Theobroma means food for the gods. It’s the scientific name of chocolate. I make a different theobroma, one which doesn’t involve chocolate.  It’s a recipe that I’m getting better at. My kids fight over it. My husband’s coworkers refuse to believe it’s homemade. (I’m puffing up, deflate me.) My friend and my aunt keep asking me for the recipe. So finally I’m pasting it below. Enjoy:-)

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The price of oranges drop to as low as 4lbs./1 dollar from February to May. The best places to go to in Southern California are the ethnic markets. I love going to the Mexican markets for produce. Nothing beats their prices and quality. You get the sweetest and prettiest fruits. The only orange variety whose price doesn’t go down is the Texas orange.  It’s always steady at 79 cents/lb. They’re more expensive than the rest, but, in my opinion, they’re the sweetest and the best for eating. Navel oranges can be sour at times so I usually just juice them up. It’s easier to consume them that way. They say an orange doesn’t ripen any further, like the mango, once it has been plucked from the tree. I think that’s not really true. After I buy some, I would let them sit on the kitchen counter for two or three days before slicing them up. I find that, when I wait for a few days until the firm fruit softens up a bit, its flavor always turns out better. I compost a lot of citrus peels this time of the year. Perhaps I should learn how to make candied orange peel and orange marmalade.

Tomatoes are cheap these days. In fact, just tonight, when I scanned the ads for good grocery deals, I found a store that sells them for 4 lbs/97 cents. Now is the best time to make sun dried tomatoes. You can dry them under the sun, but it takes too long. Or you can dry them in a dehydrator, but I don’t have one. So I use my oven, set at 200 F, and leave them there for around 20 hours.

I bought three pounds a few weeks ago. I halved them and arranged them on two cookie sheets. Next, I popped them in the oven after they got sprinkled with thyme, basil, salt, and pepper. You’ll know when they’re done because they’ll look all leathery and shriveled up like a prune. Store them in sterilized jars with olive oil, a couple of bay leaves, and chopped garlic. Just pack them lightly so the oil can get to each tomato inside the jar.

I love sun dried tomatoes! They’re a bit pricey though. A small jar may cost  around 4-5 dollars. At a farmer’s market, I got a tiny container for 6 dollars. The flavor is noticeably different when they’re homemade. They’re sweeter and packed with a whole lot of flavor.

Look what I did to them! I halved some dinner rolls(rustic Italian rolls or French bread slices are good choices) and generously slathered them with garlic hummus.There was a lot of hummus in my refrigerator so that’s what I used. I didn’t want it to go to waste. But if you don’t have it, margarine mixed with minced garlic will do. I laid a bed of cheese(mozzarella, havarti, or any quickmelt cheese) on each one and rested my precious tomatoes on them. Then I sprinkled some more cheese and some dried basil on top. This picture (above) was taken before I toasted them up. Trust me, this is just as good as any pizza!

I gave away this jar to my mother. A used gift tissue covered the cap. I scrounged around for a matching purple yarn to tie it up.  Attached  a tiny card, which I had cut out from a box with a pretty design. And voila! A nice and inexpensive gift.

My next project would be: tomato jelly.

My sister wondered what took me so long inside. I was taking pictures. No restroom in Los Angeles is as fun and as kooky as the one they have at Wacko/La Luz De Jesus Gallery. Every inch of that tiny place is covered with pictures. The theme of the moment is fish.

Even the cabinet beneath the sink has door handles made of  large plastic goldfish.

Every picture is a collage. There is always a fish in each one.

This is a warning to would-be thieves. People steal pictures from restrooms? That doesn’t sound so sanitary.

 I had fun looking at these images on the wall. I chuckled to myself  as I read their captions. Hey, that girl seated on the throne looks familiar!

]]> http://chiquibaylon.net/2012/04/quirky-restroom/feed/ 2 http://chiquibaylon.net/2012/04/my-chinese-adventure/ http://chiquibaylon.net/2012/04/my-chinese-adventure/#comments Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:49:34 +0000 Chiqui http://chiquibaylon.net/?p=2920

O wow! Two weeks ago, this book held me prisoner from 8 PM – 6 AM. I decided to read a few pages while I was sipping my after-dinner coffee. When I had drained my cup, I wanted to go to bed. I had obligations the following day, but something just kept me glued to that dining room chair. I sat with my back straight, feverishly devouring text, attentive like a schoolgirl in Prof. Melanie Padilla’s History 2 class. I’ve always been fascinated with Chinese History. Always been a fan of  Zhang Yimou’s “The Curse of the Golden Flower”. What I felt when I watched this movie was exactly the same feeling I had when I was reading Shan Sa’s “Empress”. This book was about Emperor Wu, the only woman in Chinese history to be given the title of emperor.  It’s not so much the writing style that gripped me, but the richness of historical and visual information.

