The New Filipino Kitchen

We bid a sad farewell to Singapore and resettled in California at the end of 2017. It took some time for our family to get over the heartache of leaving the place where we raised our son for five years and set down roots somewhere both familiar yet unknown in many ways. What helped me during this transition was my involvement with The New Filipino Kitchen's marketing campaign. Starting in 2018, I toured all over the US, from the Bay Area ( San Francisco Oakland Berkeley) to Chicago and NYC, to launch NFK along with my fellow contributing authors. There were also other tours abroad in Vancouver and the UK that our editor and other contributing authors took part in. For two years I participated in book talks, appeared on national and international TV,  judged cooking contests, helped with food prep & service for a  book launch/pop-up dinner in New York. We came full circle last autumn back in SF to celebrate the one year birthday of the book. Our editor Jacqueline Chio Lauri and photographer Rowena Dumlao Giardina travelled all the way from the UK and Italy, respectively,  to mark this milestone with us. It was such a special evening where I reunited with our tribe and met my idols, Ate Jackie and Ate Rowena.

The New Filipino Kitchen: The Sequel is in progress. I can't wait to hear about how the next wave will experience this continuing narrative of what Filipino food is and why. 

And I will continue to hold  near to my heart my new found family, despite us being far-flung across the country, especially Kuya Rod, Dalena, Alexa, Rob, Vanessa, Paolo, Kristina, Katrina and closer to home, Jo and Lisa.

I hope that someday we can once again sing in New York taxicabs, eat Chinese food after book launches, build altars for our ancestors, accidentally pour confectioner's sugar on each other, get dressed in the pantry and drink chili spiked cocktails. Let's plan for a reunion: villa in Italy or Bali, perhaps?

A labor of love by migrant Filipinos around the world brings forth #TheNewFilpinoKitchen, featuring the White House Executive Chef Cris Comerford, Food Buddha Rodelio Aglibot, MasterChef New Zealand 2015 runner-up Leo Fernandez, Bocuse d'Or Norway 2017 champ Christian Andre Pettersen, 5-time Palanca awardee Francis Macansantos, and many others. This book aims to make bestseller list to raise recognition for Filipino food worldwide. 

Praise for The New Filipino Kitchen:

2019 Midwest Book Award winner, 2019 Eric Hoffer Award first runner-up, 

2019 Eric Hoffer Grand Prize Short List, 2019 First Horizon Award finalist.

Named a top cookbook of 2018 by the San Francisco Chronicle and Epicurious.

PHOTO CREDIT: My Food Beginnings

Rebel Noodles

In the basement of Lucky Plaza, at the heart of Singapore’s shopping district of Orchard Road, thrives what could be considered a Filipino hawker food center. Here you will find Jollibee, Lutong Pinoy 1, Lutong Pinoy 2,  Kamayan Pinoy, Tapa King and Lechon Pinoy. Six out of a total of sixteen food stalls (the rest are regional food that have some commonalities with Philippine cuisine as well) meld indigenous Austronesian ingredients and cooking methods with those of a revolving cast of traders, settlers, colonizers and dreamers. These are the foodways that make us who we are: our complex national and personal histories served up on a plate or a soup bowl.

One can happily spend the whole day going from stall to stall. First stop would have to be Jollibee, the Filipino’s answer to McDonald’s: fast, cheap and consistent. It looks like any other fast food joint:  fried chicken, burgers, French Fries. But then there’s this: sweet spaghetti with slivers of hotdog and melted cheddar cheese. It’s a hybrid that perhaps only a child could love, which is why this dish is a hit at Filipino kids’ birthday parties.

Any noodle dish can be traced back to China, though I’m sure the Italians will put up a fight for the pasta’s origins story and would probably scratch their heads at Jollibee’s interpretation of spaghetti. What you can be certain about is that when the Chinese, who had been trading with the Philippines since the 9th century, began to settle and intermarry with the native population, noodle dishes multiplied. Pancit is the catch-all name for Philippine noodles made from rice, buckwheat, wheat flour, or monggo bean starch. Stirfried with a variety of meats and vegetables, pancit is derived from the Hokkien word pain i sit which means “convenient food.” And pancit is indeed food for the masses. Pancit palabok, pancit Canton, pancit Miki, pancit bihon, pancit Miki Bihon, pancit luglug …  to name but a few.

Lutong Pinoy 2 makes a mean pancit palabok. Unlike the other variety that uses thick noodles to absorb the sauce, their version is made with thin rice noodles. The gravy sits atop like an insouciant orange shrug. Colored by crushed shrimp shells and achiote, the sauce makes pancit palabok the stuff of guilty and squeamish pleasure. The word palabok always makes me cringe: it brings up images of slime and other malapot, or sticky sludgy stuff. But the bright orange gravy has the right consistency and flavor, and they don’t skimp on the toppings either. When all combined, each forkful is a savory and creamy blend of slick noodles, crispy chicharon, savory pork, poached shrimp, hard-boiled egg, green onions with the citrus tang of kalamansi squeezed over to finish the dish.

