TRAVELS (and more) WITH CECILIA BRAINARD: Cooking: My Own Spice Box and Doreen Gamboa Food Writing Competition

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Cooking: My Own Spice Box and Doreen Gamboa Food Writing Competition

I found a nice spice box from India at the Somosa House in Culver City where we had a nice casual dinner one evening. This vegetarian restaurant has good Indian food, and the annexed market has wonderful spices and Indian goods, including this stainless steel spice box.

I've never owned a spice box before. Spice boxes are not traditional in the Philippines. First of all, Filipinos did/do not use a lot of spices as South Asians do. We used pepper, garlic, ginger, bay leaves, tamarind, onion, and other herbs that our cook bought at the wet market or plucked from our garden. We did not have the array of colorful dry spices that can be found in places like Egypt, Turkey, or India. (I've wondered why not when we're near the areas that grow these spices -- but that is another topic.)

Now I use different spices in my cooking and to be honest, these are in quite a disorder in my kitchen cabinet. Some are in containers, some in their original packaging. I was envious when I saw my friend Swapna's spice box once, which looked pretty and practical. She explained that the spice box was for daily use; one filled it from the larger supplies stored in tight containers (because insects may attack spices).

So when I saw this spice box at the Somosa House, I bought it and am now deciding what to put in. So far I have turmeric, red chiles, pepper, and crystal salt. I'll continue to fill the containers with what I tend to use often.

This is probably as good a time as any to mention that the Doreen Gamboa Fernandez Food Writing Award in the Philippines announces that its topic for the 2015 competition is HERBS. Deadline for submission of entries is October 11/2015. Entries should be sent to dgfawards@yahoo.com.ph with a separate file containing the author’s real name, pen name, contact numbers, address, and a brief bionote. Each contestant may submit up to two different entries, each with a different pen name.

The entry should be an essay in English of not less than 4,500 characters nor more than 5,000 characters (800 words), double-spaced. Judging continues to be based on content (50%), research (30%), style (20%). For more information, visit the Doreen Gamboa Fernandez Food Writing Award Facebook page.

This is all for now this dreary June morning,

Tags: food, cooking, Filipino, spice box, spices, herbs, Foreen Gamboa Fernandez

Cecilia

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard's official website is ceciliabrainarddotcom. She is the award-winning author and editor of 22 books, including When the Rainbow Goddess Wept, The Newspaper Widow, Magdalena, Selected Stories, Vigan and Other Stories, and more. She edited Growing Up Filipino 1, 2, & 3, Fiction by Filipinos in America, Contemporary Fiction by Filipinos in America, and other books.. Her work has been translated into Finnish and Turkish; and many of her stories and articles have been widely anthologized. Cecilia has received many awards, including a California Arts Council Fellowship in Fiction, a Brody Arts Fund Award, a Special Recognition Award for her work dealing with Asian American youths, as well as a Certificate of Recognition from the California State Senate, 21st District, and the Outstanding Individual Award from her birth city, Cebu, Philippines. She has lectured and performed at UCLA, USC, University of Connecticut, University of the Philippines, PEN, Shakespeare & Company in Paris, and many others. She has served in the Board of literary arts groups such as PEN, PAWWA (Pacific Asian American Writers West), among others.