Nom-nom-nom, Mom!

 Decades after my Sesame Street primary education,  Cookie Monster's nomnomnom, is still current. That blue shag lump with the guttural voice - probably from eating too many cookies without pausing for water introduced me to non-words I love.  He presumably loves milk but the glass rarely shared screen time with flying bits of cookie.  So nice to have Nomnomnom stick around, like kapow, blam, and bang. My other favorite is  boing.boing, boing (bouncing) : ). I am known for speaking in sound effects to make a point.

We do have a Tagalog word for tasty – malinamnam – now pared down to the last two syllables and taken up by an instant flavor mix as a brand name.  

Anyways, mom had a birthday.  I am just very glad she is still around.   She nags, rants, berates, over reacts, drive us crazy (dad included)! She is far from “sweet”.  She is very practical minded, gutsy and a stand up. She is of the old school where her word is law and will bend only a little way. Growing up I saw her as stern and unfazed.  She and I were at odds for a long time. I was rebelling against my “role” as eldest and only daughter/provider/housekeeping helpmate/great expectation realizer/ex-model with a rep to maintain even in melting heat (such as it were, even when I didn’t get that famous).  It was tough for a while until I got brave enough to have “the talk” with her.  The talk was all about pleading my case as a responsible adult who has not done anything un-confession-able,  dated indiscriminately, got drunk, smoked, took up with bad boys or gotten pregnant. Major tearjerker! She let up on the “scaring-you-so-you-would-not-be-interested-to-go-against-her-will” bit after that. I went from “nagpapaalam” (asking permission) to “pinapaalam” (just letting her know).

She has had her fill of hardship but I never saw her cry, except when she laughed so hard.  She was not very affectionate with us but in the last decade has grown more demonstrative, especially when the grand twins were born.  Now that the twins are grown, we see her being affectionate with the dogs, other people’s babies and her plants.  All these years, cooking for us and slaving in the kitchen is her love language.

Now that she is getting on in years and her aching knee bothering her no end (she had to have therapy after she slipped and hurt her knee), I try to dissuade her from cooking as much. To no avail most times: she wants to cook for us, her family, for as long as she is able. 

I did manage to drag her to a pre-birthday brunch at Johnny Rockets Diner at the Eastwood Mall after taking her on her first visit to Padre Pio.  At Padre Pio, she was in awe.  The Sacred Room with the lying, "breathing" Jesus with his wounds and the Virgin watching over him is overwhelming. I didn't take pictures.  I didn't want to break the solemnity.  Spiritual need sated, we walked on (a long one) to the mall.
Mom loves dining out but worries about how much it will cost us.  These days, as long as we get to hitch with the brother who drives to and from work (near said mall and church) it was easier to get her to go out.  It was too hot in the house and the mall is our refuge, so to speak. 

