Anthology A Taste of Home

I received my contributor's copies of the anthology A Taste of Home, edited by Edgar Maranan and Len Maranan-Goldstein. It's a handsome collection of some 40 essays written by Filipinos in diaspora about food.

Published by Anvil, one may order the book from Anvil, directly. Anvil carries most of my other titles as well. Visit the url below:

http://www.anvilpublishing.com/bookdetails.php?id=2008000067

A La Carte mentioned in Philippine Daily Inquirer

Another Google Alert: (To those who don't know, Google has a feature wherein they alert you if your name is mentioned in the internet - that would be publications,news, blogs, etc.)

Country Cooking
Quietly promoting Filipino cooking

By Micky Fenix
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 16:15:00 12/24/2008

Filed Under: Lifestyle & Leisure, Food

IT was also her matter-of-fact manner of doing her daily cooking chore that taught me to do what I’m supposed to do the best way I can, but quietly.

This column may be regarded as not really a quiet way to accomplish my advocacy—to make the cooking of our country known to compatriots as well as to the world in general. But it is working quietly in the sense that the effort is done with countless others but isn’t organized. All of us go about the task in our own way whether in writing or in cooking.

Some of those like-minded people were at the launch of the book “Kulinarya: A Guidebook to Philippine Cuisine.” In the program they were cited for promoting Filipino cooking, many of them at their restaurants, proving that serving our dishes is a viable business.

Among those was Nora Villanueva Daza, acknowledged to be the first multimedia culinary personality (print, TV, radio) and the first restaurateur to bring our cooking to Europe.

Aux Iles Philippines was established by Nora Daza in Paris in the early 1970s. That is a wonder considering how Asian ingredients weren’t available everywhere as they are now. And it was a fine dining place, not a carinderia or turo-turo which was the way restaurants serving Filipino food was always presented during that time and even up to the 1990s.

Daza likes to point out the restaurant had an indoor garden which was very unusual for a Paris restaurant at the time. Her food also merited high honors in the French Michelin Guide as well as in the Gault-Millau Le Guide de Paris.

Among her accomplishments, Daza seemed proudest of Aux Iles Philippines as she told her guests at the party celebrating her 80th birthday attended by many of her friends and relatives who shared their experiences about her as neighbor, workmate, mother, grandmother, mother-in-law, ninang.

Many of us who work to have our food known don’t have such a grand operation as Aux Iles Philippines. Yet little by little we let the world sit up and take notice. Thanks to Gourmand World Cookbook Award winners like Felice Sta. Maria’s “The Governor General’s Kitchen,” Cecilia Manguerra Brainard and Marily Orosa’s “A la Carte: Food and Fiction,” and a book I’m proud to be a part of, “Foodlore and Flavours: Inside the Southeast Asian Kitchen” edited by Tan Su Lyn.

Thanks also to “Memories of Philippine Kitchens” by Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan that won the prestigious Grigson Award, the most coveted prize at the International Association of Culinary Professionals convention.

Little by little the efforts to promote our cooking are bearing fruit. Take a look at the December issue of Saveur, one of the best culinary magazines in the United States, where Christmas in Pampanga was a feature story. This was written by Robin Eckhardt who tapped her friend Marc Medina to show her the holiday feasting and simple pleasures at his family’s Mt. Arayat home.

Street food

My piece on street food produced e-mails that complained about my using the word “dirty” for local ice cream. One said that for someone who promoted local cooking, the term was derogatory to the industry.

I forgot that not all readers are of my generation, a group that isn’t classified alphabetically (as in X, Y, Z) but can be described in polite terms as “of a certain age.”

And one reader reminded me that the Internet version of this column is read also by non-Filipinos who might take the “dirty” description literally.

So let me put “dirty” in context. The women of my generation who studied in Catholic schools regard the word with some fondness because it reminds us of our colegiala years when the nuns’ pronouncements were infallible.

“Dirty” was how the nuns called ice cream produced by small outfits, some just home-based, because they presumed that the process may not be as hygienic as those produced by big corporations.

