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.

Day after christmas, 26th of December, was spent harvesting oranges in my mother’s backyard. It was a cold and gloomy day but I was feeling all warm and sunshiny inside. You don’t often get the chance to pick lots of pretty and colorful fruits. My 4 year old daughter was my assistant, but she got tired after a while and told me that we had  enough. “We need more vitamin C”, I answered distractedly. She replied by kicking the oranges. I was so mad I gave her an earful while I was racing after the fruits that were rolling like marbles all over the yard.

I’m not really a grapefruit fan, but who can resist those yellow citrus globes? I just went crazy with the fruit picker. Pick. Pick. Pick. Never stopping even when my arms were tired from too much reaching up. And because grapefruits are bigger than oranges, they usually  got punctured by the bent wire prongs of the fruit picker. Whenever that happened, the air would be filled with a wonderful citrus perfume. I would stop what I was doing and just stand under the tree, inhaling deeply. While I was gathering all these fruits, I was wondering what I was going to do with all of them. Oranges were not a problem. I could just juice them up, but I don’t really eat grapefruit. Good thing my mother’s friend dropped by. When she got out of her car, I noticed that she was limping and leaning on  a cane. She explained that she had a stroke. “You have to take better care of yourself,” I advised with a gentle pat on her back, at the same time handing her a bag of grapefruit and a bag of oranges. She gave me a grateful smile and asked me to help her open the trunk of her car.

This December, front yards like this are a common sight along the route we take to my son’s school. We pass by the cities of El Monte and Temple. Plain average houses are brightened up by beautiful trees heavy with fruit. There ‘s just so many that , whenever we drove to and from school, my son and I would play a game of counting the orange trees. This area has a large Chinese/Vietnamese population. In their culture, oranges, along with pomelos and tangerines, symbolize wealth.

This was a rare sight in a neighborhood dominated by citrus fruits. Peach tree? Something about it just drew me so powerfully. I stopped the car and got out to take a closer look. All its leaves had fallen off. What remained were black skeletal branches abundant with red orange fruits. Death and the promise of life juxtaposed in one picture. It’s not beautiful. It was not pretty. It was dramatic.

Fall must be guava season. In the past few weeks there has been an abundance of guavas during church potlucks. When I took my kids around the neighborhood for trick-or-treat there was an overpowering smell in the air: a mixture of sweet, sour, and rotting fruit. Guavas, I thought. My next-door neighbors have four trees lined up against their wall. They don’t bother to harvest the fruits so they just turn yellow in the sun.  And fall to the ground.  The birds are having a field day.

Strange how I never noticed guava season when I was back in the Philippines. We had a few guava trees in our yard when I was a kid. My sister and I loved to climb up those slender trees and just hang out. Snack on the fruits. Swing to and fro like monkeys. And talk. The most profound conversation of my childhood years took place among the branches of a guava tree. On one particular windy day, my sister and I ,comfortably perched like birds, were enjoying the vigorous swaying motion of the branches, when Lala, our know-it-all neighbor, came and warned us that we shouldn’t be up there. “Don’t you see how strong the wind is? It’s dangerous. You might fall.”, she yelled from below. We told her we knew what we were doing. Next she tried a scare tactic, “The devil might push you!” We paid her no heed and she went away. It was a bit chilly. The wind got stronger. I rubbed my upper arms and told my sister that I was scared. Always the leader with bright ideas, she began to talk me out of my fear . ” You know I pity the the devil”, she began. I just frowned in confusion. Why would anyone pity the evil devil? “Everybody hates him. He must be very lonely. He’s all alone”, she continued. She had a point. It must be sad to be so unloved. Poor devil. “If nobody loves him, then we should love him”, she declared. I nodded in agreement.

Disturbing thought. I wonder what Lola Pereg (my grandmother’s sister  who goes on barefoot religious processions) would think if she had heard us. I bet she would cross herself , give us a detailed description of hell, and tell us what kind of chastisement awaited us. We didn’t really carry out this conviction. For who, in her right mind, could love the devil after watching “Exorcist”?

I wonder if my sister even remembers….

]]> http://chiquibaylon.net/2010/11/guava-season/feed/ 3 http://chiquibaylon.net/2010/07/fave-place-in-hollywood/ http://chiquibaylon.net/2010/07/fave-place-in-hollywood/#comments Thu, 22 Jul 2010 20:23:30 +0000 Chiqui http://chiquibaylon.net/?p=2008

Just a few blocks away from the Chinese and Kodak theaters, where they do the Oscars and the movies premieres, Hollywood Blvd. looks ugly and sleazy. You see adult video stores, wig and souvenir shops, adult movie houses, and liquor stores. Vagabonds and their shopping carts are a common sight. Go a little farther  and  you start seeing lots of small Thai restaurants.