(For more on my pancit palabok obsession, please check out

http://anilokanainparis.blogspot.sg/2009/09/alchemy-of-pancit-palabok.html )

Once broth is introduced, what was once pancit is transformed into something else: a noodle soup dish. Along with pancit palabok, Lutong Pinoy #2 serves batchoy (a noodle soup made with offal, lard and other bits of goodness) and chicken mami (springy yellow egg noodles in a flavourful golden broth, topped with sliced chicken and shredded napa cabbage). These are favored as late afternoon merienda fare.

There’s one pancit dish that isn’t served at Lucky Plaza and it’s a rule-breaker. There are no noodles in this dish, and yet it carries the pancit name. It’s also broth-based. Behold the pancit Molo: a glorious rendition of wonton soup. Molo is a town in Iloilo City and it lends its name to this special pancit. I’m Ilonggo on my father’s side, and this is a near sacred dish in our family, legendary among relatives and friends who were lucky enough to have a bowl (or several) of my Lola Mary’s famous pancit Molo.  My grandmother, who passed away five years ago last month, continues to be our family’s beloved matriarch.  Tributes have poured into my Aunt’s Facebook page honoring the anniversary of Lola Mary’s passing. Several comments revolved around not only how loving and wonderful she was, but also how much her pancit Molo is missed.

As October speeds into the holiday season, I look forward to being back home in California with my family to honor Lola Mary in our own way. Soon I will leave the humidity of Singapore and the numerous food stalls of Lucky Plaza. Instead, I’ll be shopping for ingredients at 99 Ranch in Gardena with my Mom, for the type of home cooking that I only get to experience once a year since becoming an expat in Asia. During the holidays we gather around the table: Mom, my siblings and our own families, cousins, aunties, nieces and nephews with a single task: hand-wrapping each wonton so that it looks like a bishop’s hat, the special way that Lola Mary had passed down to my Mom. Meanwhile the “mother broth,” a luxurious soup-base that takes three days to make properly, will be simmering on the stovetop. The wontons are boiled in the broth and whisked away as soon as they float to the top. Finished with fried garlic and sliced scallions, we will have our own bowlful of personal and national histories to warm us after Christmas Eve mass. This is the noche buena I look forward to more than anything else during the holidays.

(More on pancit Molo here http://anilokanainparis.blogspot.sg/2009/07/pancit-molo-in.html )

References:

Doreen Fernandez Tikim: Essays on Philippine Food and Culture

https://www.amazon.com/Tikim-Essays-Philippine-food-culture/dp/9712703835

Jason Tastes Asia, Episode 7: Philippines Panciteria and Panaderia

http://www.asianfoodchannel.com/shows/jason-tastes-asia/episodes

Pancit Palabok from Lutong Pinoy 2

Preparing wontons for Pancit Molo

Homecooked Pancit Molo

Reheat and Serve

I’ve been asked to join White House Executive Chef Cris Comerford, among others, as a contributing author to “My Food Beginnings: A Filipino Food Anthology.” http://www.myfoodbeginnings.com/  And so I’ve come back to my own on-line food beginnings here http://anilokanainparis.blogspot.sg/ , to see what’s in the larder. Which of my existing short essays on food and memory could be re-heated, transformed into something more substantial to explore what it means to be a hungry Filipino in the diaspora? It appears that 2016 is the year when Filipino food has reached the mainstream https://goo.gl/35OoDh  “Filipino food is hot right now” according to Yahoo! Style, flashing ube ice cream as proof that what was once relegated to the “Oriental” stores in Carson, an LA suburb, no longer deserves the cultural cringe https://goo.gl/Djh6xs

My last entry here was from 2011, an entire lifetime ago.  That was before I gave birth to my son, when my husband and I lived in a walk-up apartment in San Francisco’s Inner Richmond district. Since then, we have moved to Singapore for work and regional adventures. I have focused my creative energies on writing and getting short stories published, a first foray into food videography, editing my novel and leading writing groups for expats and locals.  And it’s been crickets here, but that changes today. I have stories brewing from my travels to the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, India, Japan and Hong Kong, as well as an extraordinary culinary experience in Paris (my inspiration for this blog), Cognac and Versailles. And of course, as a four year resident in one of the world’s top food destinations, I have many sweet and savory Singapore tales to serve up. Come visit again to sample what will be on offer.

Bistek Tagalog en papillote

Hainan Chicken with low-carb Shirataki Sotanghon

I have started to wean myself from my lifelong love affair with white rice, not just for health reasons but also as a political statement of sorts.  Below are links to an interesting article and an amusing video on the cultural and socio-economic roots of Philippine dependence (or some may argue, over-dependence) on that white stuff.


http://www.yesmagazine.org/blogs/john-cavanagh-and-robin-broad/the-story-of-refined-white-rice?utm_source=tw&utm_medium=socmed&utm_content=CavanaghJ_RefinedWhiteRice&utm_campaign=110329_NewEconomy


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIEYgacQ5UM


Onwards to the next meal.  This week I will be creating several recipes that will replace white jasmine rice with a more nutritious alternative. My husband, who has become somewhat obsessed with researching all things no/low-carb in our ongoing household quest for optimal health, told me about Shirataki, a Japanese noodle made with yams as opposed to the typical rice or wheat-based noodle and pasta. I found these Shirataki noodles in the refrigerated section at Nijima Market in Japantown. 