I took her to Johnny Rockets for a throwback ambience.  Since she jokingly claims to be seventeen (haha) and coming from a huge family that could hardly afford milkshakes back in the day, I figured a throwback treat is just the thing to make her feel young-ish.   I thought the soda jerk/sundae parlor/retro diner with the flag checked floor, red clad booths and shiny jukebox would make the fun, swing out sister in her peep out.
I have always thought of my mom as this modern, gutsy woman.  She was quite a fashionista, judging from her pictures.  Even when she was dressed simply, she had bearing and a commanding presence.  You know how moms usually talk about how they used to be popular?  I could see it.
This picture of my mom was taken when I was still in grade school.  I thought she looked quite Sophia Loren vampish hehe. I recognize the dress and I remember she used to smoke Hope cigarettes – just one stick and only when under stress.  My brother was sent to the store once a week so that meant once a week, my mom was feeling the strain.  I think she has had lots of fun when she was younger and that bringing up the family took some of it out of her.  She was cheerful for the most part and had a sense of humor shared with friends but I knew there were times when she buckles under.
It gets so that I forget that she was once this beautiful woman whose adventures I can only guess at.  Oh, all moms are beautiful but I mean beautiful in the conventional sense:  single, young or in her prime, spontaneous, bubbling over, still dreaming for herself.  When there came us, those dreams got set aside; the need to look after us meant forgetting to take care of herself.  I would snap a photo of my mom and ask her to smile but she wouldn't even look at the camera at times, because she felt the pictures wouldn't come out the way she wanted.  Have you seen that Dove commercial where a forensic expert draws a woman two ways - how she describes herself and how others see her.  Too true. Even when we now subscribe to the idea that ennobling roles (such as mommyhood) bring out inner beauty and is far more important, HD and megapixels sometimes painfully records all the flaws you manage to ignore dressing up or making up in front of a mirror.  I don't think it's a matter of how people perceive you but how you remember feeling good and confident when you think you look good. Have I lost you yet? Maybe I am not being very clear. Sorry! : )
My mom is like any other woman who feels she doesn't look as good as she would have liked...  or how she remembered herself to have been. A woman's natural vanity will make you long for what was.  This was brought to mind recently.  My friend lost her job and stayed home.  It hasn’t been that long.  We tried on clothes at the mall and she was laid low realizing how much she has let herself go.  She said she wanted to feel pretty again, which meant she wanted to look it, too.  More so the moms who endured years of hardship and endless compromising. I heard on a TV show recently that “it isn’t compromise when it didn’t hurt both parties a little” and I think about what my mom lost in our favor.

So in my little way, I chose to honor the lady that was my mom with extra thick fries! Huh?! Kidding! I think I need to eat.

Mom doeslove her fries and Philly Cheese steak though she could hardly finish everything.  Rich tasting food makes her feel full faster - nothing like steak and loads of melted cheese and caramelized onions to kick the bloat full throttle.  I knew there would be lots left over and I will have to eat them so I didn’t order for me. Mom loves soda more than I do and that adds to the burp fest. Besides, she wanted to make room for the thick, creamy vanilla, apple and cinnamon milkshake.  Yum! With apple pie bits in it! I didn't have a clearer picture of the milkshake, without her in the frame.  She doesn't even know I'm posting about her hehe.

On the way to Robinson's supermarket (supermarkets being her "gimik" choice, trolling the aisles for bargains) we bought some Sweet Baum Cafe cream cheese cakes - similar to the local bakery "pianono"(jelly roll) or Bulacan's "inipit" (jelly sandwich) but so fine and light; the cream cheese or custard filling (there are choices) so delicately incorporated its almost silky and the cake roll seemed all of a piece when in fact, it's made up of  layers so thin it was almost seamless..

Getting on in age, mom is surprised to discover a compelling craving for sweet stuff  – the very thing she nags my seven years older dad on and on.  A friend says it is part of the aging thing, that her own dad would get mad when there’s no food in the house. Now my mom is doing it too (not the getting mad part though).

She has also gone adventurous with food.  She now appreciates my experiments (ehem) because she has tasted similar at Sambokojin, Tramway, Vikings, Papa John’s, Bagoong Club, Omakase and everywhere else I or my other brother (the buffet troll) brought her.  Lately, she and I have gone on halo-halo dates at Max’s Restaurant nearby to escape the heat. Their halo halo version has cheese strings, rice crispies for the crunch (in place of pinipig or young rice) and whole macapuno balls (young coconut meat jelly) which I love.  I am reminded of the macapuno cake of M Cafe or The Museum Cafe which macapuno balls on top I would gently bite into and savor the rush of sweet coconut syrup.  Heaven!

