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.
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.
With no one to cook for last week, I decided on takeout pork sinigang (sour soup) from Andok’s. I had a dim recollection of liking their version of the dish at a Tacloban branch many years ago.
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.)
In the previous post, I mentioned a recipe for ukoy by the late gourmet chef, restaurateur, cookbook writer, and TV host Nora V. Daza. It was from A Culinary Life: Personal Recipe Collection (with Michaela Fenix, 1992), which I have only now started to read in earnest despite the fact that we have had the book for at least 20 years.
I have on occasion been chided for cooking with ingredients that are not available locally (or even in the broader domestic market). The implication being that I have no business sharing recipes with “ordinary” cooks here at home whose kitchens are not as well stocked.
Mention garlic and everybody knows what it is: a bulb, with individual cloves, pungent, and oh-so-good (for those into it, anyway, because I know some who can not abide this spice).
When it comes to hot and sour soup, I much prefer the Southeast Asian versions, in which the sour component derives from fruits (often unripe), over the Chinese, which uses vinegar. There is simply no contest between the more rounded tartness of tamarind, kamias, or lime, and the one-note acidity of vinegar.
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.
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.