I am a little skeptical.  They look like thin, gelatinous strands of dubious origin suspended in liquid. The more expensive variety looks only slightly more appealing. I shuddered a little when I held the cold plastic package, the noodles sloshing around in a non-appetizing way.


We might have a textural issue here but I will do my best to infuse these yam noodles with a rich chicken broth redolent with flavors of ginger, garlic, scallions and chili. I will cook them sotanghon style with a nice saute of aromatics, Chinese celery (kimchay) and shitake mushrooms. Served with velvety slices of Hainan chicken along with the traditional chili dipping sauce and garnished with cilantro and cucumber, Shirataki Sotanghon will replace the traditional Chicken Rice in this cross-cultural experiment where Hainanese-Singaporean, Filipino-Chinese and Japanese flavors will hopefully meld in savory harmony.


A more detailed recipe will be posted after I perfect this dish. 

Goodbye, Milagrosa. Hello, Silvana!

Those blood sugar spikes that must be tamed!  This will be a foreign concept for most but for those in the know, it is a fact of life that can either be ignored or befriended.  This year as part of my quest for optimum health, I have become more conscious of foods that have sugars. There are the obvious ones and among my favorites: crème brûlée with that crackling skin of pure molten sugar;  leche flan glistening in its own caramel sauce,  crème brûlée's Filipino cousin via Spain; and my all time favorite, Filipino silvanas, a more decadent version of Parisian macarons.


These are no brainer foods, ideally consumed on occasion and easy enough to modulate for the most part, barring those occasions that call for no food restrictions and a complete surrender to all that is hedonistic and carnal, otherwise known as a typical Friday night dinner with my husband.


But sugars in everyday foods? This is harder to identify.  After meeting with a nutritionist I am armed with new and yes, disappointing knowledge. White rice, fragrant jasmine rice steamed or garlic fried for breakfast, that staple of all Filipino households, is a simple carbohydrate that the body treats as though it were a maple cruller donut. Life is unfair!  So for now I must say goodbye to my favorite type of jasmine rice, the beautifully named Milagrosa. Miraculous rice of my youth.  Or perhaps instead of taking an extremist stance, Milagrosa white jasmine rice will join the pantheon of treats: a perfect, steaming mound the equivalent of the occasional one or three silvanas. Especially the buko pandan and mango flavored ones.


So indulge for all of us! This might tempt you. I know my resolve is slowly corroding so I must stop reading over the descriptions on the website: http://www.houseofsilvanas.com/dalycity.html

Silvanas

Delightfully crunchy, creamy and delicious! A layer of buttercream sandwiched between two cashew-meringue 

wafers, coated with cookie crumbs.

Now available in seven flavors:
Original (Regular Buttercream), Ube, Buko-Pandan, Mango, Mocha, Strawberry, and Chocolate

Bettermelon

I had a mad craving for that peculiar taste that offends most Western palates: pungent bitterness.  Perhaps it was the storm last week that made me want to serve chicken tinola (stew) with lots of ginger and thin slivers of bittermelon, a steaming fragrant soup eaten with jasmine rice, fortified by the warming qualities of ginger and the immunity-boosting benefits of bittermelon.  Food to strengthen our bodies and nourish our souls as many around us literally went under the weather with week-long flus and colds that lingered on for months. 


On Clement Street I wandered in and out of Asian grocery stores in search of this notorious vegetable, also known as pomme de merveille, pomo balsamo, balsamini longa, muop dang, tsuru reishi, bittergourd, balsam pear, sopropo, arsorossie, ku gua foo, pare, peria, karela, balsamina, balsamapfel, mara (Source: http://www.tropilab.com/momordica-cha.html )


Over the years I have discovered from co-workers who are either themselves immigrants or have roots in another country outside of the US that bitter is also a taste they crave and that bittermelon is considered soul food in their grandmother or mothers' kitchens.  In dim sum carts I have seen halved bittermelon stuffed with ground meats and steamed until tender.  Bittermelon sauteed with fermented black beans and pork slices are common fare in most Chinese restaurants.  I was happy to find stewed bittermelon on the menu of one of our favorite Burmese places on Clement. A friend of mine talks about how his grandmother in Surinam used to prepare a dish of bittermelon that he still craves to this day. He goes on his own bittermelon hunt in Oakland Chinatown. An old college friend who now lives in Las Vegas saw my post and said too bad I was not local because he kept a stash of ampalaya in his refrigerator. 


I did not find bitter melon last week on Clement Street, which makes me even more determined to resume my search again.  At one store the cashier looked at me as if I had asked for caviar. "What? You want bitter melon? Bah! Too expensive now. More than $3 a pound."  Feeling a little indulgent, I went to another store where my request was not understood by the barely English speaking proprietor and I was shooed away. At the last place I checked there was an empty bin and a sign that made me smile: better melon. I could not have misspelled it any better and arrived at the heart of this culinary wonder.


From Surinam to India, Vietnam, China, Burma and the Philippines, to my own kitchen in San Francisco, bittermelon is a vegetable not to be scraped off the plate as offensive to the palate but obsessively sought after, maybe even slightly revered.

