The Unofficial Cook

This is a photograph of an ampalaya (bitter melon or bitter gourd) vine grown organically by my newly found cousin, Pito Garcia. We’re second cousins actually and we connected through a website on geneology my maternal relatives have just discovered.  It’s the coolest thing to find relatives online and meet them for the first time in person.  If not for the internet, our paths may not have crossed for a long time.

His farm is located in a beautiful spot surrounded by gentle hills in the Zambales town of San Antonio.  It was a stormy day when Spouse and I went to visit.  You can probably tell by the dark clouds over the hills that more rains were on the way.  The rain and winds came in bursts, strong and surrprising…an amazing display of nature’s power and beauty.  I’m getting all poetic because it was a truly awesome experience.

Pito is currently  experimenting with organic farming. He’s been growing vegetables commercially for about three years now. Going organic is the next logical step. When you’ve lived the life of a farmer, enjoying the clean air, healthy lifestyle, and beautiful, beautiful surroundings that no man can build, going organic is the only way to go.

Watch out in the coming months, the unofficial cook might just turn into the unofficial farmer!

Does it sound like a bad word? It’s not. It’s Ilocano for eating with your hands. There are certain dishes that just beg to be eaten with your bare hands. Inihaw na isda, pritong isda, dinengdeng, pinakbet, adobo, sinigang na hipon, kilawin, fresh seaweed salads, fern salads, roasted eggplant salads, anything guinataan or anything you can get your hands on….

And please, it’s not a savage practice of uncivilized people. It’s an art you have to learn.  Besides, it’s fun! I mean… it really is. No Pinoy picnic would be the same if they handed you a silver spoon, fork and knife. Besides, you tend to lose all sense of inhibition when you’re sitting fully-clothed on a creekbed with graceful bamboo leaves swaying  over you and the bamboo table you’re eating from virtually floating over the gentle, streaming water.  Not to worry, the guys would have tied it down to something. The food is staying on the table….but not for long.

Not only is it fun, but eating with your hands takes a lot of skill. You don’t just moosh things in your palms and shove them into your mouth. Actually, you only use your fingers when eating with your hands. Oh gee, that sounds sooo NOT right…but it’s true!  You pick up your food using your fingertips and scoop it up, not in your palms, but on the very tips of your fingers.

The ultimate in skill is eating a whole fried or grilled fish (yes, with the head on) with rice and other dishes one-handed….with no problem separating the flesh from the bones mind you.   If that isn’t what you call skill, I don’t know what is..

See….you have to keep one hand clean so you can use the serving spoons for the other dishes on the table….or do something else like pick up the abaniko (Filipino leaf fans) and drive away the flies hovering around attempting to share your food….or some other things youneed to do at picnics in the Philippines.

Since coming back home to the Philippines in 2006, Christmas has been busier in the kitchen.  But I always get help from the Third Sister who comes with her kids to spend Christmas with us to be closer to our parents.  When we were in Colorado, Spouse and I almost always had Christmas dinner with Stepson.  It was a lovely time for me because Stepson had a girlfriend with three lovely young children and we decorated Christmas cookies at our house before the day itself.  The youngest  told me the last time we did that “You’re like our grandma, right Mita?”  I didn’t even think about being too young, in my mind,  to be a grandma because I was so touched by his question.  I miss those kids like crazy and now Christmas always reminds me of them.

Christmas is for kids.  Before I got married, I’d splurge on Christmas dinner and decor but never on gifts.  In fact, I’d recycle corporate gifts I got and give them to the little ones just so they had another present to rip open.  Eldest Sister’s Youngest Daughter was the best kid to give a gift.  No matter what it was, she would be happy as a clam when she opened that present.  Her tiny eyes always popped wide open and her joyous exclamations were always the happiest and loudest.  That was the  best part of Christmas always.

