But this is Chicago in the middle of winter. There’s fucking nothing in season. Without modern highways, air freight, railroads, canning and other industrialized food processing techniques, refridgeration and chemical preservatives, no one could live here between September and May. I paid a little visit today to the Fulton Market, Chicago’s meatpacking district of old – from Upton Sinclair days – till now. Continue reading I have no idea what’s in season.
Lou’s buys double eggs, which are TWO YOLKS to a shell. What freak science went into creating these kinds of eggs on a predictable, farm-manufactured basis, I don’t know, but it saves me a few bucks as I only want two normal eggs (read: two yolks, not four) so I ordered one over-easy. Continue reading Lou Mitchell’s Restaurant, Chicago
Beyond the brown sugar and coconut milk, my aunt said, any available fruit or vegetable may be used for the Filipino ginataan recipe below, like taro root (gabi), corn (mais), even mongo beans or guava (this last one she said was especially good). The important things are that, like the work of a farm, everyone pitches in – peeling, chopping, dough-ball rolling – to do a little something to make the dish a sweet success and that the ingredients are local, seasonally available, excess crops.
Eating seasonally and locally makes sense, right? In much of the world, this is the only way to eat. In fact, in America, we are used to eating out-of-season, faraway and/or foreign. Continue reading “How to Cook Ginataan Bilo-bilo, a Filipino sweet soup snack”
It’s late October and many of my friends are buying their fake blood and zombie costumes and pulling out their Michael Jackson’s Thriller long-format tracks. Oh, and of course, getting ready for the World Series. (sigh.)
But here in the Philippines, we’re already looking forward to Christmas. Soon as one of the so-called -BER months (SeptemBER, OctoBER…) takes a turn on the calendar, Filipinos dust off their parol, traditional star-shaped Christmas lanterns made of bamboo and colorful paper or capiz shell. A cartoon Pasko countdown finishes the tv evening news broadcast – seventy days na lang! In the malls, the soundtracks change from pop hits like Gangam Style to classic carols like Baby, It’s Cold Outside. Ironic, of course, because it doesn’t get colder than the high 70s in Manila. Continue reading “60 Days to Christmas! Pasko and Bibingka time!”