Soul Food, Part II

A community organizer/academic friend of mine currently based in Iowa posted something on Facebook that caught my attention: a website dedicated to Asians/Asian Americans and our oftentimes complex relationship to food and body image called http://www.thickdumplingskin.com/


I started to think about an Ilokana in Paris. Why am I writing? Who is my audience? What am I writing about?  Why Paris? What is an Ilokana? I have described it to friends as a food/memory/travel blog, with my first entry back in 2009 entitled "Embracing Multiplicity of Selves" http://anilokanainparis.blogspot.com/2009/06/embracing-multiplicity-of-selves.html 


That sounds a little "Three Faces of Eve" in retrospect, but it is also an Ethnic Studies terminology about the different spaces we occupy: whether that is because of our gender, ethnicity, age, country of origin and other socio-economic factors.  Or in spite of it and sometimes even transcending it for more universal truths.  We are all human after all, with bodies that need nourishing and care. Food is another universal truth, one that I feel passionate about and would like to continue to explore in a dreamy and what I hope in a literary sense.


But I think the specificity of lived experience is important as well, and it is powerful especially when shared with others who have a similar path or can relate on some other level, maybe not visceral but as a person who knows what it is like to be excluded or feel "othered". I celebrate the creation of thickdumplingskin.com because any forum where a multitude of voices can be engaged in a healing dialogue as well as for posting delicious pictures of steamed dumplings, soup dumplings, all kinds of  stuffed bundles of goodness and love, for what is food ultimately but an expression of love, this type of shared space is food for the soul.

Soup Weather

It has rained everyday this week and even the early blooming cherry trees, so vibrant not too long ago in the unseasonably warm weather, droop down as if ashamed to have burst into life too soon.  Nevertheless, I am not letting the storms keep me indoors. I still go to yoga everyday, meet girlfriends for lunch and to wander around Clement Street hunting for donabe pots and silkie chicken, and head out to my favorite cafe in the Fillmore district to work on my novel. One of the blessing of rain and wind is the chance to feel cozy in winter wear and to walk into the Grove, glance thankfully at the fireplace and those hovered around it with laptops and newspapers, then breathe in the spicy warmth of fresh-made hot apple cider.  

Soup is on my mind.  Last night's oven-braised short ribs (with wild mushrooms, fresh oregano, canned San Marzano tomatoes and Prather Ranch ground beef) that I used as sauce for bucatini pasta, will be skimmed of extra fat and re-repurposed tonight as some type of soupy stew made with collard greens and soaked crusty Italian bread.  To counter the richness of the soup, I found beautiful butter lettuce, thin-skinned baby red potatoes and blue lake green beans from my corner organic green grocer, Village Market,  that I will combine with nicoise olives and imported Italian tuna for a salad nicoise. The dressing will be made from Dijon mustard, macerated garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and patis, a staple of the Philippine pantry and is the equivalent of other fish sauce from  Vietnam and Thailand. Patis is my substitute for anchovies and will add that pungent, salt component to cut through the heat of mustard and raw garlic and acidity from the lemon juice. Salad dressing made from scratch is always a delicate balance of flavors.

Tomorrow I plan to make ginataan, a warm Filipino dessert soup made with coconut milk, cassava, yams, plantains, mochi balls and palm sugar. This is labor intensive and it is at times like this that I wished I lived in a household much like my mother used to run in Manila, lively with her sisters, relatives and our maids, so many extra hands to form the mochi balls, peel the cassava, dice the yams, grate the fresh coconut and squeeze it out of cheesecloth for kakang gata, that first and ultra rich yield of pure coconut milk.

But for tonight there is an equally comforting soup to make for my own household for two. My husband will come home from the stormy weather to an apartment made warm and fragrant will the scent of homemade soup.

Soul Food

2011 so far has been a year of transformation and letting go.  Re-establishing a consistent meditation and yoga practice have been key, as well as making incremental modifications to how I eat and what I cook.  Beyond the initial rush of a new year's resolution, I feel like the lifestyle changes I have adopted will slowly but surely will lead to optimal health.


My husband and I now start our day with a green smoothie made with organic produce. I do my daily meditation after drinking this slightly sweet and refreshing drink. The emerald green color is nice and gives one a sense of wellness just by looking at it.


Below is the very simple recipe and a few helpful notes:


Green Smoothie ala Mom (kudos to her for this recipe)


Ingredients:
1 bunch kale ( organic dinosaur or Russian, leaves trimmed from the ribs and roughly shredded)
1 Fuji apple (core and quartered)
1 banana
1 cup water (more if a more liquid consistency is desired)


Method:
1. Start by putting the apple and half a cup of water in the blender in Grind mode.
2. Add kale in handfuls, careful not to clog up the blender. Add more water as needed.
3. Add the banana at the very end.


About two hours after the power liquid breakfast, I head out to take my vinyasa yoga flow class. The green smoothie has replaced coffee for that morning pick me up and I believe has led to more energy and focus in an often times vigorous and physically challenging yoga practice.


I am adding this to my definition of soul food: simple, nourishing both for the body and spirit. Of course, having candied yams and fried chicken or pork belly and roasted bone marrow, when done mindfully and in moderation, are soulful in their own delicious and decadent ways.