 

At home, mom’s staples would be far simpler – white fish paksiw (cooked in vinegar and ginger); steamed crabs, inihaw na bangus (milkfish); the ever present talbos ng camote (camote or sweet potato tops blanched and then eaten with fresh tomatoes and onions dipped in peppery vinegar or fish bagoong (fermented fish paste) laced vinegar; the family favorite ginisang munggo (boiled, skinned green mung beans sautéed in crunchy pork and pork fat, garlic, onions, tomatoes cooked into a thick, chunky broth that’s not very good for aching joints (high uric acid content);

fried eggplant (skin burnt off and the skinned eggplant squashed with a fork into a batter of whisked eggs, salt and pepper).

She likes mangoes, macopa from my aunt’s tree,the small guavas our scrawny but prolific tree produces (her morning routine at our "orchard"), ginataang mais (sweet porridge of glutinous rice and corn which she makes with our coconut trees’ gata or cream (in this weather I prefer to eat it cold), sweet kondol she buys by the plastic cup takal (measure) at Polo market and anything I bake.

More often now, she “commissions” me to bake her brownies, these cookies and chocolate cake.  You know the phrase getting longer in the tooth?

Well, it should be  sweeter in the tooth haha.
She was in luck though: Fancy Cakes & Crepes sent her a Baby Doll – one of the first cake recipes I collaborated on and taste tested for the cafe way back.  They don’t sell it in store, only to order, because this is a very delicate lemon chiffon and strawberry cake with strawberry cream and jam so light (dare I say ethereal) that I named it so.  Yep, I am a cake namer, too! : )

 Of course, she loved it.  I had an inkling older people will love Baby Doll as much as the younger adventurous eater (anything with lemon or mint in these parts is not as popular as, say, chocolate or vanilla).

So there you go, a tribute of sorts to my mom and to any of the moms who can relate.  We love you even when you are cranky just as you love us even when we test your limits.  I hope you stay and take care of us forever! Selfish to the end, I know : )

Happy Mother’s Day! That's next weekend yet (the 13th) but I hope you are now making plans  to treat your mom out so she can be herself again.  Don't let her cook!

's Mall der? Stay In!

This is kind of how I feel in this heat: drianed, lethargic and all dried up! Eerie isn't it? This was at UP.
Just when my poor little toe is beginning to heal and walking gingerly is a thing of the past, my UP Sundays (walk days) are threatened by a burning hot and humid summer.
BTW I wonder what ginger has to do with this word, doesn’t all plant hood grow by the inch (even less)? Why is ginger singled out?)

Walking on the streets is like being roasted alive. 35 degrees and it will get worse.

It is a relief to get any kind of shade. I would hide in the long thin strip of shadow of lamp and electric posts; duck (literally walking single file) under overhangs and shed; and run for the nearest dappled shade of roadside trees (too few and far between in the Metro and definitely absent at the traffic intersections where you interminably wait for the PEDXing (pedestrian crossing) light.
The newshens tell you not to go out between 10am to 3pm and to bring water for fear of dehydration. I’ve taken to bringing a liter with me because I didn’t want to take the now seemingly “grilling” extra steps to stores. Where I used to enjoy little detours, I won’t go now.
Only detour I’d make from my Ortigas Avenue meetings is to go to Shangri-La Plaza to cool off before taking the light rail train home (MRT has a connecting walkway to the mall).

You could say I’m always at the mall these days, for shopping (True Value) and take in some shows. The malls, particularly Shangri-La EDSA, are great venues to get a bit of art and culture. I chanced upon the Ikenobo Exhibit recently.

I love flowers but don’t get any. The men I knew, ex or not, shy away from giving me bouquets. I seriously don’t know why. One then boyfriend told me he got me flowers but decided to stuff it in the trunk at the last minute...and told me all about it a week later. Another saw me looking at a rose peddler while we were stuck in traffic and had to ask if I wanted one. You never ask a girl if they want flowers, you just give. The ones who refuse flowers or profess to not want them are the ones who don’t like you and don’t want any from you. The gift of flowers is not at all cheesy – it is a kind of appreciation for the girl or woman we are (or in us, if it wasn’t obvious), no matter how accomplished. Incidentally, you could try your hand at Ikebana when your bouquet starts getting droopy.