But “dirty” couldn’t kill my love for local ice cream. I never pass up the chance of buying whenever a cart is encountered.

There was an unforgettable incident where I was admonished by my mother, a colegiala herself, about buying from the ice-cream man outside the house. She said something bad would happen.

I presumed she meant a bum stomach or something like that. I laughed that off and bought two cones as my husband also loves the stuff.

On the first lick the earth shook. It was the earthquake that destroyed much of Baguio. I couldn’t believe that my mother was right again.

Thank you readers for reminding me how I have to think and write for a global audience.


E-mail pinoyfood04@yahoo.com.

FOOD ESSAY - FRIED CHICKEN CARIBBEAN-STYLE

(I'm working on a couple book projects and have been busy, thus the lack of diligence in blogging. I found this Food Essay with recipe in my files and thought of sharing it.)

FRIED CHICKEN, Caribbean-Style
Recipe for Fried Chicken, Caribbean-Style
1 chicken, cut into parts
Oil, for frying
1 big lemon
Salt, pepper

Wash chicken parts and place in a bowl. Cut a big lemon and squeeze lemon juice on the chicken parts. Leave juice in bowl with chicken. Add salt and pepper. Cover and leave chicken in the mixture for at least an hour. Heat oil, and deep-fry the chicken until nicely brown. Pour liquid from bowl over the chicken. Serve hot.

***
I’ve discovered that cooking shows can be entertaining and this afternoon, before I start fixing supper, I catch my breath and sit in front of the T.V. As if seeking for inspiration, I click on the Food Channel. A heavy-set black woman talks about fixing fried chicken the way her mother fixed it. What’s so special about fried chicken? I think. I can go to KFC any time. I’ve even learned to heat up packaged Honey Garlic chicken wings from Costco — and fool guests into thinking I cooked them myself.

But right before I change the channel, the woman declares that her mother is from the Caribbean. Something about the word “Caribbean” makes me pause. Ah — fried chicken with a twist — something exotic and different.

I decide not to click her off and sit back instead.

She brings the round bowl with the chicken parts under the faucet and proceeds to wash the parts. “You haf to clean de chicken,” she says, with a charming lilting accent. She drains the bowl. “Afterwards squeeze lemon to get rid of all de bad smells, and bad tings.” She picks up a lovely fat yellow lemon from the counter, slices it in half, and squeezes the juice over the chicken parts. Her fingers deftly turn each chicken part over so the juice coats all the pieces. Lovingly, she pats the breasts, thighs, all the pieces.

She could be a priestess performing an important ritual. I’ve never thought of cooking in this way. I tend to throw chicken parts into a bowl and drown them with soy sauce, vinegar and spices — and I avoid touching slimy parts.

“Put some salt and pepper and lef it for a couple of hours,” she says.

The camera zooms in on the bowl with the chicken parts soaking in the lemon juice and getting deliciously speckled with black and white grains.

My mind drifts to a childhood memory when we were all eating chicken, six of us around the glass-topped rectangular table. Papa loved chicken, and Mama made it a point to fix chicken with care. This was before supermarkets were around, and my mother would personally go to the open market to pick out the chicken. The unlucky chicken had to be fat and lively. Back home in the dirty kitchen, the cook would unceremoniously whip out her machete, catch the chicken and place his neck on the chopping board, and with one stroke chop off its head. The headless chicken ran around for a few seconds, but eventually slumped down at the end of a bloody trail. The cook would dunk the chicken into a cauldron of boiling water, and proceed to yank out its feathers. The feathers were saved for stuffing for pillows. The chicken would then be cut up and cleaned. She cut the chicken into small parts so the parts soaked the sauce better. She also washed the chicken parts, but just with water. She drained these and placed them in a big pot.

At this point, my mother took over. She crushed garlic and rubbed the macerated garlic on the chicken parts. She poured some soy sauce and vinegar into the pot, added salt, pepper and bay leaves, and cooked this is in medium heat. Basically, she boiled down the liquid and then she added oil and fried the chicken parts, along with the delicious brown residue of the soy mixture.

