Kalabantos or winged bean holds the distinction of being the first vegetable I remember eating with gusto. You were a child once, too, so you should have an idea how monumental an achievement that had felt. It was also when I realized that my lola could make anything taste wonderful — if meat above all.
I’ve tried sprouting mung beans a few times. They grew, all right, but were otherwise hardly worth the trouble. I was under the impression they would come out gorgeously bulked-up like the taugi sold in supermarkets. To my dismay, mine were anemic and stringy, so you can forget about me doing a DIY post on that. Even the sprouts I get at the wet market aren’t as “healthy” — I’m betting on some kind of chemical treatment to account for the difference. Oh the irony.
Fresh out of college, a friend went to work for a production outfit. One of his first projects was a Cheez Whiz TV ad, memorable because the talent — a little boy — was on his tenth-or-so take “savoring” his sandwich when he finally broke down. “Again?!?” he’d cried. “I really, really don’t like Cheez Whiz!”
The moment I tasted caldeirada, I knew this Portuguese fish stew was going to be a regular on our table. It was featured in the Reykjavik episode of Ainsley Eats the Streets, using ingredients that I could source locally. It also looked delicious for something so easy, like the stir-fried scallops that was inspired by a dish Chef Harriott made in the Taipei episode.
Butter — glorious butter. Unless you live in my neck of the woods, you should have no problem getting your hands on some. But what if the recipe calls for “clarified” butter? Most probably it involves frying. You can fry with regular butter, sure, but be prepared for it to burn (from the milk solids in it). The food will be edible, just not presentable.
Back when we were in the grocery business, I made sure to stock up on ingredients that are hard to find locally. You wouldn’t believe how long the list is, or how basic some of the items: rock/kosher salt, butter, peanut and olive oils, red wine vinegar (cider and balsamic, too), saffron, wasabi, Japanese mayo, mustard, maple syrup, anchovies, canned tomato, olives, pimiento, capers, and all sorts of spices (even garlic powder!).
Whenever friends remark on how little I eat, I remind them that my family only cooks a standard cup of rice per meal. That’s for three humans and two canines, and rare is the time when we don’t have salín (leftover), often enough of it to see us through the next meal. “No wonder you’re so small!” they exclaim. I roll my eyes. “You mean ‘wasting away.’ My blood sugar’s way up.”
For a while there I thought summer had made a comeback — this past week was that hot and humid. The low, dark clouds refused to make good on their promise of rain, the heavy air as still as it was stale, and everyone a little testy. Then someone said I should bake bread again, and I was, like, “Have you lost your mind?”
Whenever I find myself not knowing the English name of this or that plant or animal, I am reminded of a former help. She was obsessive about such things, and insisted on calling the lowly kangkong water convolvulus, kitong rabbitfish, and bago Spanish joint fir — the more exotic or ridiculous it sounded, the more she glommed on to it.
I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but on this site I am quite mindful of using diacritical marks when it comes to local, i.e., Bisaya, words. “Pako” can mean one of two things, so I write pakô when talking about wings and pakó if I mean fiddlehead fern. Sabá is a type of banana while sabâ means noise. As for laki, that is someone (or something) male; lakí (with an acute accent on the i) is still male, but a kabit — not that I’ve had reason to write about that. Same with baji (female).
We checked out the agri-aqua fair at the Maasin plaza the other day. Dubbed Pabulhon, it’s an annual event showcasing the best from the city’s 70 barangays. I didn’t go last year so I was pleasantly surprised to find the emphasis had shifted from ornamentals to more garden produce, including herbs and spices.
Cakes and pastries (and coffee) not being my thing, I tried to decline Noreen’s invitation to Giuseppe Café, the patisserie wing of my old alma mater’s training restaurant. But she insisted as only a lifelong friend could, i.e., she nagged Jenny and me into going. “Show some support, why don’t you,” she said. “And don’t be too hard on the food.”
You can say what you will about the Japanese, but they never take the easy way out. As if their version of breaded pork chop wasn’t already good enough, someone apparently thought tonkatsu too easy and uninvolving, so why not make a meat equivalent of the Napoleon and call it mille-feuille katsu?
They meet in a detention center, the illegal and the volunteer caseworker. She has been warned to keep her distance — “Never give your number or you will get calls at night” — but when Samba asks, she demurs for all of a few seconds before spitting out the digits.
Anyone who has casually followed this blog knows that the one item of food most heavily featured here is pizza. Naturally, that makes people think I’m some kind of connoisseur. Or, worse, since I’ve mostly featured pizza I myself made from scratch, a snob.
“Is something wrong with your chili?” I asked. “They look emaciated.”
Well, don’t they? Bigger than most of the hot peppers we are accustomed to seeing around here, sure, but wrinkled and dented, as if the air has been punched out of them. They certainly look like they could have inspired the rock anthem “Scar Tissue” by — who else? — the Red Hot Chili Peppers!