Here's to a new year of good food and mindful eating.

Lobster Sotanghon with King Trumpet Mushrooms and Fried Garlic chips

This is a dish that my mother made up during one her visits to San Francisco.  She loves to shop at the Asian grocery stores on Clement Street and is always lauding about how much fresher and cheaper all the produce, meats and seafood are compared to Los Angeles.  During one particular visit when I got home from work she seemed particularly thrilled with that day's shopping. "Look, I got this lobster for half the price of a live one.  It is still fresh and would be perfect for.." and her voice trails away, a dreamy look softening her features.  "Lobster sotanghon!"  

My version uses a slightly different cooking technique for the lobster foie gras, which is the best way I can describe those yummy edibles found in the lobster head.  In a wok I heat up olive oil where I saute about three clove of garlic with baby celery, then add the lobster foie gras which takes on a nice almost translucent jade quality.  I reserve this then add the mushrooms.  King trumpets seem to have a lot of liquid and when sauteed in the same pan, a type of creamy gravy develops after only a few minutes.  

In a seperate pot (I prefer using a dutch oven)  I make a broth from sauteed shallots, a whole head of crushed garlic and the chopped lobster (shells and all) which I fry up before adding water.  I am careful not to overcook the lobster meat but at the same time, extract as much flavor from the shells to enrichen the broth. I remove the lobster and add the broth to the wok with the sauteed mushrooms. I season to taste with a little fish sauce, sea salt and pepper.  Turning up the heat, I add sotanghon noodles as the broth comes to a rapid boil.  I mix in the reserved lobster foie gras when the noodles are half cooked along with chopped baby ong choi (with the yellow flowers) and the lobster meat and shells.

Arranging the lobster artfully on the platter with fried garlic chips elevates an everyday noodle dish.  The sotanghon swells with the essence of the lobster broth, the mushrooms absorb the flavor of the fried lobster foie gras and mimics the mouth feel of the lobster meat itself.  A squeeze of lemon adds freshness.  Filipinos typically eat noodles with a little bit of rice.  The sotanghon is so flavorful that in this case, rice is recommended.

Black Kale and Shrimp Pasta a la Insomnia

When I called my mother at 3am somehow she didn't seemed that surprised to hear from me.  She is familiar with my quarterly bouts with insomnia and for some reason, I had a feeling she would be lucid enough and wouldn't be that annoyed by my after-midnight ramblings.  I convince her to drop everything and help me get my house in order, in the practical and spiritual sense.  She is in the middle of planting anthuriums and peonies, weeding her herb garden and picking vegetable seeds, but she says that her plants can survive for five days without her close tending.  I tell that those plants will be just fine, and for a bit of drama, it is I who will wilt if she doesn't fly out to San Francisco. Is tonight too soon? I love that my mother appreciates impromptu plans. I tell her that I haven't had a proper start to the New Year.  What would set me on the right track would be her ruthless organizing principles and take no prisoners approach to uncluttering our apartment.  It will feel like the New Year, lunar or otherwise, as soon as she her plane lands tonight and we go straight to my kitchen to prepare a healthy meal.  Everything begins with food. She is bringing black kale from the Torrance Farmer's Market.  I will buy fresh shrimps, lemons and good pasta.

My husband has come out of the bedroom and is pleading with me to join him even for just a few hours. It is 5am and we get ready for work soon. I will force myself to wind down so that I can get through the rest of the day. 

Living "A Moveable Feast" in Paris

My husband and I arrived from Paris late last night. It is early afternoon in San Francisco and the fog bank has not lifted at all in the Inner Richmond. The sun barely penetrates the slate grey sky. A cold wind dances in the tree tops just outside my window. A perfect day to stay indoors listening to Billie Holiday, sipping ginger peach tea and writing. It is late evening in Paris and I wonder if it remains as sultry as it had the been the past few nights we had spent there roaming around the Left Bank and Montmartre.

Autumn started to creep in yesterday on our last morning. It was finally cool enough for a trench coat and scarf as we made our way to a patisserie in Saint Germain des Pres for freshly baked croissants, past the cafes that were just starting to open and little shops with beautiful merchandise displayed in the windows. Down by the Seine we found ourselves alone on that little ship shaped island jutting out from under the Pont Neuf. The leaves of the horse chestnut trees and elms by the river have started to turn. A few golden and orange leaves were on the path leading down to the water. We sat at the concrete prow under the lamp post and the still lush weeping willow tree, watching barges and passenger boats cruise by. Hemingway wrote about this part of the river as being a popular fishing spot in "A Moveable Feast". I picked up a copy at Shakespeare and Company and wanted to pay homage to Papa Hemingway by having breakfast in that very same spot before we catch a plane home to San Francisco, quietly watching the city wake up, very much feeling how he felt when he wrote "I've seen you, Beauty.. You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil."

