A Whole Lot of S...

Shrimp and Squid Scampi Pasta

The stats of my life these days would reflect 80% work and 20% play. It seems desolate but honestly, it isn’t. As I see it, majority of what I do at work recently involves constant scampering to different tasks that can be physically strenuous at times, but can get really fun as well; what with all the free travels, opportunity to work with interesting people and of course being able to try a variety of food in the places I visit.

I am always grateful for the fact that development work has spawned useful skills in me that have become part of my everyday life. I’ve learned, among others, to see and value the singular in the plural - every single thing as unique on its own, a speck connected to other specks that make up a particular whole, which also forms part of a bigger dimension, and so on. Just like a single person in a community, and just like one custom in a diverse culture. As in cooking, every single ingredient makes up a whole dish. One ingredient can make all the difference, but we won’t know the difference unless it is mixed with all the other ingredients.

A (Not-So) French Onion Soup

Onion soup on a humid Sunday seems quaint,
but it surely tamed six hungry tummies!

Onion soup cures colds and heartaches. Well, at least for me.

When Patrick asked the ingredients for the onion soup while doing his shopping for the feast, I didn't know I'll be preparing it. Taken by surprise, I had to make it from how I usually do it - not the French way.

There are two ways to prepare your onion for the soup, each depends on the length of time available to cook it:

- Minced onion: Short-time preparation. Personally, I like taking bites on the sweet white onion while sipping the soup. It gives a kick to its otherwise gooey texture.

- Peel it, leave it whole: Longer time required. Aside from the length of time which takes an hour at least, you need a good thick-bottomed pot to avoid burning your onions. Burned food NEVER taste good. If you prefer just taking the taste of onion on the soup, this is for you.

Lost in Translation: Mejillones en Salsa de Pimenton (Mild)

I had no idea I was reading a Spanish website containing the recipe for our European-themed afternoon feast for Ningning's birthday, (thanks to an auto-translation by Goggle Chrome) until I opened it on a mobile device while attempting to copy it on my little black notebook as I rush to Meleguas. Instantly, I had a really strange feeling that somewhere my professor in Spanish 1 at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Señor Wystan Dela Peña, is doing his evil laugh and had this charming “You should've listened more” face on. I should have, but Señor, I still figured everything out. (I guess.)

After all, centuries of Spanish colonization are embedded in our veins, six units of language classes still stack-piled somewhere in my brain's recycle bin and guts, which I seem to use more of in the kitchen lately, I was able to make mejillones en salsa de pimento (mild).

Eat and Run and Vice Versa Because Life is All About Running Around Anyway. C’est la vie!

oh the chaos!

Whilst Edith Piaf’s Non Je Ne Regrette Rien blasted on the stereo, the chopping boards sounded in (un)rhythmic staccato to Abba’s Mama Mia. The kitchen was in total confusion, with aroma of Europe blasting in that humid Sunday afternoon, and the sound of the frying pans banging on the floor to the occasional ohhs and ahhs and yays of the clumsy cooks!

fiesta eh!

It was a muddled European fantasy fished straight out of Danny Boyle’s psyche. With the Eifel Tower and Big Ben within arm’s reach, and the Pissa leaning side by side Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia amid confetti and yellowbells adorning a sun-spotted, star-spangled tablerunner with a wee pine tree at the middle.

She was named after the star: Maria Luningning, oh how telenovela-ish

Madness not even the Madhatter’s Tea Party was at par. The disjoint was pretty obvious. We started the day quite early with half of the clumsy cooks running for Nat Geo’s Earth Day finishing our line at Tapa King then heading straight to the grocery and the wet market where a spitting clam and a transvestite mutually coexisted.

Blimey! Oh my Gulay!

Moby. Morrissey. Morissette. Natalie Portman. Oliver Stone. Paul McCartney. Pink. Voltaire. Wolfgang Peterson. Zooey Deschanel. Michael Jackson. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Albert Einstein. Mahatma Gandhi. Ashley Judd. Great people. Vegetarians. Surprised?

Previously, I abhorred ve-ge-ta-bles like I was the absolute anti-thesis to Lucky Me’s makulay ang buhay sa sinabawang gulay campaign. As much as I liked to sing to the Bahay Kubo as apap would cultivate his greens around the house, vegetables and its other forms were total nightmares to me at the dining table. Think the Attack of the Killer Tomato with its minions: the pungent radish, the evil ampalaya, the yucky okra, and the vicious malunggay!

But, by fate or circumstances, by my quarterlife I started to love oh my gulays oh so dearly- and of all places pa, in the UK! It was rather (un)fortunate that whilst managing the Global Xchange Programme- a 6-month cultural and volunteer exchange in the UK and PH, I got to live with errr, ethical people? Yeah, you heard it right- a bunch of cool dudes espousing ethical living whose products in the flat spelled local, organic, fair-trade, child-labour free, vegetarian, and so on and so forth. Because I so loved my flatmates and their tree-hugging radical friends, out of respect I started not to devour anything with feet and eyes in front of them so I can join them over campfires and booze, and football and shit at the park! In short, I’ve become vegetarian, que horror!

The Birth of Awesomeness!

Of all the special occasions in my life, my birthday would probably be the least I am eagerly anticipating.

The enthusiasm I have on my birthday is weirdly going downhill as I grow old. Maybe because it’s the realization that as you grow old, having your birthday celebrated means you’re the one who’s going to spend for it. There are no moms and pops that will give you a party and buy you a cake. No ninangs and ninongs giving you gifts. This is now the point in your life you realize that, as a grown-up, you are now responsible of making that day memorable.

So in the advent of my looming 25^th birthday, I realized that I have the choice to make it fun and unforgettable. That’s why when Patrick insisted that I should probably celebrate my birthday with another cookfest with the explocook gang, I texted Maggie right away if we can abuse her house again and she said yes. 

A Copycat's Take on a J. Oliver Recipe

Grilled Spatchcocked Chicken with New Potatoes and Asparagus in Herby Yogurt

This is based on a recipe of the same title
 from Cook with Jaime Oliver,  2006 Oct, UK.

I am one among millions of Jaime Oliver followers, because:

- I like the way he cooks: crude, disorganized in an adorable way;

- He has meltdowns. I do too. When it happens, he moves on, tries it again and makes it better. I don't; I stop and never go back, my dinuguan in 2002 is the perfect example;

- Aside from cooking, he plants, and; 

- I have always imagined ending up with a Filipino version of him (OH YES! I AM A DREAMER!). Instead, I got a mutated Larry Page stalker-in-denial, Michael Greer-wannabe, Andrew Dan-Jumbo in-the-making and a devout Ric Segreto fanatic who once cooked a very tasty chicken adobo on our second date and was never able to recreate it years after. I say, typical one-hit wonder.

Often when I serve meals I got from Mr. Oliver, most of my friends find it too “foreign” for their taste. When you have friends with tongue predisposed to eating saucy Spanish, salty Filipino, overcooked Tsinoy (Filipino-Chinese) food, all others are foreign.