explorations of the clumsy "cooks"

Sunday 22 May 2011

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.














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).

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. Burnt food NEVER taste good. If you prefer just taking the taste of onion on the soup, this is for you.

Wednesday 4 May 2011

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!

Saturday 30 April 2011

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 25th 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. 

Thursday 14 April 2011

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.

Death By Chocolate ver 2


Death By Chocolate ver 2 with fresh mint leaves.
Everybody LIKES chocolate – somehow. No, don't shake your head in disagreement. As a hilaw na manga and bagoong-person (my soul tingles at the sight of green mango and sauteed salted shrimp fry), I would probably do the same if I hear that statement from someone else. But you have to admit, we all have chocolate fixes. Mine is a candy-coated dark chocolate with peanuts. Yes, Patrick, I agree that it is indeed a rip-off since the candy coating is relatively thick, there's too little chocolate in it and the peanut inside is more or less 400% bigger than an average-sized peanut in a Prinsesa pack. If you grew up in the Philippines, circa 80s to 90s, you probably know what Prinsesa is.

When Ryan asked for a chocolatier cake for his birthday, I knew I had to come up with something that will make his pores bleed chocolate and his eyes pop in overload.

I landed on Cacaoweb's Death By Chocolate which I consider version 1. It is a fairly simply recipe but it requires an oven. If you intend to make this, you do not need to buy an oven (yet, although it is a good investment); if you have friends who own one, visit them, bake and increase your pogi/ganda points.

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Gusto ko ng baboy!

My brother is not a pig!”, sobbed Nora Aunor in Minsan May Isang Gamu-Gamo to an American Serviceman who shot his brother who mistook him for a wild boar. The incident compelled Corazon de la Cruz (Aunor) to cancel her trip in the land of milk and honey to work as a nurse.


This scene was so powerful that aside from awakening my senses to the struggle of Filipinos against the Americans in the Philippines, also introduced me to the use of the word pig. Prior to that, the only pig I knew were the ones in the corral which my dad raised, but from thereon I got the liking of using pig or baboy in anything I find unacceptable- mostly on how people behaved.

Saturday 9 April 2011

Sun and Squash



The meaning of the word fest stays true to my friends who never seem to lose the energy to celebrate or come together for anything whenever, wherever. That Saturday was no different; in fact even more so because there WAS indeed something to celebrate. It appeared that even a mabangisnalobo can actually remember that he was turning a quarter-century old. I wanted to give him a “savagely fierce balloon”, but I don't know what it looks like so I ended up not getting him one.

I remember that I had my 'biggest' birthday celebration when I turned his age. I invited most of my friends and had a blast cooking for everybody. It’s nice to look back and realise that I've been cooking for years now, although not as often as I want to. And as years passed, all I was certain of is that being amateur and clumsy got nothing to do with age.  

Of Karl Marx, Tyler Durden (a.k.a. Edward Norton), Martha Stewart, a Whole Gamut of Isms, and my Own Meandering Experience



Artwork: batanggala; Images:theinspirationroom.com, coulaslourdes.com,
clker.com, flixster.com, utahstories.com, overgrownpath.com, arthursclipat.org

Tyler Durden: We're consumers. We are by-products of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don't concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra.
Narrator: Martha Stewart.
Tyler Durden: Fuck Martha Stewart. Martha's polishing the brass on the Titanic. It's all going down, man. So fuck off with your sofa units and Strinne green stripe patterns.


Again, Martha Stewart- cook, artist, entrepreneur, innovator, prisoner. Now, that’s what you call a lady with balls. Man, if I were a she, I would be her. But, I reckon I don’t need some castration as lately, the dining table is slowly turning around as more and more hombre are staying in the kitchen more than the pub. Introducing a new breed of men- [drum roll please] the gastrosexuals! Think Gordon Ramsay or Jamie Oliver. You know, this new generation of men who can actually cook and uses their kitchen prowess and seduce prospective partners. Thus, a man donning an apron is no longer sissy but sexy. Woot woot.

Monday 4 April 2011

La Bouche, Coming Home and The Night Jose Ruled Drunken Pinoy Henyo

When Portia came back from her Australia trip loaded with stories and photos, we gathered together along with a bottle of Pareng Jose (the tequila), tacos with homemade beef, cheese, chili and tomato dip, and a game of Drunken Pinoy Henyo (yes, "truth or dare" is now old school) and we came up with the idea of "cooking together". Since we are amateurs and with experience only of "cooking to satisfy our hunger" we have convinced each other that we want to be each other's "lab rat", an audience, a critic (of which we find ourselves really good at, in the most amusing way).

There, the idea of "cook fest" was born.

The first cook fest-cum-welcome dinner-cum-late birthday celebration for Portia ended up with a delightful meal of Balsamic Chicken and Pears, Banana Bread, Lemon Tuna Pasta, Ripe Mango Shake and Margarita.

If Life Gives You Lemons, Say Thank You! (Nothing's Free Nowadays)

If there’s one thing I can be proud of with my Mom’s culinary expertise, it is her own version of Lengua Estofado, Menudo, and Calloz Royale. Those three are phenomenal! And if there’s one thing I am very ashamed of, it’s her Spaghetti a la Ketchup. That one is dangerously horrendous!