After having adequately rested from that all-night reading marathon, I had this urge to visit a Chinese grocery called the 99 Ranch Market. They always have the most interesting things there. In no other place could you find 13 varities of mushrooms.  Here,  I learned what  a squab is. It is pigeon meat and it’s 5X more expensive than chicken. If you find yourself craving for fresh jackfruit, they usually have it. I found a couple of things there that were featured on the “Bizaare Foods” TV show:dark silky chicken meat and a shellfish with a large phallic-looking extension.

I got this box of durian cookies. It was okey. It had just a hint of the smell that freaks Andrew Zimmern out.

This is the only place where I can find fresh bamboo shoots. I never liked those that come frozen or in cans.I’m going to shred this and cook it with coconut milk, corn, saluyot, and some dried fish.

The pineapple/onion combo intrigues me. I was at a Thai restaurant last month. They served fresh fruit with a bowl of sauce on the side. It was honey mixed with crispy fried onions. Surprisingly, it made the pineapple’s tartness a little bit more bearable.

Ooops! This is not Chinese stuff, but the store sells items from different asian countries. This one’s made in Japan. I got it for a friend’s daughter who’s crazy about anime and everything Japanese. For the first time in years I saw this girl smile on her mom’s facebook photo. All it took was this tiny box of treats labeled “Made in Japan”.

]]> http://chiquibaylon.net/2012/04/my-chinese-adventure/feed/ 5 http://chiquibaylon.net/2012/03/bedtime-story-with-a-twist/ http://chiquibaylon.net/2012/03/bedtime-story-with-a-twist/#comments Fri, 30 Mar 2012 13:07:39 +0000 Chiqui http://chiquibaylon.net/?p=2902  

Reading a story aloud with your kids is, in my opinion, one of life’s greatest pleasures. We like to snuggle under a blanket and giggle while we’re at it. No matter how foul my daughter’s mood is, it always gets better when I entice her with a book.

These days we have set aside our regular bedtime stories in favor of Coffee Indulgences by Susannah Blake. There’s hardly any story in it. I know. It’s a recipe book. I’d open it with a great flourish. We’d examine the picture on each page. Hhhmmm. I would read the name of the recipe dramatically. Cofffee-Toffee Swirl. I would follow it up with a description. Creamy, slightly bitter coffee ice cream marbled with sinfully sweet dulce de leche is the ultimate decadence. My daughter would give a thumbs up or a thumbs down to indicate whether it’s yummy or not. That’s my signal to proceed to the ingredients: 4 egg yolks, 1 tablespoon cornstarch, 3 tablespoons sugar, 1 1/4 cups milk, etc. Sometimes when I think that a recipe’s easy enough for me to make, I would read the procedure, but we usually just stick to the picture, the recipe title, and the ingredients.

O how she would squeal with delight. I don’t really understand why. She’d always turn to me and say, “Mom, we could be bakers someday and make all these things!”  Then we’d giggle ourselves silly.

Today we start working on that dream. I have all the ingredients ready.We will learn how to make mocha fudge cake.

She’s dead!

An article on the Los Angeles Times website had me running upstairs for my copy of “20th Century Women’s Poetry”, a book I had pilfered from my sister’s shelf years ago. Adrienne Rich passed away at age 82. She is considered as one of the most notable feminist writers in the US.

I didn’t realize she was all that until yesterday. Had no idea  she was an important writer and that she was multi-awarded. All I know is that her name got stuck in my head after reading her “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers”. Then I mentally filed her away under my category of  ”good writers of the 20th century”.

On this occasion of her death, let me share her poem that left a lasting impression on me.

Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers

by Adrienne Rich

Aunt Jennifer’s tigers prance across a screen,

Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.

They do not fear the men beneath the tree;

They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.

Aunt Jennifer’s finger fluttering through her wool

Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.

The massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band

Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer’s hand.

When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie

Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.

The tigers in the panel that she made

Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

Aunt Jennifer is very skillful in needlepoint. The speaker in the poem is admiring the work she has done. The creatures depicted in her work  stand in stark contrast with their creator. These tigers are courageous, confident, fierce, fearless, and proud. They are everything that she is not, everything that she wants to become. Aunt Jennifer is “terrified”. Her hands bear the scars of painful experiences that have made her subservient.  She is in an abusive relationship and this marriage weighs her down. Her potential for growth, for doing, and achieving things, is restricted by that “massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band” on her hand. Aunt Jennifer will eventually die, but her beautiful work will remain.

I had read this back in 2007 and I couldn’t quite put a finger on whatever it is that draws me to it. Learning about the author’s death yesterday compelled me to examine  this poem once again. Why do I like it  so much?

