Do the grind

When Jenny mentioned that she needed to get some black pepper, I seized the chance to pitch for whole over her usual pre-ground.

“Is there a difference?”

“Only a world of it.”

In time

When my father told his guest that I had prepared something special for lunch, I knew I had the osso buco down pat. Pa is so finicky, I had long given up trying to figure out how he comes to decide what it is he likes — little wonder Ma gave up cooking for him a long time ago — making the rare pronouncement like this music to my ears.

Cold comfort

After several days of wet and gloom, the sun finally came out. Not a day too soon, too, or I would have had to start opening cans to feed the family.

On aptness

“Bell pepper,” a friend once lamented. “I see people push it to the side of their plate and I break out in dandruff.”

“Try the California Wonder,” I said.

“Eh, have you been listening? Local is expensive enough.”

This just in…

If, like me, you think that eating the recommended five portions of fruits and vegetables every day is daunting enough, get a load of the latest news saying the amount should really be twice that, as per a new “major” study. In terms of weight, we’re talking upping F&V consumption to 800 grams, or 200 grams short of a kilo! (I know, I know: you can do your own math; I just wanted to hammer that in.)

No more slime

I try to keep an open mind about ingredients that normally don’t appeal to me. Litób (blood cockles), okra, alugbati (Malabar/vine spinach): they’re slimy, a texture I am averse to. Still, I try to find ways of cooking them that minimizes that undesirable aspect. Failing that, as with litób — eh, too bad; at least I gave it a shot.

Oh mother…

Every culture has its own idea how to nourish a woman who has just given birth. Here at home, the traditionally prescribed dish is soup of lean white fish. Contrast this with the Cambodian post-partum diet of hot and spicy (also salty) food, plus alcohol — no fruit of any kind, since fruit cools the body, hence supposedly bad.

Chips a-quack!

Last Christmas a friend gave me a bag of salted egg-coated potato chips. I liked it a lot, to the extent of looking it up online, which was how I discovered it had been some sort of craze in Manila a while back.

Unlike the weather

“Ooooh,” Pa said over my shoulder. “Curry!”

Appearances deceive. The color was from achuete — half a pod’s worth of seeds. I had intended to make mussels in saffron cream, but from the initial substitution of annatto for saffron followed plain water for dry white wine, then coconut cream for heavy cream. At that point I should really have just added curry powder into the pot and justified my father’s excitement.

Cooks just wanna have fun

A cook’s gotta have a sense of humor. You slave over a dish for hours and it is damned with faint praise. Then you cobble something together in under five minutes and people go out of their way to tell you how good it is.