I only had my phone with me, a decent Lenovo Q350. Takes okay enough pictures except when I rock on my feet a little or the subject moves, the image gets blurry. It doesn’t have a flash either but I like the painting like effect low light unintentionally creates in these flower pictures. And how about that fotor collage? Like much! : )
Who knew you can use mealy bug thingy speckled palm fronds, caterpillar ravaged leaves, and twigs stuck upside down. Paired with flowers and buds with armadillo shell like petals and pods and berries, the Ikebana is a tad more modern artsy and dramatic.

The next week I was at Robinson’s Place. for a cook fest held there. I’m no pro at emceeing butI joined in the informal but seriously cooking competition between hotel and restaurant/hospitality students.(though I am way older, campus people are my peeps ha-ha). The students had to cook within 60 minutes and everyone holds their breath (well, kind of) at judging time. .It was fun though! Three schools came up top: Far Eastern University; La Consolacion College; and San Sebastian College.

I tasted interesting food! Escargot with the snail meat taken out, creamed and then put back into the shell; planking lapu-lapu (grouper fish: guess how it planks hahaha); caimito (star apple or milk fruit) flan; duhat (java plum or jambul) cheesecake; coffee crusted steak; bitter gourd or ampalaya ice cream; crab meat and bangus belly wrapped in taro leaves with coconut curry cream sauce and topped with spicy dilis (anchovies) and mango shreds, looking a lot like a giant burrito. I don't have pictures because there's an official mag coming out.

In February, the malls were all decked up in Chinese New Year red and gold that turned pink and crimson for Valentines. While I didn’t take part in the fuss, I trolled the malls free concerts and musicals, the love month always choice for catching the Philharmonic Orchestra, quartets, balladeers, opera, and theater singers. It’s also research for me, for ideas decorating or planning events.

Sta. Lucia East set up a love park with trees to hang love notes from, a nifty idea when you learn each note meant money for charity, not just pogi points. This year’s lent message at the Greenbelt Chapel is clear: your sacrifice should count for something. Spend a little so you could give. Abstinence from something should be a way to help someone else.

So that was how my February and mid March went. In full color, much fanfare, and downright commercial celebrating which on occasion, serves. Because really, if not for the malls (and S&R) that make you spend on heart cakes, greeting cards, lucky charms, all kinds of cutesy, bouquets and celebration food, the special days won’t have that extra wow factor! Facebook greetings are nice but I’d rather celebrate live! : )
I didn't get to eat mall food though, because often, I was just passing through.  I did get to catch my breath after work and a doggone afternoon at yet another mall event, the 50th PCCI Philippine Circuit Dog Show where my friends from the Alaskan Malamute Club of the Philippines participated. I was there for moral support and to ogle my fur friends. You see, my UP walk is spent with Puck the Boston terrier.  At the Quezon Memorial Circle run, I am partnered with one of two malamutes, Stanley mostly.  It's kind of a drag race (I am invariably dragged or had to race to keep up), really. I love these two but I can't have one. I'm already responsible to two feisty doggies and I don't have airconditioning.

  Anyway, this wouldn't be my blog if there's no food in sight right? So here it is! The doggies' momma took me to Sonsi's for Tuguegarao Longaniza, San Mig Light for my friend and Stella Artois, my kind of beer : ) We bought more for our breakfast fry up and ate 'em with another friend's home made kimchi and mung bean side dishes.  I am telling you, it's a match made in foodie heaven - salty,spicy, garlicky good, crunchy and tender all at the same time! Of course you don't eat the "sticks".  Bliss!

p.s. Extra long post I know.  Catching up!!! : )

Bikos of You...

Happy Hearts Day!!!