But the Christmas dinner, which is actually Christmas Day lunch,  has to be special because my family loves to gather round the table to eat and talk – usually about food still!  Last year on Christmas Eve, Third Sister and I were in the kitchen making our cooking plans for the Christmas lunch we always celebrated at our parents and she got so excited about the turkey she actually convinced me we HAD to do it right away.  It was almost midnight so we got started to prepare the bird that was by then defrosted and sitting in the refrigerator.  I regret not taking a photo of that bird.  I recently saw a turkey featured in some local newspaper and it was a far cry from the beauty my sister and I took home to Mama last year.  It was browned more  evenly than I ever made it – another set of eyes watching the bird does make a difference!

Yes, there was no sleep for us that night.  But what a lovely turkey breakfast we brought to Mama the next day!  It certainly wasn’t our usual thing but oh we had a great time!  The turkey was almost all gone before lunch when Eldest Sister arrived with her kids.  We made a lot of dressing to go with the bird and they got to sample some of that at least.  She brought lechon from Cebu and some other foods she cooked. Eldest Sister is a really good cook.

I’m looking forward to Christmas this year.   I’m just a Christmas person I guess.  My decorating is all done and I’m sitting here next to the Spouse with the Christmas tree all shiny and bright and cheerful.

I’m looking forward to Christmas next year even more.  We welcomed  a new addition to the family this year.   Eldest Nephew got married in October and now we have an Eldest Niece-in-Law,  our very first.  Next year, they’ll have a baby by the time Christmas comes so we’ll have the Eldest Grand Nephew or Niece.  Again, our very first and the first of his generation.  The cycle of life continues for our family.

Merry Christmas and may your tribe increase!

This is looking good…..

Let’s find out…..

MAMMA MIA!!!!!

LJC. He was my first boss. It was a shock to hear about his death last Monday.

LJC was the first true bon vivant I met. The year I worked for him was before the LJC Restaurant Group was even formally named although they already had a string of restaurants open in the Philippines and in Washington DC. That was the year Karihan Karitela and Cafe Adriatico-Hong Kong were opened. It was an exciting time and I was so young – everything was just so new to me. Your first job is always your baptism of fire and it was for me…I still shudder when I recall how dumb I was back in those days.

LJC: Hello Mita, what did you do today?

Me: Sir, you won’t believe this…I typed ONE letter the whole day today.

LJC: Ummm….I’m not paying you to type one letter a day….

Is it any wonder I didn’t stay on long as his secretary, with my boss mostly in the US on vacation! I was promptly moved to the Marketing department. But I learned so much working for LJC. He was involved in every phase of conceptualizing, menu-planning, recipe-testing, building and construction and marketing of each and every single restaurant he opened. Everyone knows he was also a former journalist and government press officer and avid antique collector before he became a restaurateur so there was nothing that escaped his watchful eyes. I learned just by watching and listening and boy did I lap it all up.
If there’s any one person I cannot separate from LJC when I think back, it was his father. Ambassador Emilio Aguilar Cruz, Lolo Amba as his family and all his employees called him, was LJC’s best friend and probably the biggest influence in his life. It was always a pleasure seeing those two men interact – more than father and son they were mentor and student, best friends. LJC had a reverence and respect for his father like nothing I’ve ever encountered. That truly was a special relationship.

I remember LJC, like his father, had that curiosity for new technologies. You might guess my age if I tell you one story to back me up…but here goes…

When cellphones were just introduced in the market, LJC promptly got one and was on and on about how wonderful it was he could conduct business while sitting in his car weaving through the infamous Manila to Makati traffic of those days.

Lolo Amba on the other hand was so fascinated by a photocopy of my hand I had tacked by my desk and asked if it was a fax copy. He went on about how wonderful fax was and how easy communicating had become. Sadly, I lost contact with them before the internet and email. I always wondered how Amb. Cruz would have felt about it all. He would have been a great blogger if he ever got into it.

