so in a more environmentally aware way. I will avoid apples if I can. And if not, I'll plant another tree in my backyard.

But since it is a once a year affair, that frenzy of Christmas baking, I also yearly take stock of my kitchen, refurbish the missing ingredients, tools, tsk, tsk at my poor rusting appliances, re-stock the pantry and pretend I've never really been away from this favorite hobby.

I've been baking since I was a kid, sometime in the Middle Ages, (I'm kidding!). To keep me out of her hair, my mother would send me to cooking school in the same way American kids sometimes get sent to camp. It was a summer thing, I was never asked, but I HAD to go. I never questioned it. I just went. And it has stood me well in the long run.

This blog will be about culinary and gustatory adventures, with the occasional sideshow of anything that comes into my head. It will also keep track of my waistline, which I do not intend to get away from me.