MOVING ON

[Ed's palabok, awesome with red wine, while conversing with him, & getting distracted by what's online!] At yesterday's visit to my friend from highschool, Ed Quiambao, he surprised me again by going out of his way to prepare his home-cooked pancit palabok , his version. Ed ought to seriously consider putting up a food business anytime soon, I went kidding him, which I hope he'd take action soon as he's a happy cook. His wife, Vicky, did all the prep works, while Ed and I were chatting. Click on the link found anywhere here in this posting so you'd get details on how to prepare your own pancit palabok. I'll share here what went on as we ventured into having our dinner last night. As we talked about the travails and joys of immigrating to the US, specifically here in NYC, he was soon making the sauce. He added in oil and grounded achuete in the pan for the sauce. Stirring in the sauce while it's slowly being cooked, he soon finished it by straining a...

My roommate, Karen, knocked on the door of my tiny bedroom one late lunch time, and in her broken English, gave me a small bowl of ginataan to eat right away while it's still hot. So that was what she was busily preparing while we were talking earlier about our lives here in NYC as immigrants. I went out of my room, and shared time with her as we both eat ginataan in the tiny space in our apartment where dining, cooking are done in a tenement-fashioned housing here in Chinatown. It's her own version, which reminded me of what we would have back in the Philippines. She's Chinese-Malaysian, and apparently have strong memories of this kind of snack (merienda) fare as well in Malaysia of which she prepared this time. Her ginataan's got the usual coconut milk, with some tapioca, sweet potato (camote) but without sago (that main ingredient that makes up pearl drinks some people rave about during hot summer days!) as she explained that if she put sago, the whole thick desse...

I owe it to myself and to my friends to share about these lazy weekday lunches that Roger Calvin would be hosting in his apartment in Roosevelt Island. These lunches started nearly 2 years ago, with some other friends who were visiting from California, and I happened to get myself invited. It was a start of a warm friendship with Roger, who has become one of my mentors, so to speak (I have not told him about it, but he certainly has provided me with wonderful insights on how to go about with the roads and byways that cover the path we all happen to call "life"). Roger Calvin has led a fascinating life himself, and has looked like he's got most from what life showered him. He's retired from full time worklife that included a movie career as a matinee idol, mixed with other endeavors when he relocated here in the US, and seems to be enjoying much of it, and would just be traveling back and forth to locations that fancies him. He, even shares me his ongoing projects ...

I'm reminded by a hasty remark by a friend of a friend whose family have lived here in the US for the past 25 years.  She got so surprised at the idea of me teaching Tagalog on tutorial basis. She didn't ask about other details, but from the look of her eyes, she found the idea so disconcerting.  She's also from the Philippines, and their generation still speak the kind of Tagalog that's deep and respectful in tone (you'd know they speak their Tagalog in that particular manner by their age, certainly....noted for being deferential, kinda slow, & reserved); unlike the Tagalog that I've always known to be "Taglish (Tagalog & English combined or some say "conyotic"---don't know how to put the right N, if you know what I mean)," clipped and fast, without the "ho, po, opo, oho," & in a style that's notably as being from Manila as described once by a dear Visayan friend who remarked that Tagalogs speak Tagalog with a d...