I hope your heart is happy, whether you are taking part (willingly or dragged by your partners) in the one day a year over the top mush fest, sitting knee to knee at a corner table or side by side at a booth, proposing, buried under a mass of flowers, hiding out with a day's worth of movies, or trolling the net for appropriate love quotes and pick up lines.
I give you biko (rice cake for sticking together and staying sweet) on this day.
Mom made it, I shaped it into a big fat heart.
Of course a fat heart will make your best suit or LBD (little black dress, if you don't already know) burst at the seams and defeat your month long diet just so you could impress and doubly attract your date. So I cut it in half, for sharing!

Sing with me now: bikos of you, my waistline changed...err ok I am cutting the corn.  Have it your way.  Today I mean.

p.s. That's coconut jam dribbled around my biko heart.  

Gluttonous, Glutinous, Guilty!

I resolve not to resolve to make New Year resolutions. Haha.

Kung Hei Fat Choi everyone! It's time for tikoy (glutinous cake) breakfasts yey! Sunday might see me taking in the dragon dance in Binondo and having New Year coffee at Tully's! Newly opened in Binondo.
How's that for global food? Of course there won't be tikoy at Tully's!

 

And bring out the bilog bilog - round things, like these J.Co. Donuts pops (wonder if they're still selling the pops, could be a Holiday promo thing). Cute huh? There was more but I ate half of everything before I thought to take pictures. The Al Capone (almonds and white chocolate) is the first casualty hence no pictures! Bitesize is more fun - you eat more kinds in one sitting! The pink one is heaven berry, the brown is oreology and the brown laced white one is why nut. Fun names!
Fruit ,too (still completing eight kinds).
Also time to read up on predictions, signs and cures. Wouldn't hurt to ensure a good year.

But back to resolutions.  I disappoint myself most of the time.  I know, I know, no pain no gain, no excuses, just cause and all that.  So what if I resolve not to diet, not to exercise, not to cook or bake so I don't have food on my hands and on my mind all day? Incidentally I have a friend who diets by sleeping all day! Unless she sleep-eats, there's no way to cheat hahaha.  If I do that I'd be hungry and won't look it.  I never was waif-like. I reckon I'll look like a puffer fish.
I made it through Christmas and New Year not eating out or in (much) -except for regular Holiday food.  It's "regular" when it consists of grilled meats, ham and bread.  We didn't go for fancy cooking, as you can tell from my last posts.  My friends were in hibernation, too, so except for two reunions where I only got to pig out in one (our host is in an expansive mood: plenty of food, catered and there's only a bunch of us so no sense wasting the bounty) and daintily shared lunch with body conscious forty somethings.  One of the gang touts Amway products and the rest just had to know which ones answer our (ehem) particular needs to keep slim, maintain good skin and ward off anything that screams "aging".  You know, degenerating eye sight, flab, jiggly arms, aches and pains, and the subject (new to us) of "maintenance"  meds. It was a very looong, noisy lunch.
I was also busy working on some projects and my twin nephews on vacay meant cooking something on the fly when they drop by.  It was fairly easy cooking - reheats, pasta with different sauces, cream dory fried with parmessan, or breaded fillets or Asian style (steamed with ginger and soy sauce), fried ham, and sinangag (fried rice with leftovers).   It was how often people eat that made me feel like I am running a restaurant or catering - the dishes pile up so.

The few times I endured Holiday traffic, my law of compensation won out.  You know, the pros outweighing the cons.  Of course I get to define pros and cons.
I wouldn't buy soda - we stock up during the Holidays so I couldn't avoid  having some. Ah me of weaker will!

But when I'm at the mall I would rather have mochiko (glutinous sweet rice flour filled with ice cream) from Dezato (black sesame is my favorite) than soda or eats.  There's regular filled mochi, but I love ice cream! Next post I'll tell you why : )
Mall fast food is a lot more interesting and global these days. If I do eat something more substantial I'd go for Mr. Kimbob's bibimbob (their brandname but its really bibimbap) .  It's my low budget answer to a Korea Garden  (in Jupiter St., Makati) craving.  These days the craving is triggered by table scenes in all those Koreanovelas my mom watches.  Looks like food and family mealtime is just as important - the characters are always eating and commenting on how good the kimchi was this year or how highly  prized are abalones and ginseng.

