Easy like Sunday morning

What Cebuanos call pochero most other Filipinos call bulaló. This, if you ask me, is pochero (beef stew), though it actually started out as bulaló (beef soup) at the previous day’s lunch.

Out with the old, in with the familiar

Ma cancelled the parties she had scheduled over Christmas save one, ostensibly because she did not want me stressed, although I suspect it was more because she was in no mood to entertain. At least she made good on her proffered reason, because that one occasion was a potluck dinner with her high-school friends.

Fried lechon

There are several ways to re-purpose leftover lechon (roasted pig). Usually, however, it is made into paksiw (a vinegar-based stew), or simply fried, with or without batter.

Fast food

There are many variants of fried rice, but the one I like the best is made with canned tuna: flavorful, not so unctuous or rich, and relatively healthy (I have gouty arthritis, tuna being moderately high in purine).

Better with time

The best meat sauce comes to those who wait. However good your ragù is, it will not be as good as when you let it sit for a few days, even weeks (in the freezer, of course, reheating every now and then). Just give it time and it will come into its own, like fine wine, cheese, or the boil on your buttocks (sorry; Coco Martin in Serbis suddenly sprang to mind).

A family affair

My family loves labong/ubod sa kawayan (bamboo shoot), but no one was impressed with the kind I bought at Rustan’s a while back. The parents complained it did not taste right. The help observed it may have come from a particularly bitter cultivar. More’s the pity since it was the most pristine specimen I had ever laid eyes on, Close-Up-white and julienned to uniform perfection.

Now that you’re here…

Life is like your freezer. It starts out empty, then proceeds to fill up with odds and ends. What is powdered egg doing in mine? I don’t really care for the answer to that, but somebody obviously thought otherwise. As for the pack of andouille sausages, why did I ever think I would be making gumbo one day? I don’t even like gumbo. The squid ink I have been saving up I am at least looking forward to have enough of for the darkest paella or pasta negra. The bulk are remnants of meals past, with the occasional fruit of an unsuccessful undertaking or experiment that I just did not have the heart to throw away.

Yesterday, today & tomorrow

If you’ve seen Groundhog Day, you have an idea how disconcerting this morning’s trip to the market was. Sweet Jesus, more tuna?!? My suki — of the squid from the day before — shook his head as I approached. “Nothing here for you, sir,” he said.

In other news…

Two weeks after it opened, the ukay-ukay (used clothes) store across the street had shown no sign of taking or even toning down the PA system. That’s how come I know everything is now at ₱30, and have memorized the sequence of songs on their sole mixtape. Then there’s the laboriously inane commentary in between, delivered in an uninflected drone as if the speaker were on the verge of a narcoleptic fit. Finally, Ma sent over word that she was calling the police.

The deciding factor

You think you know what this is. Humba, right? Well, it actually started out as lechon paksiw. Blame it on Sprite.