Fresh Green Salad

Romaine lettuce, arugula leaves, tomatoes, crumbled feta cheese, calamansi juice and olive oil. I used to be just a Caesar Salad girl. I still love it but when I lived abroad, I became friends with a Cypriot girl who introduced me to fresh green salads: fresh Mediterranean salads with black olives and fresh peppers with lemon and olive oil vinaigarette. That's when I started treating peppers like fruits - eating them as soon as they're washed. Aaaah. Crunchy sweet peppers!

It's been a few years since I lived in Europe the first time as a student. The first time, I left Manila in September. The second time, as a volunteer, I returned to Manila in September too. It's been two years since. Two years since I decided to finish graduate school and attempt a living a linear life - just stay put and be normal. It's been roughly a year since I started this blog to document and share how I've been coping with linear life in Manila. A blog to chronicle how I try to adopt the lifestyle I enjoyed away from home and note interesting things along the way.

After all, the lifestyle I enjoyed most was being surrounded with culinary delights that seemed ordinary to locals, art and culture as a way of life, taking the tram and metro to work, and travel, travel, travel. This blog is primarily about food and travel as I look back to my gourmet nomadic life and see how it's possible to do it all over again.

In gist, the past year has been rough and busy but with it's fair share of blessings too. After work and school-related travel for such a long time, the past 12 months, I re-discovered traveling for simple pleasure and leisure. Having had the opportunity to travel every month, including Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary, Thailand and Bohol for plane rides, despite an unfilfilling desk job makes up for linear life.

It's almost autumn but it's never too late to restart. My month is coming up. And after rough year, I'm eager to have fun again. :)

Legazpi Sunday Market

Some flowers from last Sunday

Given that the Legaspi Market is just a few blocks away, it's one of the many good things in my life that I take for granted. Imagine, fresh produce, frozen meat and seafood, flowers, booze, and meals from all over the world all within walking distance? That is paradise in a concrete jungle. And I just walk - no worries about parking.

I haven't been there in almost a year and last weekend's visit came as a surprise. I've always thought Salcedo Market had better variety and more stalls but I was quite pleased with the changes at the Legaspi Market. There's enough stalls and choices to whet your appetite and the dormant shoppaholic in you without leaving you the bitin feeling. Except for the heat and lack of tables to eat on, Legaspi Market has come a long way. An informative article by Myrza Sison says it all. I leave you with some snapshopts from a wonderful afternoon at the market.

Some organic balms. I got a pot of mosquito repellent and it works!

My First Adobo

Close friends and family have always known I love food: cooking, eating, talking and dreaming about it. As much as I have been cooking since at least 11 years old, I've never really mastered the art of Filipino cooking. You see, if it's not the crunchy/ crispy sort like chicharon, crispy pata, lechon kawali and bagnet, I would not crave for Pinoy food at all.

When I was living abroad, the closest to Filipino food I prepared were frying the dried seafood my mom sent (danggit etc.), preparing instant champorado, and grilled Liempo. My single attempt at making adobo was a catastrophe as I didn't have the right soy sauce - it was too thick that I was not pleased with the consistency of the sauce, I never bothered again.

Since 2004, one project I've always wanted to do was to learn how to prepare Filipino dishes I'm content with. I have several Filipino cookbooks from Mommy and Tatay but never I cooked from them. I admit, I've never really religously followed a recipe (maybe that's why I never bothered to bake). I just read for inspiration and cook based on what I have in the kitchen. Despite all the cookbooks and cooking shows, cooking is more of a learning-by-doing thing.

So I enlisted my mom's lunchtime last weekend to teach me how to cook Adobo. All I needed were two pans (for the boiling and frying), soy sauce, vinegar, water, salt, pepper, and of course, chicken. It would probably be better with bay leaves, but I assure you, it's the manner of cooking that makes a difference in the taste.

We just marinated the chicken with all the ingredients for awhile, and left it to boil until the room was filled with the acid smell of vinegar. Do not stir. Once the smell is gone, we lowered the fire until the chicken was tender. Just dry the chicken through a strainer and fry on high heat. This is my chance to shred some pieces. Once fried, add the sauce in batches. Eventually, the oil is supposed to form a frame around the edge of the pan with the runny brown sauce surrounding the meat.

I tried it the other night and I was just slightly pleased with my version but I think I'm one step away from my mom's adobo, which is my benchmark. :) One more try, then I move on to Sinigang.

Kitchen Travel

I'm such an Asian Food Travel addict (Discovery Travel & Living on weekends, and Diane knows this!) that when I saw the trailer for French Food at Home, I was hooked. Key words: Kitchen Travel.
To be honest, I've only seen two episodes because most nights, I'm also watching my telenovelas. Haha! But since watching an episode one Saturday morning with mom, I knew I liked the show. I like the way the chef made fancy French stuff seem easy to prepare that in the end, you wish you had all the ingredients to try it yourself - regardless of whether you know how to cook or not. She made me want to do that with Turkish food but that was just a thought.
And tonight, I decided to google the show, and now I know the chef's name: Laura Calder. The more I learn about her, the more I'm falling and the more I'm getting excited! You see, I've been a secret admirer of Muccia Prada simply because she was a former communist and has a PhD in Political Science, and she put all of that behind her to be a fashion designer. I've got no secret fashion aspirations but as early as I knew I wanted to join the UN, I knew I wanted to cook, and be a chef.
The nerd and wanderer in me was delighted to find out she spent so much time studying, gallavanting and getting lost while loving food the whole time. Imagine, masters from London School of Economics and a dream to be a diplomat? The pillar behind politics, philosophy and economics of pol eco! She left her job, her fiance, and her life to study cooking.
I'm not yet in the dire situation of leaving everything behind but food, oh food! Time stops when it comes to food. :)
I'm still reading her blog, some articles and I leave you with some quotes that I absolutely like!

"So much in life seems permanent when we’re in the thick of it (our childhood homes, friendships, stages of our lives) that it can be a real shock when we realize that, in fact, nothing is forever – everything moves on."

"Big deal, you may say, but I think seemingly insignificant moves like this in life must be a sign of something deeper at work, no? Just like when people suddenly get transformative haircuts… I just got one of those too, actually, (not pictured here), so who knows what’s in the wind." "It made me consider how much lies dormant and ignored in the world until the right person comes along and breathes life into it. Like delicious forgotten recipes, like old toys locked in a trunk, like aspects of our personalities that hide in the shadows until someone comes along and shines a flashlight on them…"

"My resolutions are to be very loyal to yoga (not hard, because I’m addicted) and also to listen to my gut and trust it, always. " - I like this because I started my belly dancing and yoga bit at home but things got in the way and now, I stopped again.
"
The trick is to find the interesting people: that’s what makes any place come alive."
"As my instructor said the other day: "Generally, if something feels difficult, it's wrong, and what feels easy is right." Apply that little tip to work and relationships for a second… She's right."

"sometimes life steps in and forces our minds to change"

And my favorite because it's so timely:
"It never ceases to amaze me how the things we imagine to be permanent or certain in life never stay put or turn out as we expect."

There are still heaps of things I want to do before I make the big bold move; It just feels good to know that despite one's age, one can leave it all behind and pursue one's "dormant passions." :)

You can more from here, here, and here. But this is the juiciest article of all: Laura talks about men and food. :)