Exotic Food

Filipinos in other countries must be really home sick, for Anthony Bourdain's post on the Philippines episode for the No Reservations show got 407 comments. Who gets 407 comments on one post? While going through the latest tweets tonight (or this morning, or whatever), I hopped on several links and ended up at his blog. It's crazy and the conversation even extends to Colin Devroe's review of the show. I guess it was expected, what with all the lechon, sisig, kare-kare, adobo, fishballs and other food that all reminds us of home. These are the food that our grandmothers cooked for us, our mothers served us, our comfort food. Maybe even fiesta food.

Some friends once described how kare-kare is cooked to an American friend, and they had a hard time describing the dish. It's ox tail cooked in a sort of soup with peanut butter and local vegetables, and then it's eaten with bagoong (fish sauce?). So imagine describing that to someone who grew up in the U.S., someone who cannot imagine an ox tail being cooked, let alone with peanut butter. Let's just say, they were hooting with laughter that ended with the friend describing it in the end as (forgive my "French") "peanut butter and ass".

The show could have featured many other dishes. I haven't seen the Philippine episode of No Reservations yet, but since the show is about exotic food, there are a few dishes that they might have also liked to try like ox tongue (cooked all over the country), diwal (I don't know if they have it also in Luzon but I saw this in the Visayas; it's a "longish" shellfish that is usually baked or boiled with just salt, red pepper and green onion leaves to top it off), and maybe some roasted goat.

Space Food

It's always interesting to learn about space travel and the intricacies of preparing for one. A couple of years ago, I read a lot of books on the lives of astronauts, for I also wanted to be one. Then I thought of becoming a pilot because I noticed that astronauts are usually former pilots, either from the Air Force or as test pilots. As in a lot of our dreams, we dream new dreams and we end up in other pursuits.

Space travel is a lot more advanced these days. But there is always one interesting topic about it all - space food. How do they plan for it?

In the video below, Professor Joseph Marcy of Virgina Tech described the challenge of planning for how to feed astronauts on a nearly three-year-long mission to Mars.

Long Weekends in 2009 (Philippines)

There a lot of long weekends in the Philippines in 2009. As you may all be eager to plan your weekends and vacations, here's a list of those 10 long weekends:

• April 4 - 6 (Araw ng Kagitingan on April 9 was moved to the nearest Monday, April 6)
• April 9 - 12 (Holy Week)
• May 1 - 3 (Labor Day weekend)
• June 12 - 14 (Independence Day)
• August 21 - 23 (Ninoy Aquino Day)
• August 29 - 31 (National Heroes Day)
• October 31 - November 2 (All Saints Day/All Souls Day)
• November 28 - 30 (Bonifacio Day)
• December 24 - 27 (Christmas holidays)
• December 30 - January 3, 2010 (Rizal Day & New Year)

When I heard this news, I had to sit down for an hour and mark my calendar on these dates. Also, the christmas holidays in 2009 will be a long one again, as only December 28 and 29 are not official holidays.

Also, Air Asia is giving away free seats. Yes, free! Check out the site now as a lot of people in Asia are interested in this too. But yes, their airport in the Philippines is at Clark.

We better start planning already!

Chinese Food Mysteries

Ever wondered about the origins of General Tso's chicken? Just wanted to share this video from TED Talks.

Jennifer 8. Lee: Who was General Tso? and other mysteries of American Chinese food

Something

In the movie Finding Forrester, one of the characters says that the key to writing is to not think and just start writing. So tonight, I write, even though I don’t know what it is I really want to write about. While writing, I’m also watching American Idol. It’s always a riot watching that show. It’s also nice to be able to follow some of the contestants, see their potential and see them go on to the AI finals. I once worked with a team doing Sarbanes-Oxley work for an out-of-town client and we all stayed together in one hotel. Every Wednesday and Thursday, we would all be excited to go home and buy or make our dinner. By 8 pm, you will find us either in our own rooms watching AI, or together in one of the rooms also watching AI and having a coffee party or chocolate party or whatever party we all happen to think of. It didn’t really matter then, but one of us will just call someone and pretty soon we would all be together somewhere.

I guess that how things start to happen, someone starts calling, or someone stands or asks for something. During the Christmas break, our family went to an uncle’s place somewhere in southern Negros. It’s this place that’s located up in the hills, where it’s quiet and all you see are green hills, trees, sugarcane fields and the clouds in a blue sky. No noisy cars, tall buildings, or traffic. We weren’t the only ones who finally got somewhat tired of sitting around there, for pretty soon our other uncle stood up and asked if we can organize a trip to the town center. You know… civilization. :) Of course, all the kids stood up and started getting ready to go!