Six or seven years ago, Wongduan, my friend from work, took me to lunch in Thai Town, east on Hollywood Blvd. For dessert, she introduced me to Bhan Kanom Thai. It is a tiny, colorful, and really quaint place that sells Thai sweets. They make most of the stuff they sell. So what you get there is something you won’t usually see anywhere else.

I like going there. It’s an adventure for me. I typically buy queer-looking items with names I can hardly read right. I dragged my husband there, too. He loved it, especially the small coconut cakes that they make in front of you. Their taste reminds him of the bibingka (rice cake) made in Mohon, Oton, Iloilo.

Just before my family’s big move to the suburbs, I visited Bhan Kanom Thai. In a way, I was saying goodbye to one of my favorite haunts in the city that has been home to me for almost a decade. I was feeling anxious and a bit sad about the forthcoming change in our lives. I bought a few items and went away comforted, excited to try all the strange stuff that I got.

Banana Candy. “How different is this from my favorite banana marbles of Biscocho Haus Iloilo?”, I wondered. I tasted one, then two, three, and four. It’s a bit different , but just as good. It has coconut milk.  Now I don’t have to fantasize whenever I miss banana marbles.

The stuff on the the shelf above the banana candies are next on my list. I’ve forgotten what they are though.

Salty taro chips. I suppose they taste just like potato chips. They will have to wait til next time. I bought the sweet potato chips. My kids love them.

Colored puffed rice. Just like the stuff sold in the Dumangas (the town where I grew up) market, but this one has better packaging. I’m sure it’s just plain old Buti (puffed rice mixed with syrup and shaped into balls).

Rose Apple Candy. “What on earth is rose apple?”, I mumbled as I scrutinized the oval box. It tasted salty and sweet, much like the Kiamoy(preserved fruit). It’s okey, I guess. I’ve never really been a fan of  salty-sweet candies. Then I focused on the label’s picture…  Is it possible that rose apple is the tambis or the makopa of the Philippines? Illustration sure looks like it.

Ooops! Wave of nostalgia. I miss tambis, especially the tree that grows in my aunt’s yard in Dumangas. My mouth waters at the thought of red juicy fruit.

]]> http://chiquibaylon.net/2010/07/fave-place-in-hollywood/feed/ 5 http://chiquibaylon.net/2010/04/torta-across-cultures/ http://chiquibaylon.net/2010/04/torta-across-cultures/#comments Tue, 13 Apr 2010 20:28:13 +0000 Chiqui http://chiquibaylon.net/?p=1896

All my life I have never thought of the word torta without that picture above popping up in my head. Tortang talong. Tortang ground beef and potatoes. I always understood the word as something that refers to food that has been mixed with eggs, made into a patty or flattened up, and then fried in oil. That’s the Filipino torta.

Back in 2001, when I first came to America, I learned that the Mexicans have a different version of the torta. For them it’s a sandwhich, much like a Subway sandwhich. The picture I have here doesn’t look very nice. Burnt bread. Hhmmph! I got it from a neighborhood restaurant called La Morenita  Oaxaquena. While I was waiting for them to make it, I saw something very interesting.

I didn’t know that there’s a modern jukebox. This one plays CDs instead of vinyls. All Ritmo Latino music. I can’t understand why all male Latino musicians have to wear cowboy hats. It’s like their trademark or something. Reminds me of Filipino action stars who execute their stunts with leather jackets on in 90 degree Farenheit  tropical heat. It irks you and makes you laugh at the same time.

Then there’s this Spanish torta. I heard a lady raving about how good it was. And I was beside her thinking, “This is so different from tortang talong or the sandwhich torta”. My curiosity got the better of me so I bought a package. When I opened it up, I saw a big, round cookie. Otap lang pala. As thin as an otap, with sugar on top, but different in shape, texture, and taste. I think it’s the sesame seeds that make it taste different.

I’ve been mulling over these differences for the past weeks. Somehow, because these three cultures are tied to each other, there must be a common thread that runs through their understanding of the word “torta”. What is it? I wish I knew.

Look at that pretty vegetable dish. It’s a recipe I picked up from a friend’s mom way back in 1992, when I stayed at their house in Lambunao, Iloilo. Very simple peasant fare. Goes well with steaming hot rice, pinakas (fried dried fish), or balingon uga (dried anchovies). Or just about any fried fish. Sampat!

It’s the Ilonggo version of the fritata or the quiche, without all the oil, meat, and cheese. Definitely healthier (that is if you have the strength of will to eat it without the sampat food that goes along with it).