LJC’s mother, Fely de Jesus-Cruz or Lola Ising as we called her, was another fixture in those days at Bistro Burgos. She’d come by usually in the afternoons and sit by the restaurant patio. I loved talking to her and listening to her stories of when she was a young wife and mother. She was a published writer too so her stories were all very interesting and brought me to an era I never experienced.

Those days, it seemed LJC was always in a hurry…he had this purposeful shuffle, with both hands in his pockets, walking from his car to his office in an old converted garage right next to the old Bistro Burgos. I’d spy him from the second floor window of my office and before I even had time to prepare he’d be barging in with an energy that always surprised me.

He’d be on the phone with his daughter first…then he’d have his stereo playing classical, jazz or broadway music depending on his mood, and conduct his business in just a couple of hours with people coming and going through my office it made my head spin …and then he’d be off again…to one of the restaurants most probably.

LJC’s passing has left a big, gaping hole in Philippine society. He was a forceful influence not just in the restaurant industry or publishing or urban renewal. In a way, you could say his influence spanned a couple of generations of restaurant patrons in the country and raised the bar for what to expect when you enter a restaurant….spoiled us all if you will.
As each and every person walks into any restaurant bearing his name in the future, they will be welcomed into Larry Cruz’s world…a wonderful, soothing world of the best food and and music, set against an ambiance only Larry Cruz could dream up.

I want to share this very dramatic article by The Denver Post dining critic, Tucker Shaw about the Basic Breakfast at a Denver diner called Kyle’s Kitchen.

My favorite part is his colorful and over the top description.   You just have to read the whole article to appreciate it.  Might I also suggest reading it out loud like you were reading a book to pre-school aged kids…his words really work better if you do.

Here’s the excerpt:

“Two resplendent golden yolks sit in the center of the plate, each supple and taut and pregnant with primeval nutrition, each aching to burst forth with creamy yolk-manna and drown the silken bed of egg white underneath.

Just next to your eggs nestles an amber pile of crispy-buttery hash browns under four searing-hot strips of salty marbled bacon that have been draped decadently over the top, rippled and shiny with a sheen of still-sizzling fat.

A pair of white-toast triangles, buttered and hot and crunchy only at the edges, hover at the edge of the plate, begging to be dipped into the waiting yolks, which, by now, you’ve dotted with drops of Cholula hot sauce.

It’s a promising picture of potential, an Edward Hopper breakfast tableau, suspended, waiting, eager to explode from a thing of beauty into a thing of deliciousness.

Grant your toast triangles that final wish and dunk them into one yolk, then the next, coating the corners with the liquid gold before you swipe them over your tongue. You won’t be disappointed (as you would be at so, so many other breakfast specialists in Denver) by tough, rubbery yolks or worse, cold eggs; instead, you’ll be rewarded with the rich, protein-heavy, soul-satisfying flavor of egg.

Once pierced, the yolks slowly, agonizingly slowly, release their ooze onto the rest of the plate. It bleeds into your hash browns and glazes your bacon strips, transforming the once-perfect tableau into a messy, irresistible, totally alive plate of gobble-me-down breakfast.

And gobble it down you will.’

A year and some 9 days ago, my husband finally convinced me to start a food blog.  He had no idea there was so much HE had to do to help me get started.  But I was interested enough when I got the hang of it…then I really got into it and was posting almost everyday. Unbelievably, this blog has been around for more than a year and is still getting hits despite the fact that I have been too busy attending to LIFE in general to take care of it

A year ago, we were in beautiful Colorado Springs staying warm indoors and heating up the kitchen with my cooking.  This year, I’m back in the tropics where I belong. My cooking activities have decreased quite a bit, not only because of the heat but also our eating so much less because of the heat…there’s also my mom who lives close by who always invites us over for meals.  Who can say no to Mama?

Thank you to everyone who came by, browsed, left a comment or just found this site by accident.  It amazes me how many people have been through here at one time or another…and from so many places, some of which I’ve never even heard of before. One time, I actually took out a map to look up where in the world the Faroe Islands is located!