There’s a certain musicality to it. That’s a plus factor.  And I suppose if you grow up with Dr. Seuss, you can’t help but be a sucker for anything that rhymes. I went to sleep last night thinking about Aunt Jennifer. She is weak, fearful, and unable to overcome her oppressive situation, but though she is down, she’s not totally defeated.  There’s something deep inside her that her oppressor can’t touch: her hopes and dreams, which are embodied by the tigers in her needlework.  That’s what gives her the strength to endure. Bruised and battered, she marches on through life. On the outside she does not even remotely resemble the tigers that she hopes to become, but what she doesn’t know is that, by not giving in to despair, she actually possesses the fighting strength of a tiger. God knows it takes tremendous courage and strength to go on living when you’re in an abusive relationship. Some people have nervous breakdowns. Others contemplate suicide. But Aunt Jennifer survives because she embroiders beautiful tigers. She holds on to her dreams. When she dies, the tigers will still prevail because they represent a universal dream for womankind.  All women long to be confident , strong, and unafraid of men. All women desire equality with men.

Thanks for this poem, Adrienne. RIP.

I finally uploaded the photos I took when my family went on a trip to Sea World San Diego last February. It was a birthday treat for my daughter. Having been there numerous times, my husband and I stood detached from the people  in the aquarium exhibits. We kept an eagle eye out for our kids who were eagerly dashing from one fish tank to the next.

One man stood out in the crowd. In a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, he gave his toddler a lecture in natural history. “Smart ass”, my husband muttered under his breath. While he was explaining the behaviour of the bala shark to his child, my husband and I were arguing whether it was really a bala shark or a milkfish. We wondered if they taste just as good as the “bangus”. Our kids dragged us to the piranha tank. The man was there again. This time he was pointing at the piranha’s sharp teeth and telling his kid that they are carnivorous creatures. I, on the other hand, was pointing out to my husband that they look a lot like pompanos, the fish that I usually buy for $2.99/lb at asian fish markets. “I heard from Latinos that some people do eat piranhas”, my husband added. “Maybe they’d taste great sprinkled with salt and pepper and broiled for seven minutes on each side.”, I speculated.

At an underwater viewing tunnel, my daughter looked up at me excitedly and called my attention to the large shark that was swimming closer. Everybody marvelled at its rows of  serrated teeth. I turned to my husband and inquired, “Have you tasted linabog nga bagis?” He shooked his head and asked how it is made. “You cook  the shark with coconut milk and tiny peppers. Yummy!”, I answered and smacked my lips.

All day long we were wracking our brains for fish recipes. I don’t know ….. Is it just me and my husband? Or is it a cultural thing with Filipinos —this tendancy to think of fish as delightful morsels for the dining table rather than creatures with an important part to play in a balanced ecosystem?

• Mommy, how does God make your bones?
• How does God make a seed?
• How does God make a leaf?
• How does God make the sky?
• How did God make your mouth?

These are just some of the questions that my  five-year-old daughter likes to throw at me . She’s at that stage when everything tickles her curiosity and fills her with wonder.  I think it’s really cute sometimes. It means her mind is working.

I don’t have the right answer to most of her questions. I’m not all that smart.  I can’t always say “Let’s go check it out in a book or the internet” because her favorite time to grill me is when I’m driving. She doesn’t want her answer later. It has to be right away. And “I don’t know” just won’t do. She  just keeps saying “Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy” until I give her a satisfactory reply. I can’t understand why she has to do this just when I need to concentrate on what’s happening around me , like when I’m about to turn at an intersection , or  when I’m about to change lanes at the freeway.  I usually invent fantastic, often times stupid,  stories in response to her queries. To explain how God made seeds, I said that “He picked up a dried leaf  from the ground. He crumpled it up until it was really small, blew life into it and then….BAM! He had a seed.”  Somehow, the more outlandish my story, the more acceptable it is for her. Or, maybe it’s the way I would always say “BAM!”, Emeril Lagasse style, that gives my story an air of  credibility.

One day, an irate driver behind me honked her horn wildly and flashed me her middle finger. Changing lanes at 65 MPH while composing a tale for your child is not a very safe practice. From then on, I made sure that the radio was on, loud enough to drown out any attempt at conversation,  whenever we were together in the car.

Her theological musings far from over, she casually asked me, while I was chopping up some onions, if  Jesus died. Not knowing where the conversation was headed, I told her that he died, but he rose from the dead after three days. She paused for a few seconds to digest this bit of info. Follow-up question from her: Is he a zombie, mom?

My knife froze in midair. I turned to my son who was doing his homework on the dining table. “See what happens when you watch a movie like Resident Evil?”, I reprimanded him. I assured my daughter that her God is not a zombie. “But you said he rose from the dead, mom”, she went on.

Never, in my forty years of life on this earth, have I thought of juxtaposing my God, who is supposed to be gentle and loving, with a scary flesh-eating zombie! Crazy! I mentally shuffled the notecards in my head. How do I explain the intricacies of the christian faith to this girl? Zero. I had no answer to this one, not even a fantastic made-up story. So I went back to chopping up onions and pretended not to hear.