Every time we had chicken my father would grow lighthearted. He was 13 years older than my mother, and he was a formal man. But while looking at the crispy brown chicken laying on Mama’s huge white platter, he would recall his older brother, Kuya, who loved chicken breast, and who marked these pieces (so to speak) by spitting on them. (As I’m writing this, I realize this sounds disgusting, but that was how Papa told it.)

After, he would crack a joke. It was in Tagalog because he came from Laguna, Philippines. “Ano and masarap sa manok?” — It was a question with two meanings: What part of the chicken is delicious? And what is delicious to the chicken? We four children who grew up in Cebu and whose Tagalog was limited, would only catch the simpler meaning of the question: What part of the chicken is delicious. And we would shout out — “The leg,” or “The breast,” of “The wing,” projecting our own favorites.

Then Papa would shake his head, and we would all quiet down, and suspense hung in the air. When we were absolutely still, he would say with some flare, “Maiz (corn)!” — and all six of us would laugh at the double-entendre, and we children repeated the joke for the rest of the day.

The woman from the Caribbean is back on the screen, and now she’s pouring oil onto a skillet, and she tenderly lifts each chicken part from the bowl and lays each one on the sizzling skillet. She browns the chicken and covers the pan so the middle portion of the chicken cooks. When she lifts the cover, I think she’s done with her Caribbean chicken — but no — she takes the leftover lemon juice and drizzles this over the chicken. The juice mixes in with the oil. Using a metal spatula, she scrapes the crumbly brown parts that cling to the skillet and which make my mouth water. In a short while, she lifts the fried chicken parts and places them on a platter. “Serve with rice and beans!” she declares.

Even when I resume my work, I still consider how this woman lovingly handled the chicken parts, as if she were blessing each part, as though conscious that the chicken had surrendered its life to become food. I tell myself I will have to do that.
###


Read also:
Cooking with Cecilia Brainard - Quiche
Cooking with Cecilia Brainard - Linguine with Clams
Cooking Lengua Estofada
Food Essay - Fried Chicken Caribbean-style
How I Learned to Make Leche Flan (or How I Met my Husband)
Cooking with Cecilia - Leche Flan (Vietnamese Style) 
Recipe of Balbacua Cebuana from Louie Nacorda 
Cooking with Cecilia - Chicken Soup for my Bad Cold
Cooking with Cecilia - Beef Bourguignon

(Photo shows Cecilia with her father and one sister. Cecilia is the one standing.)

tags: food, wine, cooking. Philippines, fried chicken

Dinner in Zulueta, Historic Old Cebu, Philippines

There is a small group of die-hard lovers of Old Cebu whom I socialize with when I am Cebu. We will sometimes have dinner in my Zulueta place. It is really quite a fun group that usually ends up talking about Cebuano history, culture. What I love most of all is their passion about wanting to revitalize historic Old Cebu. July 13, we had such a potluck dinner, Cebuano food, was the theme.
Our guests that evening were Dr. and Mrs. Michael Cullinane, assistant director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who is currently in Cebu on a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship. Honorable Arsenio Pacana also graced the group with his presence.
The group photo shows seated l-r: Melva Rodriguez Java, Louella Alix, Louie Nacorda, Margarite Cullinane, standing l-r: Cecilia, Terry Manguerra, Gavin Bagares, Toti Villalon, Councilor Pacana,Joy Gerra, and Michael Cullinane. (Val and Booging Sandiego were supposed to be there but got hung up with an event in their heritage Yap-Sandiego house).
The photo of three shows l-r: The Cullinanes and Toti Villalon.