This trip to Paris to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary has not only brought me closer to my husband and cement our shared passion for Art, Beauty and of course, good food and wine, but also to myself as a writer. Reading Hemingway is instructive because he chronicles in particular his process, how he knows that past a certain point in writing he has captured that elusive thing and that he can stop, feel good about having done good work, confident that the next day he can continue again. The people he surrounds himself with and are shaped by, the meals and wines he consumes to fuel his writing, and the role of hunger as a way to see Art more clearly. I love how he writes about going to see a Cezanne painting after skipping a meal and how much more connected he felt to the work on an empty stomach. But when he writes about food later on, it is in the vein of one who really does enjoy the simple pleasures of mopping up olive oil in his potato dish with bread, loving the dish so much that he orders a second serving.

I cannot write about Paris without writing about what we ate. This really is the heart of my food blog. But I will not do this all at once. Like one who has harvested the fruits of autumn for a cold winter ahead, I will be frugal and hold out on writing about them. Like Hemingway I will remain just a little bit hungry to sharpen the memory of those meals and what they meant as an experience shared with my husband who has brought me to Paris a second time. This amazing man who proposed to me at Pont Neuf two years ago and this year went out his way to give us the gift of our favorite city to mark the passing of our one year as married couple. Paris belongs to us, and we belong to each other.

The Alchemy of Pancit Palabok

I made my first attempt at creating pancit palabok yesterday. Yes, “create”, not merely “cook”, is the correct way to describe how to prepare this alchemy of tubular rice noodles under a blanket of ground pork in a velvety sauce of achuete water and corn starch, topped with fried tofu, crushed chicharon, scallions, tinapa flakes, sliced boiled eggs, and poached shrimp. Served on the side are halved kalamansi limes to temper the richness with refreshing acidity and patis to play up the salt factor.

Pancit palabok can either be sublime when done right or be close to inedible due to incorrect preparation or if left to congeal on the plate by an inattentive diner. The right type of noodle is critical, as well as the addition of flaked tinapa which I found is the true heart of this dish. Reconstituted dried shrimp will do in a pinch, but seek out tinapa flakes or smoked trout it you can. And for a truly elevated experience, next time I will not only make my own sauce from scratch instead of using the packaged kind, but will also swap out saffron for the achuete seeds. Perhaps also play with the different thickening agents. Cornstarch is suitable, but what about ground rice flour made from toasting then hand grinding uncooked rice? Or maybe starting the sauce with a blonde roux instead? The same techniques that my Mom uses to make her kare kare sauce can be employed, but with much less butter and sans peanuts.

Truth be told this was an infuriating dish to make. I literally screamed at one point during the cooking process due to the ruined batch of noodles. Then there was the disappointment of finding out how slimy the reconstitutued salted croaker fish had become, a completely unsuitable substitute for the tinapa flakes. I had all four gas burners on at the same time, and a kitchen sink full of utensils, bowls and pots as the aftermath. This dish is no joke. It suffers no fools and will not wait. Five minutes after it is served it turns sullen, the otherwise wonderful sauce would have congealed, the rice noodles stick together, and the first bite will be savory paste and not that amazing silken experience of noodle, sauce and garnish married as one.

This is a dish that is best served to one who anticipates it, stomach growling, as my husband did yesterday afternoon when we spent our last day of the long weekend relaxing at home instead of venturing out to BBQs and Labor Day sales. In our sunny kitchen while he booked our flight to Paris for our upcoming one year wedding anniversary, I spent two hours dreamily re-reading the recipe from “Memories of Philippine Kitchen”, with visions of myself at Cendrillon in NYC getting coached by the authors of the cookbook. Reality set in as soon as I put my third pot on the stove: this was not a simple matter of whipping up a tried and true dish. I was in unknown territory: preparing, cooking, soaking dried croacker fish only to discard it, soaking dried shrimp as a Plan B, cursing at the ruined noodles, making a new batch, frying up squares of tofu and garlic, chopping scallions, grinding chicharon with mortar and pestle, and finally, hours later, assembling then serving the pancit palabok as our late lunch/merienda (Lurienda? Is this the next wave of in between meals, where instead of meeting for brunch one can issue a more provocative invitation for Lurienda?)

Was it worth the effort? An entire afternoon for what is essentially considered snack food, slurped down during long bus trips from Baguio to Manila, in a motel/restaurant in Pampanga famous for its pancit palabok, or in Carson at a Filipino buffet place with terrible food save for that one specialty? This highly caloric ode to salt, carb and fat, with more ingredients than can be counted with both hands? To a true enthusiast it is worth it. Was I happy with the final result yesterday? Not really. My husband who loves everything I make loved it, but I ate the pancit palabok with little joy, already dreaming up ways to improve the dish. But later on as I swiped an errant tofu along the bottom of the pot, I though, ok, not bad for a first try. No recipe to share this time because it still eludes me, the flavors and textures have not truly come together on that first attempt. Like an expensive purse just slightly out of my price range I consider pancit palabok aspirational cuisine, one that I will research, recreate and tweak until it becomes my own.