Sincerely, thank you.  I feel so honored that my sometimes awkward words about  my kitchen successes and disasters, my memories and my cuisine were read.

I have been so busy after our big move from the US to the Philippines, with a million and one things on my plate, and unfortunately neglected this blog…again.  Mea culpa.  (more…)

Lani of Chibong Chika Lakwatcha ATBP posted a comment on my previous post about the fish frying pan I got from Ebay.  She noted the difficulties of making purchases from Ebay  as a resident of the Philippines.  Those difficulties will extend to other US internet shopping sites including Amazon, Barnes & Noble or the bigger retailers like Target, Old Navy, Pottery Barn, Walmart , etc.  Then there are the gourmet shops like Tienda.com for everything Spanish you can think of – even Jamon Iberico that was previously banned in the US.  Oh and there are the  kitchen equipment/supplies stores some other food blogs have featured and which you may have checked out in the past.

First of all, most sellers only ship to a US address.  If they ship worldwide, then shipping costs could be prohibitive.  Another problem, until recently anyway, was opening a Paypal account.  Things are moving in the right direction for Philippine shoppers however.  Paypal is now providing some service to Philippine residents. Please check out this post from Yugatech’s blog which has more details about what Paypal offers.  So, one hurdle down…what’s the next?  Shipping.  Well, there’s a perfectly legitimate way for you to receive purchases you yourself made through US internet shopping sites without begging your relatives living here to help you out. (more…)

This is my Eldest Sister’s own recipe for a white pasta sauce that’s proven to be a hit with ANYBODY who was fortunate enough to taste it. It’s very rich.  It’s earthy.  It goes well with soda, if you’re a kid, as well as it goes with a glass of very cold white wine if you’re an adult.

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I’ve been back from my vacation in the Philippines for almost a week now.  It was a nice 3-week reunion for all 7 siblings and my parents.  We have two new additions in the family whom I met for the first time…and dutifully fell in love with. Ohhh, I miss home and family everyday….

After more than a week of sleep-deprived nights and days, I’m still not all 100% here and have neglected my blogging and cooking.  So I decided to write this piece to help me get back on my usual schedule  and heal this heart that feels divided between two countries…

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It’s no secret Mita and I are big Ben and Jerry’s fans.  We’ve even considered moving to Vermont and getting jobs with B&J, especially since one of their employee benefits is three pints a day of your favorite flavor.  Hmmm, that’s three balanced meals free, is it not?

Well look’s like our fav ice cream maker has stubbed their toe a little bit on a political stumbling block.  I really thought that ice cream could be truly international and above politics, but seemingly not any more in this age of rabid ‘I’m offendedism’, *sigh*.  It’s a month since St Patrick?s Day which the Irish and the rest of the world celebrated with little note.  But some reporter with nothing much to write about has gone back into Steve’s Junk Food blog  to look at a string of comments (mostly from “brave” anonymous comments (ever notice how the loudest mouths are the most anonymous … gotta love the ‘Net)), apparently just to dreg up what these loud mouths were ranting about and give the maudlin complaints credibility.

The is no argument that the “Black and Tans”, a slang name for the Royal Irish Constabulary, were responsible for many reprehensible acts in Ireland many years ago.  (more here for history buffs).  But there’s also no argument that the ‘Black and Tan’ mixture of Guinness Stout and Harp Ale is an extremely popular drink in England, Ireland and the US.

The Reuter’s article claims that Ben & Jerry’s issued an apology, I don’t see it in writing after a cursory look at their web site and I am not going to look further.  How nice it would be if everything didn’t offend someone.  I think I’ll cool off with a glass of orange juice.  Ooops, does Minute Maid know about this?

Perhaps we’ll have to refer to the juice as amber and not Orange, after all the Orangemen were on one side of a very nasty religious rebellion and someone might be easily offended….