My mother used to make this dish with tomatoes and her tausi was freshly bought from her favored vendor or “suki” at the market.  They normally sell tausi in Philippine markets with other soybean products like tokwa (tofu) and tahure (fermented beancurd).  In Colorado Springs, I’ve been sourcing my fermented black beans from Filipino and Oriental stores around Academy Boulevard.  It’s only available in cans but is the exact same thing you’ll get back home.

Spouse is not usually keen on soybean products.  He doesn’t like tofu and I love it.  I have to coax him into enjoying it.  I have to tell him tofu is like a chameleon with no flavor of its own but it picks up the flavors of the other ingredients you put in with it.  He likes it better when it’s fried like in this dish.? He enjoyed this dish immensely, thank goodness.  Even after I cooked it twice last month to use  up a bag of frozen catfish fillets I had.

My favorite tofu dish is fried tofu, sauteed with garlic, onion and tomatoes.  This was a dish my eldest uncle came up with years ago and shared with my mother.  

My Tito Casto is all of 90 years old.   He’s a retired country doctor who practised in their home province of Zambales.  He’s always been health conscious and was always very careful about what he ate, unlike the rest of the family who just loves to cook and eat without thinking of the consequences.  He was into wine-making, vinegar-making, curing meats and other such things as I recall.  Even after he retired in his 70′s he continued learning new things and started on countless projects.  I have’t seen him in about 6 years and understand he now lives in California with one of his sons.

My mother’s siblings are all very interesting people.  Like their surname Magsaysay (Tagalog: to relate) implies, they all have the gift of gab.  I’m sure all my cousins have fond memories of our titos and titas gathered around someone’s dining table on an all-day, Sunday get-together.  

The food was always good and plentiful and it flowed all day long.  Their generation would all be talking and laughing at the same time, trying to be heard above the noise and always trying to outdo each other in their story-telling.  Oh the laughs and the stories we heard.  Everyone seemed to be smarter than the other at finding the best food and shopping bargains…LOL!  The sisters even had their own  secret “language”  that the brothers didn’t understand.  They say mostly Ilocano words in the reverse and could converse this way without blinking or stopping to think.

How strange that a simple dish which not even all the relatives knew of made me think about those happy times.  Each of my aunts and uncles had their own specialties. We always expected “orange rice” or arroz valenciana from Tito Casto, most times he’d bring  callos too.  Tita Chato had her brazo de Mercedes, Tita Mameng’s salads and fruitcakes were always to die for, Tito Luis could make a mean corn bread the likes of which I’ve never had to this day, my Tita Milagring made the best bibingkas, doughnuts and banana bread.  My godmother, Tita Remy, who passed away last year made beautiful tamales like she learned it from the best chefs in Pampanga.

My mother is allegedly the best cook amongst all of them.  Her claim to fame is Bessie’s  pinakbet.  My Lola Blanca taught her in her usual style, by instruction and not example.  This particular dish was based on my lola’s  Tiya Dyanang’s recipe.

It’s said she would cook it over a very low charcoal fire in a claypot or palayok, no water added so she had to keep it covered and never lifted the lid.  Shaken not stirred – just like a James Bond martini…LOL!

For years the only feedback Mama got from her mom was, “Tiya Dyanang did it better.” Finally, my mother gave up and told her, “After all these years, my pinakbet is better than Tiya Dyanang ever made it,” to which my grandmother only laughed in reply.  My mother’s pinakbet is so good, my Lola Blanca’s sister, Sor Peregrina (our Lola Ines) of La Consolacion always took back a big jar of it to the convent on Santolan Road after spending Sunday with her sister and her family

This was our Sunday ritual for so many happy years…all brought back by a can of fermented black beans.

At the Table with the Family

Well, that was the plan anyway. We made the wrong turn and I saw the sign for the Old Heidelberg Bakery and Cafe.  Spouse was all upset but hey, if you’ve got broken eggs, make an omelette, right?   And so we parked right in front of the bakery and decided to have lunch there instead. The bakery/cafe and deli looked very modern and clean.  I was sorry I didn’t bring my camera along so I could take shots of their delicious looking cakes and pastries. A short line was starting to form at the cashier but the staff was very efficient and we put in our order not long after we came in.

Spouse ordered the Jaeger Schnitzel and I picked the Schnitzel.  Our orders arrived and I was disappointed that my veal schnitzel was just that – a lonely looking schnitzel with two lemon slices on top of it, on the side was a tomato slice with a ring of raw onion on top of it, a quarter slice of dill pickel and part of a lettuce leaf to cover the gaping expanse on the rest of my plate.  The Jaeger Schnitzel came with a small ramekin of pickled red cabbage and spaetzle aside from all the veggies.  It had some mushroom sauce over the schnitzel too so it looked really yummy compared to mine. The Jaeger Schnitzel had a list price of $7.95 and the Schnitzel was priced at $7.50.  Needless to say, I was disappointed.

Fortunately for me, the cafe table was small enough so our plates were touching and I could easily move my fork from mine to Spouse’s.? He’s really good when it comes to sharing his plate so I gingerly dipped the dry schnitzel into his gravy.  Then of course I had to try the spatzle and red cabbage… The red cabbage and spaetzle were good.  In fact, I’ve decide to try my hand at cooking a batch sometime this week. I think I’ll pair it with some pork schnitzel I’ll cook myself.  My breaded pork chops always come out nicely so that will make a good dinner.

German Cooking: The Complete Guide to Preparing Classic and Modern German Cuisine, Adapted for the American Kitchen

Making shrimp juice takes time and patience, both of which everyone seems to have very little of these days. I remember shrimps being peeled, making sure the helmet-like shell at the top of the head with the sharp tip was thrown away. Then putting all the shells into the “dikdikan” or mortar and pestle where they were pound to a pulp. My mother would dilute this with water and strain it into her sauteing meats for pancit or anything guisado. She always made sure to wring every bit of juice out of this mess saying, “There’s still a lot of flavor there…” The shrimp juice would follow the patis and the steam would rise immediately. The smells coming from this wonderful mixture was simply mouth-watering.

I’m big on smells especially in cooking even if I’ve developed a virulent allergy to crustaceans – the “Drop dead, Gorgeous!” kind of allergy.  But I still have a fondness for the smell of shrimps during cooking.  mmmm….sounds almost vengeful…

Mama always said the secret to cooking is in how well you do your guisado. There are so many gourmet terms for it these days..caramelizing, sufrito..it’s just cooking your ingredients long enough to make brown bits in the bottom of your pan.  This will be the base of your sauce or soup which adds other layers of flavor to your dish.

Patience was never a virtue of mine but through the years you somehow give more respect to every dish you cook. Food can be so much more than something to shove up your mouth when you’re hungry. If it’s good, it becomes a standard or an experience, a conversation piece or the basis of a memory you will share and keep going back to for years and years to come.

Authentic Recipes From the Philippines

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!

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.

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!

Let’s find out…..

MAMMA MIA!!!!!

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.

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 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.