Sabel in San Francisco

I am still jet-lagged after flying in yesterday from the Philippines via Hong Kong. In the cubicle world once more I am planning tonight's dinner. Something for the weary traveller who goes straight to the office with no rest, something soothing and delicious without being too complicated. Something that a tired wife who must go home after a full's day of work can easily prepare for her husband who will be working late tonight. Something that feeds the soul set free, the heart that has broken wide open from three weeks of travel up and down the Philippine archipelago, a dish that celebrates Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao: wild as the fern salad with organic field greens from Ben Cab's Sabel Cafe in Benguet. Bitter as the seed of lanzones I accidentally bit into while riding the Victory Liner bus from Manila to Baguio, hands sticky from peeling my favorite fruit. Sweetish as the giant taclobo clams we saw while snorkeling in the Coral Gardens of Hundred islands. Salty as the same said ocean waters. Sour as the sinigang made with batuan served to us at a sea side restaurant in Iloilo. Savory as the pancit Molo made by our family's cook in La Paz. Sweet as marang from the night fruits stalls of Magsaysay in Davao City. Nuanced as durian, a truly indescribable taste, one that gets lost in translation.

I know that this is an impossible dish to make, a clash of flavors that cannot be swallowed in one sitting. It is the taste of homesickness for what I left behind in Inang Bayan. It is the tang of sadness from the passing of a national icon the day that I also leave Inang Bayan, my Dad and I silently crying together in the car on the way to airport while listening to the radio announcing the death of former Philippine President Cory Aquino. It is the reheated leftovers of What Could Have Been but Isn't. It is the just picked freshness of what is and will continue to Evolve and Become. It is not a dish best served cold; it is fragrant steaming hot and sticks to the bone, a bowlful of forgiveness and redemption.

But back to practical matters: I will go to Molly Stones after work for sushi-grade white tuna and make Davao-style kilawin, with lemons, Thai bird chilis, cucumbers and radish. I will fry up some of the dried squid from Iloilo that passed customs yesterday. And I will make pinakbet the way Mom makes it, Ilokano style with a lot of bitter ampalaya. And when we drink water after the meal it will taste sweet.

Pancit Molo Chicken Soup for the Balikbayan Soul

We arrived yesterday in Manila after almost twenty hours of travel. One of the first things I wanted to do as soon as I got over my jet lag is to shop for local produce and to make meals for my husband/travel companion and for Dad. At the kitchen in our home in San Mateo, Rizal I reacquaint myself with the cooking techniques of the Philippines. While preparing breakfast this morning I had my first lesson. Thinking the gas stove was like my own in San Francisco, I absentmindedly lit a match that sent a blanket of flame to briefly cover the entire stove top. My Dad grabbed the matches out of my hands and reprimanded me with a chuckle. “You have to light the match immediately after you turn on the gas. You cannot leave the stove on even for a few seconds longer than necessary.”
 

With a newfound respect for the kitchen ways I now prepare the broth for pancit molo soup, primarily to aid in restoring my husband’s health. He has been running a temperature since we landed in the Manila from Hong Kong, but I believe he has been fighting this fever even in San Francisco. I am relying on the old and proven powers of the chicken noodle soup to make it all better. I tell him that he has been running himself ragged with work and other obligations, and to not fight being sick anymore. Sometimes it is the body’s way to ask us to slow down. I tell him to not feel any guilt or worry that we are spending more time at home and not beginning our trek up north to Alaminos and Baguio as originally planned. . We will spend as much time at home for him to get better and acclimate himself to the weather and nuances of life in the Philippines.

I too need to acclimate and reorient myself to the sights, smells and sounds of Metro Manila and the neighboring rural town of Rizal. The kitchen itself is like a new baranggay to explore, with its own set of rules and nuances. Salt is coarse and due to the humidity, has a tendency to liquefy. Olive oil has a different flavor also because of the climate, less round and fruity but not altogether unpleasant. It is better to cook with the native virgin coconut oil or canola oil that holds up better in the tropical climate. The knives are thin, not as sharp as the ones I have back home in San Francisco. The pots are blackened from the butane gas stove flame that has a life of its own. The yellow flickering tongues lick the sides of the pot, curling around almost to the rim. I turn down the flames into a more subdued ring of blue, trembling beneath the soup broth but still very much alive. 
 

I write this in the newly built lanai where my husband rests on thin slats of the bamboo bed. The late afternoon sun smudges amber against the walls, lighting the capiz shell squares of the window/door that separates the lanai from the study, and they glow like pearls lit from within. I am keeping strong and in high spirits for my husband who cannot help but feel a little upset about slowing down our itinerary. I want to reach into him and pull out whatever it is that is making him sick. Early morning still jet lagged I woke up at 4am and gave him a healing massage, the kind that Mom has learned from her baglan research. I knead and pull with intention, and end the massage by sweeping my hands across his body to grab any toxic energy and casting these out, literally making movements to throw away the sickness, then clapping and snapping over him to clear the energy. Afterwards I sang Joey Ayala songs and rocked him back to sleep. Then I got up at around six am and did yoga in the front yard underneath the rambutan tree.
 