The food picture shows Louie Nacorda's delicious Balbacua Cebuana


Here's Louie's recipe for the Balbacua Cebuana and note proposing a Spanish themed food the next time we do a Zulueta dinner:
~~~~
From Louie Nacorda:
The pleasure is mine in sharing my mother's recipe of Balbacua
Cebuana. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
2kgs ox tail, cut in serving size
1 kg beef kinche, cut in serving size (I don't know what this is called in
English but its on the leg part, used also for pochero)
1/4 kg raw peanuts, shelled and peeled
1 can black salted beans
2 red onion bulbs, peeled and quartered
1 pc fresh duwaw, about 3"long, half inch in diameter (turmeric? Im not
sure of its English name)
2 tablespoon annato oil

Procedure:
Boil ox tail in salt and water for 15mins, then drain;
Boil ox tail again in water and duwaw for about 2-3 hours, or until
semi-tender;
Add beef kinche and raw peanuts, continue boiling over slow fire for
another 2-3 hours;
When tail and kinche are almost tender, add the quartered onions, salted
black beans (rinsed once in running water, and quick) and annato oil;
Cook for another 30mins-1 hr.;
Serve with hot steamed rice. Perfect combination is dry pork adobo, or
Ilocano bagnet (boiled in Rufina patis) or bocaue lechon kawali.

Got to check my flicker url for your easy access but I guess when you go
internet explorer and type "Louie Nacorda", it will come out along with the
other cyberspace entries about me.

I did enjoy very much our get-together last night and yes, please, let's do
it again when you get back and have Spanish-themed food. I can hardly wait
to taste Chona's Galantina and Jamonada, and Louella's Pastel de Lengua. No
Paella please as it is a complete dish by itself and must be eaten alone. I
can do Beef Pochero and a mean Leche Flan (that will hold a spoon standing
when you stab into it. More like tocino del cielo actually, but I still
call it Leche Flan because of the heavy syrup and caramelized topping)

Terry, I will try your chicken TIMKEE one of these days, but I will add
duwaw, black mushroom and glass noodles to your Shiao Shing Chinese Wine
and water, and perhaps, a spoon or two of White Horse Chinese Soya Sauce,
because I remember my mom's recipe of it had some black mushroom and
sotanghon on it, and it was rather brownish. Thanks! I just hope I could
buy dressed culled chicken, as I find the butchering and the dressing part
rather tedious and messy.

See you guys again in the near future.
Louie

Read also:
Cooking with Cecilia Brainard - Quiche
Cooking with Cecilia Brainard - Linguine with Clams
Cooking Lengua Estofada
Food Essay - Fried Chicken Caribbean-style
How I Learned to Make Leche Flan (or How I Met my Husband)
Cooking with Cecilia - Leche Flan (Vietnamese Style)
Recipe of Balbacua Cebuana from Louie Nacorda 
Easy Filipino Recipes from Maryknollers 
Cooking with Cecilia - Beef Bourguignon
Cooking with Cecilia - Chicken Soup for my Bad Cold 
~~~
Links:
Cathedral Museum- Where Louella Alix and Terry Manguerra work
Casa Gorordo Museum where Joy Gerra works
Yap Sandiego Heritage House owned by Val and Booging Sandiego
Dr. Michael Cullinane - Fullbright Scholar, more information
Dr. Augusto Villalon, more information
Honorable Councilor Arsenio Pacana

Top Photo l-r

EASY FILIPINO RECIPES FROM MARYKOLLERS

The trip to Arrowhead was great! Activities consisted of non-stop talking, eating, praying, shopping, and watching August Moon. It was still very cold in Arrowhead - remember, we are all Tropical girls! There was still snow along the banks. It rained Saturday night and there was a flurry on Sunday.

We had a lot of Filipino comfort foods: Sinigang, Binagoongan, fried dilis,longaniza, plus other dishes. Maria Ciocon brought a wonderful Corn Soup, and below is her recipe. I've asked the others for their recipes, which I'll add to this blog entry:

Maria Ciocon's CORN SOUP
Here again is the basic- the soup I cooked Saturday was - 3 small cans of
cream corn (salted) and also 2 or 3 chicken broth. Start with 2 if you put
3 might get too watery and not as creamy.

1. chicken breast-boiled and diced into serving pieces (your sahog can
also be shrimp, artificial crab or ground pork

2. sauté garlic, onion, with cooked chicken breast. Add a little
Fish sauce for flavoring.

3. add 2-3 cans of cream corn. Stir for 2-3 minutes allowing corn
to mix with your chicken. Then add your chicken broth. Low to medium
fire, when your soup is boiling put 1-2 eggs and whisk fast. This will
make the soup thick in consistency.