Tinuom sampat with Balingon!

Ingredients:

1 cup chopped tomatoes, 4 eggs, 4 cups leafy vegetables (lupo, or, if it’s not available, spinach is a good substitute), salt, pepper, banana leaf for wrapping.

Procedure:

Mix all ingredients in a bowl, except for the leaf. Hold banana leaf a few inches above a flame until it changes color. This will make the leaf more pliant  and stronger. It will not break apart easily. Pour the mixture on top of the banana leaf . Gather the edges together and tie with a string. You can place it over hot coals or you can steam it. Cooking time is short. Just 5- 10 minutes. Serves 4.

Note: I tried making this years ago, using foil to wrap the vegetables in. It was okey, but it didn’t have the kind of taste that I loved when my friend’s mom cooked it. Banana leaves are  a must for this recipe. It adds another dimension of flavor to the dish. In the US, look for banana leaves in the freezer section of an oriental store. You can also check out Latino  markets. They use banana leaves for wrapping food.

]]> http://chiquibaylon.net/2010/04/tinuom/feed/ 2 http://chiquibaylon.net/2010/03/mother-job-description-no-398/ http://chiquibaylon.net/2010/03/mother-job-description-no-398/#comments Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:46:56 +0000 Chiqui http://chiquibaylon.net/?p=1803

“You eat this”,  commanded my daughter as she thrust the red velvet cupcake into my hands. I had bought it for her at the donut shop just across her school.  When I picked her up, she looked like she was about to burst into tears. The dam broke when I asked her if she was okey. She answered with loud sobs and a flood of tears. Turned out she hit a boy and her teacher reprimanded her. After making her promise not to do it again, I took her to the donut place. That cheered her up.

I looked at the cupcake with a frown. All the red and pink sprinkles were licked off the white icing. “I wouldn’t have bought this if I knew you were not going to eat all of it. It’s never good to waste your food. You eat it,” I lectured. “But you have to,” she insisted. “Why do I have to?,” I argued. She shrugged ,”because you have to”.

And so I ate it. First time I tasted red velvet cupcake. Not bad.

Mother. Job Description No. 398: devourer of her children’s unfinished food

]]> http://chiquibaylon.net/2010/03/mother-job-description-no-398/feed/ 6 http://chiquibaylon.net/2010/01/search-real-meanings-quests/ http://chiquibaylon.net/2010/01/search-real-meanings-quests/#comments Tue, 19 Jan 2010 01:11:39 +0000 Chiqui http://chiquibaylon.net/?p=1650

Long before Google became very popular and indispensible, when people wanted to find out the “real meaning” of things, they’d go on a long and perilous journey. The quest for the impossible dream. The search for the real meaning of life. Juan Ponce De Leon went on an expedition to find the fountain of youth and instead discovered Florida. On a more personal level, my friend looked into his soul and came to the conclusion that god is just a fabrication of man. He became an atheist. I, too, went on a search, albeit for something not as lofty. It was for the real meaning of cormed beef, a.k.a. carne norte.

made in australia

In the Philippines, corned beef occupies the apex of the canned food pyramid. It is a staple in most balikbayan boxes being sent home by Filipinos working in the States. I’ll never forget a coworker who told me “Chiqui, di baleng natutumba na ko sa kakatrabaho,  basta makakabili lang ako ng carne norte at maipapadala sa mga kapatid ko ay maligaya na ko.” (Chiqui, it doesn’t matter if I collapse from work. As long as I can buy corned beef and send it home to my siblings, I am happy.”) I remember him everytime I open a can. Sometimes I get teary-eyed. This guy worked 16 hours/six days a week. One day on my shift, I saw him stagger and slump into a chair. He passed out from exhaustion.  This is just an illustration of how big a deal corned beef is to most average-income Filipinos. Hence, scrutinizing its nature and history is a worthwhile endeavour.

Here in the States, where quality beef is cheap and abundant, it is not all that. In American-owned stores, you’ll usually find only one brand. Sometimes they don’t even have it. But go to Seafood City or Islands Pacific, which are Filipino-owned grocery stores, and you will see lots and lots of brands: Libby’s, Hereford, Palm, Ox and Palm, Martin’s Purefoods, etc.

made in New Zealand, they come in different flavors

Sauteed with lots of garlic and onions, who can resist its aroma? Competing with other hungry mouths at the dinner table makes it even more delicious and desirable. It’s always been my favorite as a child. I was around seven when I asked my mother, “Why do they call it corned beef? Do they put corn in it?” My mother explained that it comes from cattle that have been fed with corn. The authority in her voice  left no room for any doubts in my mind. “Makes sense,” I thought to myself. We had a 10-volume Children’s World of Knowledge. In one volume, I saw a picture of a farmer feeding his farm animals with corn.