No wonder they call this Depression Spaghetti http://www.convergingcuisine.com/?p=28
I really don’t understand why my Mom still uses her spaghetti ketchup recipe. When we were kids, probably it tastes good, but now, it seems like I am eating pasta soaked in Jufran’s Banana ketchup. Yes, that’s how my palates become more sophisticated after writing several articles on wedding food during my stint in Manila Bulletin.

Mango Shake Delight!


Ripe mango photo from Jun Lisondra
Being one of the most common fruits around, it is easy to disregard mangoes but I’ll bet my life to it that the Philippines has the best-tasting and sweetest mangoes out there. With its availability all-year round, you can experiment a lot of things with it and you make it into any kind of dessert that you wish. The easiest and most refreshing way you can enjoy mango is to make it into a smoothie or a shake.


Here’s what you’ll need:

2 Ripe mangoes (make sure that it is sweet)
Crushed Ice
½ cup Evaporated filled milk
2tbsp Sugar

Balsamic Chicken and Pears, O-ha!

Eat it or leave it! That was the mantra over the dining table whilst growing up. And to further this agony, our mom would always remind us to consume to the last bit whatever was on the plate as if we’re living the lyrics of “bawat butil ng palay, ay butil ng pawis ng luha at dugo”.

The song plus the incessant reminder has probably scarred my subconscious that up to these days it pains me to see food wastage. It is probably also to blame my being frugal in a lot of things that’s why I can’t help but exclaim of the rising prices everywhere! IBON said that the value of the P382-minimum wage in NCR is worth only P235 in 2004, see?

One day thinking of what to cook and wanting to utilise what’s only available in the fridge and the kitchen condiments- chicken, pears, olive oil, balsamic vinegar I asked myself “what to do eh?” I may be knowledgeable about a lot of stuff (mostly chismis), but not in the kitchen. Thank goodness for google, I just typed in the available ingredients and voila from www.inmamaskitchen.com, the Balsamic Chicken and Pears.

Sunday 3 April 2011

1:3 Margarita

Margarita is probably one, if not the most, loved tequila-based cocktails and the easiest to make with the introduction of commercially available margarita mixes in the market. And they come in different fruity flavors as well! But I am into classic lime.

Although at times and when it permits, I find it interesting to make it from scratch but the convenience of 1:3 - that’s one part tequila and three parts margarita mix; saves a lot of time in preparation which means you’ll have more time to do other things, like say, start drinking and mingling.

This whole concoction costs, at the minimum, about PhP 1,000 depending on the brand of tequila you prefer. Local breweries offer a less expensive one than imported brands you see on the market. If you are not very particular, it does not (well, it does, a little) change much on taste. But with a thousand pesos and a few friends, this does not cost much with the alternative of enjoying it in a bar or a restaurant. Believe me, enjoying it outside will cost you more. A single bottle of margarita mix can make you about two pitchers or more. In fact, the margarita mix we used here was left-over from a previous all-nighter.

Going bananas!

Before I visited my sister in Sydney last year, I’ve never tried a hand at baking. My mother used to bake when I was a kid, but my memory fails to bring out a picture of me being involved in the process, except perhaps the eating part. My sister has more fond memories of the baking heydays at home; I guess this is what influenced her in making yummy cakes in her own kitchen several years later. All that baking in her Aussie kitchen rubbed some on me, which I brought home to test during our first-ever clumsy cookfest.


at the Aussie kitchen: cupcakes for my 30th, my first-ever banana bread, Jomy's 2nd bday Spiderman carrot cake with pecan and almond nuts, Jet's 1st bday almond milled chocolate choochoo train cake and the banana bread loaf before the attack! (jet and jomy are my little nephews, by the way)

I decided to come up with banana bread - or cake? the difference is very thin if it exists at all - on my first solo attempt at baking, with critics composed of close friends. Without my sister's presence to guide me, it was a bit unnerving but then, bananas are so common in the Philippines being a tropical country that eventually it felt like I can never go wrong with it.

Saturday 2 April 2011

Because Cooking Is All About The Cooker, Not The Cookie or This Is Probably An Excuse For A Psychological Disorder


To start off, let me just say that contrary to popular belief, cooking for me is not therapeutic.


You know what’s relaxing and satisfying? It’s the affirmation you get when your family or friends eat your food. It’s the remark: “Wow. This is good. This is food-channel good!”

I think that’s my main reason why I cut vegetables and boil pasta. It’s the thought of gastronomical glorification from your peers. I never had a formal culinary training or any guidance from my Mom, which is by the way, the best maker of Lengua Estofado and Calloz Royale!

So making people around you satisfied with your food is really good. But making people say YOU’RE GOOD because they’re satisfied with your food is just pure bliss.

Yes. Affirmation is very therapeutic. As with any craft and skills you know. And apart from the indescribable joy I feel when someone praises my culinary prowess, cooking also taught me some life’s lessons.