“You’re still alive?”, I gasped . I was rummaging among the shelves of used books at the Disabled Veterans Thrift Store when I spotted it. Barely visible in between a fat bestselling thriller and a harbound “Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy was a book written by Anne Mather. I pulled it out, gently turned the pages, and read some lines to reacquaint myself with an old forgotten friend. I felt a twinge of guilt. “It’s been so long. I’ve missed you”, I murmured with fondness. Anne Mather, whose real name is Mildred Grieveson, is one of the most prolific writers of  Mills and Boon Romances. Seeing her book after so many years opened a floodgate of dormant memories:

• me – curled up in my grandmother’s rattan sofa, devouring juicy love stories until the wee hours of the morning
• my grandmother and reading buddy – setting down a tall stack of pocketbooks on the table for my consideration, then proceeding to discuss the merits of each one
• Ferdie – my grandmother’s nephew, who made weekly trips to the Iloilo City Public Library to get us our romance fix
• my grandmother – handling out a green five peso bill to her nephew to thank him for the favor
• the mezzanine floor of the Iloilo City Public Library – where I used to hang out, unmindful of the musty smell of old books mixed with the foul odor of a nearby restroom. It had an entire wall devoted to an impressive collection of well-thumbed Mills & Boon, Harlequin, Silhouette, and Barbara Cartland romance paperbacks.
• me – going to school lightheaded from lack of sleep. I would have had better grades in chemistry and trigonometry if I hadn’t been such a romance junkie.
• my father – snatching a book from my hands, flinging it across the room, yelling “trash!”
• my Comparative Literature professor – tossing her head haughtily and in her cattiest voice exclaiming “Romance novels! Hmmph!”

It’s been more than two decades since I outgrew this genre! My grandmother is in her late nineties, her mind no longer as sharp as when she was a sociology professor at the Central Philippine University.  She lives far, far away, across the pacific. Maybe she doesn’t remember me anymore. I wonder if I will ever see her again. Ferdie, her nephew, whose brain was damaged by an accident, has taken to wandering the streets of Iloilo City after his mother died and his sisters abandoned him. The old city hall building that used to house the Iloilo City Public Library is gone. In its place is a snazzier structure. After his stroke, my father now moves like a frail old man. I doubt if he still has the strength to be flinging things around. My literature professor has been retired for a long time. I was glad to be rid of her snooty academic standards.

Funny how a single word, like a key, can release images and emotions long tucked away. Sudden as a flash flood, they rush at you, overwhelm you, and leave you with a heavy feeling in your heart. Anne Mather, I never knew you had that kind of power over me.

]]> http://chiquibaylon.net/2012/02/hello-old-friend/feed/ 5 http://chiquibaylon.net/2012/02/first-blooms-of-the-year/ http://chiquibaylon.net/2012/02/first-blooms-of-the-year/#comments Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:25:25 +0000 Chiqui http://chiquibaylon.net/?p=2787 I’ve been feeling like a loser. Last Monday I told my husband and my boss that I was quitting my job of three months because of childcare concerns. For a housewife who hasn’t been working for five years, getting that job was almost like a miracle. In this tough economy, when a lot of people are unemployed, I shouldn’t have let it go. But I did. And for a good reason.

My friends and my mother reassured me that my decision was the best course of action. My husband, however, thinks differently. Disappointment hangs heavy like a thick fog in the atmosphere of our home. He rarely talks to me and when he does his voice vibrates with controlled irritation. I am disappointed, too. Earning my own money gave me a feeling of empowerment. I will no longer have that. What  can I do? How can I be financially productive? These questions plague my every waking moment, driving me crazy.

Today, I took a peek at my tiny untended, not-so-pretty garden. Not having a job again means I would have more time for it. My pepper plants were still as scrawny as ever. The sweet potato vines never recovered from the pruning that I had given it last fall. Maybe it’s just waiting for a warmer weather. I remain hopeful. But what made my heart leap for joy were the anemones and daffodils in bloom.  They never flowered when I planted them last year and they looked so unhealthy. I had concluded that they’d never amount to anything much, but I never got around to pulling them out.  Seeing their glorious display today was such a wonderful surprise! I didn’t even notice a single tiny bud last week. Nothing at all. And now….I see pretty flowers!

You know what happened? The fog that was wrapped around me like a shroud began to dissipate. It hit me – I may not think much of myself right now, but something beautiful is waiting for me out there. I just have to be patient.Like this daffodil, all I need is time. I, too will bloom beautifully like her. I, too will have my place in the sun.

Once again I found solace in God’s creation. Once again He spoke to me when I least expected it. He threw me a lifeline at a time when I was drowning in a sea of anxiety. Now my head is above water and I can keep swimming.