made in brazil,never buy them, they’re clearing the amazon for cattle

For years, that was the unshakable truth that I held about his particular canned food. Then came college….. I had this roommate who was into Food Technology. We were discussing something and I got irritated with her. To stump her, I posed the question I knew she didn’t have the answer to. Why is corned beef  called corned beef? She stopped and thought for a long time. She searched her brain for food tech data, but I’m sure she didn’t find any because I noticed that there wasn’t much conviction in her voice. “They use corn as an extender for it”, came her weak answer. ”Hhhmmmph!” I snorted inwardly. When you open a can of corned beef, you’ll only see meat and fats. There is no starchy texture that may suggest corn extenders. And so we argued….

Some years later, I met an agriculture student from UP Los Banos. A light bulb lit up in my brain when he told me that he was into cattle husbandry. Maybe he knew a thing or two about corned beef. So I asked the question again. Why is corned beef called corned beef? He kept quiet. “A Food Tech student told me it’s because they use corn as extenders and my mother told me they use corn-fed cattle. Which is it really?”, I badgered him. He just went LOL. That made me feel really stupid. Looking back, I think that loud laughter was just a mask for his ignorance. He didn’t have the answer either.

I was confused when I saw this kind

I got older, graduated, started working, and became friends with a retired US coast guard. During a conversation, he mentioned that he also worked as a meat inspector at a slaughter house in the US. Bells rang in my head. I raised the question again: Why is corned beef called corned beef? I told him the different views I got from different people. “So which is it really? Corn extenders or corn-fed cattle?”, I continued. He didn’t go LOL, but I still felt stupid when he started speaking. He chuckled and clarified that “corned” is just a slang for something that is processed. Corned beef simply means processed beef.

Oh. I never expected that.

When I got home, I pulled out a rarely-used, five-inch thick Merriam Webster Dictionary from the bookshelf. I opened it up on the very dining table where I had first asked my mother the most important question of my life. Letter C. Color. Commerce. Cordial. I was getting excited. Corned. I found it! Its meaning was – preserved in salt water, processed: corned beef.

He was right.

There’s a lesson to be learned here. When I came up with the question years ago, the dictionary  that held the answer had been sitting there on the shelf. All those years…I could have looked up the word, but I chose to go around asking people. It made me feel stupid. I got into an argument. I was laughed at. I could have spared myself all that. Bottomline: Before you launch yourself into a grand quest for the “real meaning” of whatever, take the time to check the dictionary, or ,better yet, just google it.

Took out the canned jackfruit(langka) an hour ago. It would be nice to cook KBL, an Ilonggo dish of Kadyos(a type of bean), Baboy(pork), and langka (jackfruit). But here I go again….procastinating on the computer.

I don’t feel too confident about cooking this dish, I guess. Months ago, fueled by a picture on a food blog, I went out to buy some black beans (substitute for kadyos), bulalo beef cuts(substitute for pork), and canned jackfruit. I began to lose interest in my work while it was boiling away on the stove. I couldn’t understand where my dish was headed. Was it supposed to taste like bulalo or linaga?Because I was sure as hell it didn’t taste like KBL.

My husband, who (much to my irritation) always asks about the name of a dish (as if dishes were books with titles), gave me his usual “What’s that called?” question. I apologetically said “I can’t really understand what it’s supposed to be. Basta. May sabor. It’s edible.”  He smiled and answered that he’s used to my cooking by now, that nothing really surprises him anymore.

Sigh. To a lesser degree, I think I’m like my mother. And maybe this latest realization about myself is my punishment for all the times I teased her when she’d put a queer-looking dish on the table. She has the tendancy to experiment. She turns a recipe upside down by putting ingredients that are not supposed to be there. Just last weekend she served miswa for dinner. It had cabbage and ginger in it! That’s culinary innovation at its best. I kept my mouth shut this time, but in the past I would usually say, in my best announcer voice, “Welcome to the  Cooking Adventures of Dax”. She’d just laugh and counter that  cooking doesn’t always have to follow a cookbook.

If I were to grade my KBL attempt, I would give myself an NI for Needs Improvement. The meat and the beans were not tender enough. The jackfruit had somehow disintegrated. My only consolation was that  my husband ate a lot. He disappeared after the meal. When I saw him again he informed me, with a smug smile on his face, that his BM was as effortless as flowing water. Coming from him, that’s really something. Best compliment of all was when my 3 yr. old told me that she liked it and finished the contents of the bowl I gave her.

That’s not too bad for a dish I had quietly named: Identity Crisis Beef.