I have to say ginseng does not appeal to me.  I was sickly as a kid and dad sometimes would get gifts of a bottle of tea colored liquid with a gnarly root in its depths, like something out of a horror forest or a lab specimen.  Harry Potter's mandragora or mandrake root (shaped like a baby with a knockout scream) made me think of the ginseng root and the tea I was forced to drink.  I would pinch my nose and gulp down.  I thought I could smell dirt and taste it too. Kind of bitter.  Maybe now its made less "earthy" tasting.
Anyway! A Korean Garden spread is pricier so fast food bibimbap would do in a pinch.
There's more rice and sides of bean sprouts, julienned carrots, kangkong (swamp cabbage), cabbage and kimchi than meat but the sizzling plate it's on and the way it singes veggies and meat at the edges for a slight crisp, the tongue burning sriracha like pepper sauce makes you appreciate the rice and the fried egg  on top.  Dials down the heat a bit. Tip: don't have soda with spicy food, water is more soothing.

Brgy. Bagnet is a good bet too.  Bagnet is a cross between deep fried pork belly (liempo) and chicharon or crackling. The fat part is really thick and needs to be because the oil is all that would preserve the meat (the Ilocano way) and save the juices from drying up completely. It really is best freshly cooked if you want the fat to be all melty and jelly like and the skin crisp.  Mall air conditioning isn't ideal so kudos to those who can serve bagnet "fresh".  That's a misnomer, since bagnet is intended and prepped as preserved meat, that my Ilocano grandmother breaks a piece off to add to some  dishes - pork cube in 3D!
My friend Joy got time off between travels and was my eating buddy throughout, except we seem to want "plainer" food - Taco Bell, hole in the wall pasta and sandwiches at Cubao Expo and my favorite place Friuli Trattoria.  I didn't like the pictures I took.  If you don't have a good camera with you, low light, pale walls, brown meat and tomato sauce-d food does not make a good picture.  The obsessive compulsive me cringe at the thought.

I will relent with this Tre Formaggi pizza, my favorite!
Thin and crispy and more blue-cheesy! Joy didn't like smelly cheese but ended up taking home the rest of the pizza hehe.  I wistfully let her have it, since she saved me from gorging again, my law of compensation hehe.  Besides, even days after I ate at Cyma (Greek Taverna), I am still feeling the Bifteka - wagyu burger with a thick slab of feta cheese on top! I finished the whole thing, along with several forkfuls of moussaka and a tiny bowl of lentil soup (too hearty for me).  And I had those after a virtuous Roka Salata (salad).  As if!
All these indulgence without exercise, sigh.  My littlest toe got in the way of a plummeting (and full) Pepsi Max bottle. I was reaching for one in the case, not seeing another rolling along, getting caught in the soda case' molded plastic top and thumped my poor toe black and blue.  Hurt real bad I couldn't put my weight on it.
So now I have to make up big time.  But I don't resolve to, no.  Pressure will make me stress eat! So I am biding my time.  I managed two UP Sunday walks thus far (foot feeling better), taking along Puck the dog who now begs me to go more often.  I thought Puck would lead me a merry pace, but led me on a chase instead. We stopped to enjoy live music for free via the Himigsikan but he was fidgety. I managed to sit him down for a whole set.

P.s. Puck and Finn loved the plain tikoy.  Mom said I shouldn't feed them the egg dipped, fried and sugared slices.
We did the best we can cleaning some more before the Chinese New Year comes this weekend. I did some of the rituals on New Year's Eve, including setting out a prosperity plate of sorts with rice, salt and ginger.  Here's a funny thing - the ginger shrivelled up and grew a shoot! That's great right? Do I plant it already or leave it on the plate.  Any suggestions?