We had a good time with that little road trip to town. We went to the city plaza with the really old trees, to the busy market in all its chaos, to a mini-mall, and then had halo-halo at a small restaurant near the stalls selling firecrackers and fireworks. We were glad our uncle got to go around.

We all don’t know what will happen. But there sure are some things we want to do and places we want to go to. But in a lot of ways, the key is to start something and take the first step. Or it could be something much simpler such as to start writing, or start watching, or start a party… something.

Google Earth Underwater and Mag-aso Falls

As of this writing, Google just launched "Ocean Google Earth", or Google Earth underwater. Amazing, isn't it? At first, one might think that it would only be useful for those in the scientific and research community. But on second thought, the applications are only limited by our imaginations. In fact, it can be a sort of travel experience from home, straight from your desktop or laptop, specially with the sometimes high cost of travel, specially in this economy and, in some places, in these kinds of weather.

I've been waiting to post my pics of Mag-aso Falls for sometime now and I've finally done it. Mas-aso Falls has only been recently developed by Kabankalan City in Negros Occidental. The main falls is that pic on the left, and to get there, you have to go down some 100 steps or so (I stopped counting). The water is clear and there are not that many people, except when we went there, which was on January 1. I didn't know that it is a tradition to go to the beach or somewhere with water on New Year's Day. The people of Central and Southern Negros, though, take it up a notch. You see them all in fully loaded tricycles, pick-up trucks and hauler trucks.

So anyway, when you go back up the steps to the main falls, they have a swimming pool back at the top, and just a few steps near that are the small "falls" up the river. My cousin said that is one of the best places to bathe in because you're the first one to bathe in the water. :)


If you click on the picture, it will take you to my Flickr page where you'll find a few more pictures of Mag-aso Falls.

Food - Just Like Travel

Whenever I can’t find the time, or the opportunity, to travel I take comfort in food, which can transport us to other places just as well. One of my best memories from being in other places is from having all that wonderful food. Food is such a basic necessity that sometimes we tend to overlook it, settling on the first fast food joint that we find. Not that they’re all bad, we had fun savoring all the dips at an El Pollo Loco in L.A.

Remember “laswa”? It always reminds me of Negros and home. Green Indian mangoes take me back to trips to Lian, Batangas and the eat-all-you-can Indian mangoes near the beach. After snorkeling, it’s the desert after all that grilled fish. Or how about those seaweeds that sort of look like little beads, which are a good reminder for Cagayan de Oro. Sometimes, something very simple can also take you home. For me, that would be grilled cheese sandwiches made on the stove. It’s a bit of a weird method, but it works for me.

Sometimes, food also takes you international. Take grilled chicken, which reminds me of nights grilling fresh chicken breasts and beef steaks in my hotel room a couple of years ago (crazy I know, but we figured out a way to manage the smoke detector!). I associate Mexican food not only to Mexico but to Los Angeles as well – tacos and nachos at Tito’s Tacos near Sepulveda Boulevard, etc. etc. Burritos transport me to Baja Fresh in Nashville, TN with the cool lunch crowd that always fills up the place. Some of the best steaks I’ve had were from team dinners in the American South, so when having steak (or even just a bit of beef that kind of tastes like such) I always think of Birmingham, Alabama and the Capitol Grill in Atlanta. Churros and the matching chocolate can take you to Spain. Mozart chocolates and “kanabanosi” (those European beef jerky sticks) takes me to Austria. Or chicken adobo, which reminds me of Atlanta and the endless experiments I made trying to make adobo in my little kitchen there, or at least something that resembles adobo.

This is making me hungry again so I need to think of something else now. Well, we will always find something to enjoy about food, and besides the delectable tastes, we will always find a place to associate it with. Bon appétit!

A Great Year to All

First post for 2009... and although it's already February, belated happy Chinese new year to all! Haven't been able to write in here for some time now, you know how it is during busy season. It's, well, beeezy.

Let's start with great good news:

• Cebu Pac continues to wow us all with low-fare promos, including free tax and insurance fares. The site's advise is to book flights on Tuesdays and Wednesdays for the best low-fare flights. Just keep searching and you'll eventually find a long weekend and promo fare match that will fit your schedule.
• PAL is offering the half-miles promo for Mabuhay Miles members, where you can book flights (including international ones) using your miles but at half the miles. You can reserve up to February 5, 2009.

While surfing the net recently, I also came upon this picture taken at Quezon City, Philippines that was featured in National Geographic's Intelligent Travel Blog. It's beautiful and colorful and brings back great memories of markets and Wednesday market days. It's time we appreciate local color. Wish you all a great year ahead!

___________________________________________________________________

I am always on the lookout for great travel pictures that convey a sense of local life and color. What other sites do you know that feature similar styles as the IT blog referred to above? Or is the site that you're running has features like these? Please ping me if you do.