This evening I hope to cure him from the inside with soup that originates from Iloilo, where my father’s family and his Mom is originally from. La Paz where Lola lives and where we will go as soon as he gets better is adjacent to the town of Molo. The ubiquitous pancit Molo is derivative of the wonton noodle soup of the early Chinese traders who settled in the port town. It has been indigenized with the addition of fish sauce, crushed shrimp heads that lend a pink hue to the soup and other Filipino tweaks to the original recipes. My Mom has added her own flavors by the beginning with a very good French style broth from a whole chicken and root vegetables, the pot left uncovered and the broth not allowed to boil beyond a soft rolling simmer, the muck skimmed every so often then the entire soup strained. Then soft vegetables are mashed for its essence then discarded, producing a clean, golden hued pure broth. To this I will add the pancit molo from the town of Molo that Dad has in his freezer. Usually I make the molo from scratch, but in this case I will experiment with an already made product. Then I will also fry up some garlic for garnish. In the same pan I will sauté small diced carrots, celery and onions. The whole chicken I will shred before adding it back to the soup along with the sautéed vegetables. To serve I will garnish individual bowls with fried garlic and chopped scallions.

Nachos and Fava for Father's Day

My father is a professor/actor in the Philippines. Yesterday for Father's Day brunch at my in-laws I made a Moroccan inspired dish. It was one of those days where I really missed Dad and wished he could have been with us, sharing this dish with my father-in-law, his new fellow Visayan kumpadre. If my Dad were at lunch with us, I may have also prepared nachos from simple store bought ingredients thrown together and microwaved. In 2002 when I visited Dad it had been sixteen years since I had last been to the Philippines and an entire decade had passed since we had seen each other. For some reason he absolutely loved the nachos I made for him on Father's Day in our home in San Mateo, a semi-rural town just outside of Manila, perhaps because it is something he doesn't often eat in the Philippines or because he never thought it could be prepared so easily at home. Or maybe it was because he was happy to see his daughter and anything I prepared for him, even a reheated can of pork & beans, would have made him happy.

My Dad loves to eat and the maid had made a joke while he was gorging on the junk food nachos that "hobby ni Sir ang kumain, Ate." I think this Moroccan inspired dish, more wholesome than microwaved tortilla chips, American cheddar and canned jalapeno slices, would be to his liking as well.

Fresh, locally raised organic vegetables inspire me. I love this time of year because of what turns up at my favorite stores. I wanted to use the fresh fava beans I bought at the Ferry Building and one perfect baby cauliflower from Real Food Daily on Filbert Street. I wasn't sure what would best showcase these finds then I remembered a friend who married a Moroccan man and how she cooked with fava beans in some type of vegetable and lamb stew. I decided to recreate those flavors from memory, to cook from feel and sense without the aid of a recipe. I tend to cook without measuring and eyeball the portions. The measurements are approximations at best and should be used more as guideline than hard fact. Taste often and adjust accordingly.

Moroccan Flavored Vegetable Stew with Spiced baby Meatballs


Vegetable stew
1 whole large onion, sliced fine
1 lb roughly chopped mushrooms
1/2 lb new red potatoes
1 cup chilled pinot grigio
1/2 cup tomato paste
4 tsp butter
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 tsp fresh ground cumin
1/4 tsp fresh ground coriander
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground white pepper
1 bunch dinosour kale or any hardy greens

In a heavy bottomed pot (I love using my Dutch oven Le Creuset for these types of dishes), melt 2 tsp butter along with 1/4 cup of olive oil. Add onions and begin to caramelize over medium heat for about 4 minutes. Add mushrooms and continue to cook for another 8 minutes, then add the halved new red potatoes for another two minutes. Add the tomato paste and immediately deglaze with the pinot grigio and bring back to a boil. Add all the spices and fleur de sel to taste. Add the chopped dinosour kale. Simmer uncovered while you prepare the meatballs.

Spiced meatballs
3/4 lb grass-fed ground beef
1/4 cup dried bread crumbs
1/4 tsp fresh ground cumin
1/4 tsp fresh groun coriander
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground white pepper
1 whole egg
1 tbsp fleur de sel
canola and olive oil (1/4 cup)

Combine all ingredients but do not overwork to keep the meat light and fluffy. Shape into mini meatballs (about 1 tsp full) and fry in oil until nicely browned (about 2 minutes each side). Drop meatballs into the vegetable stew to continue the cooking process and to mingle the flavors. (One of my sister-in-laws thought that the meatballs were made of lamb, but it is the combination of spices and the cooking technique that elevated the simple ground beef.)

Simmer stew and meatballs for another 10 minutes, add more pinot and some water if it gets to dry. The ideal amount of liquid is enough to make a nice sauce to ladle over brown rice, but not too much that it becomes a soup.

In a separate pot, boil water with a few fresh lemon rounds. Add the prepared fava beans (leave the skins in tact but take seeds out of the pods). Do not overcook! Test for doneness after about five minutes then set aside in a bowl to cool. In the same water, add the cauliflower and cook covered for about 3 minutes, then begin to test for doneness. Again, do not overcook the vegetable. Let cauliflower cool while you take the grey skins off the cooked fava beans, exposing the beautiful apple green color of the fava.

Assembly
Drizzle the remaining olive oil and add the juice of half a lemon before transfering the vegetable stew with spiced meatballs into a nice decorative serving platter. Nestle the baby cauliflower in the middle, then sprinkle the fava beans as a garnish. Add chopped Italian flat leaf parsley and drizzle a few drops of fruity exra virgin olive oil.

Most folks ate this dish with rice at the luncheon, both brown and steamed white rice, but I would imagine this would also go well with a crusty baguette, pita bread or with a creamy polenta.