Soup I cooked was good for 2 meals It will last and still be OK
for 2-3 days as long as its refrigerated.

Maria Ciocon's LAING
Your gabi leaves should really be dry cause if not you throat will get itchy.
Cut gabi leaves. Your sahog will be shrimps, dried fish (daing) pieces of pork w fat so to make it tasty. Don’t use beef, it will not give it flavor. Sliver of ginger and little garlic. I don’t think you use onions.

1 can of coconut milk or two depending on amount of gabi leaves
Bagoong (shrimp paste)
chili-small red or green ones, depend on how hot or spicy you want it to be.

1. saute your ginger , garlic,

2. add your pork, shrimp or daing or all 3 to make if you want it really tasty

3. add your leaves

4. pour your coconut milk, not the top or creamy portion. (do not dilute your coconut milk with water)

5. season with bagoong, and when leaves are wilted or look more or less like pureed, add creamy portion of coconut milk

6. when ready to serve add chili, cause if you put this early it will really be spicy

Your dish should look like spinach deep with a little oil from coconut oil, it shouldn’t look watery.

Or since this is a poor man’s dish you can just put all of the above together,let it boil. When creamy (like a spinach deep) add your creamy part of the coconut milk. Add or season with bagoong and add your chilis
~~~
Meldee Perez's SINIGANG NA BABOY Ingredients: cooking oil, pork neck bones cut into
serving pieces (you can also use pork ribs), garlic,
onions, tomatoes, rice water, patis, 1 green or yellow
chili, Knorr tamarind soup base in packet, baby
bokchoy, talong (optional) and white radish
(optional).

For SINIGANG NA HIPPON , just boil tomatoes first in
rice water. Once tomatoes turn soggy and soft, add
slice onions. Add patis and knorr tamarind to taste.
Then add shrimps until cooked. Add bokchoy before
serving. Serve hot.

Saute garlic, onions,in oil then add pork. Brown
pork, then add tomatoes. Saute around 15 to 20
minutes or until you see fat coming out from the pork,
then add little patis for the pork to absorb the
patis, stir and wait for around 5 minutes. Add rice
water. This is usually the time I cook rice. 1st
wash, I throw, and add the 2nd wash into the pot.
Broth added depends on how much soup you want.
Usually I drown the meat. Let boil until meat is
tender. I remove the fat w/c surfaces on the broth.
You can add water if you think you want more soup.
Put the tamarind powder in a bowl and add water and
stir to blend. (Most of the time, I just add the
tamarind powder directly in the pot when I'm
tinatamad). Add some more patis to taste and blend
w/the tamarind. Add talong, radish and bokchoy and
serve hot.

Meldee Perez's TINOLA
Ingredients: cooking oil, garlic, onions, ginger,
chicken cut in serving pieces and remove skin, patis,
rice water, chayote cut in 2, then cut horizontally,
spinach wash well (optional) or green onions, optional
(cut into 2 inches long) to add green color.

Saute garlic, onion and ginger in oil. When you can
smell the ginger, add cut chicken and brown around 10
to 15 minutes. Add patis generously . Add rice water
and let boil until tender. Remove floating fat.
(marami iyan!) Before the chicken gets too tender,
add chayote w/c cooks like 10 minutes. Add spinach or
green onions before serving. Serve hot.

 ~~
Read also:
Cooking with Cecilia Brainard - Quiche
Cooking with Cecilia Brainard - Linguine with Clams
Cooking Lengua Estofada
Food Essay - Fried Chicken Caribbean-style
How I Learned to Make Leche Flan (or How I Met my Husband)
Cooking with Cecilia - Leche Flan (Vietnamese Style) 
Recipe of Balbacua Cebuana from Louie Nacorda 
Easy Filipino Recipes from Maryknollers 
Cooking with Cecilia - Beef Bourguignon 
Cooking with Cecilia - Chicken Soup for my Bad Cold 

tags: food, wine, cooking, recipes, Filipino